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[–]drx453 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I've had a discussion about this a month ago at my work, and I think it's a combination of sexism and the fact that women are generally less assertive the man.

The reason I say this is that at work in my department there are 3 women (it's IT so it's a male dominated industry), one complained to me in private how she gets ignored (I'm a man BTW) and it is true. She had the exact experience you've had. But she is a foreigner (and we don't have many in our country), so she doesn't speak the local language, which immediately gets her ignored, but a bigger issue is she's from a culture where women are less assertive, she also complained how she doesn't like the way we converse here, how there is a lot of cursing, even in presence of women, which resulted in her being withdrawn from interaction with other coworkers. Culturally here everybody curses, men and women.

But another woman in my department is extremely assertive, she doesn't get ignored. I'd even venture to guess that she has never experienced this kind of sexism with being ignored because she has always been assertive.

Last example is a man from my department who is extremely meek and non-assertive, he also gets ignored all the time, and saddled with tasks nobody wants to do.

There is a sexist cause to this behaviour but it is not only sexism. Be more assertive, approach interactions with mentality of "I know best, fuck the rest", I think that is the only solution. Repeat yourself, be louder, etc.