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If you’re woman, you’ve probably accumulated a vast archive of workplace horror stories.

Gender imbalances are still a present feature of our society.

This is a global phenomenon, and with the exception of countries that are bound by traditional laws and where religious fundamentalism reigns supreme in both society and politics, various parts of the world have some rhetorical commitment to gender equality.

And, in many instances, countries recognise gender equality in their constitutions, but lack commitment in practice.

Even if your colleagues are a progressive bunch, you have to interact with others outside of your business and those people may not have received the gender-equality memo.

It’s called systemic sexism or, more commonly, the patriarchy.

This often plays out in subtle ways. While your male colleague is celebrated as ‘assertive’, you may be called ‘difficult’, ‘aggressive’, or ‘impossible’ for using the same tone and/or strategy with a client.

To deal with this, some women have employed a workaround – fake male assistants:

Well, that’s depressing.

Here’s Lifehacker:

File this under “Things We Wish Weren’t Hacks But Sadly Are.” It shouldn’t take a man telling someone a woman is busy in order for people to believe it. And while it’s unfortunate this is a thing that works in 2020 — it’s a pretty great idea.

It’s also one of those situations where you don’t really have anything to lose. It’s free to set up an email account, and it doesn’t take much time.

And if things don’t work out with your “assistant,” you can always lay him off. (No one will question it, given our current economic state.)

More fake assistant stories from Twitter to drive the point home:

Oh you’re gonna love the story of this female owned company that created a “male cofounder” to get through barriers https://t.co/URGTnau4nT

— EmCal 🍔 (@_emcal) July 29, 2020

Okay, we need to insert a bit of a disclaimer on the above.

Do not invent a ‘male co-founder’ for your company. It is illegal, and could land you in jail on a number of charges including fraudulent misrepresentation.

The takeaway is that women really shouldn’t need to invent a male persona to receive respect from those that they have to engage with at work.

The sad thing is that many feel like they have no other option.

[source:lifehacker]