Just Because I’m a Girl Doesn’t Mean I’m Your Team Lunch Organizer

Summary

An experienced female engineer expresses frustration over being consistently tasked with organizing team lunches, a duty she perceives as undermining her professional capabilities and reinforcing gender biases in the workplace.

Abstract

The author, a seasoned engineer with over a decade of experience, highlights a persistent gender bias in her workplace where she is frequently asked to organize team lunches, despite her qualifications being equal to her male colleagues. She questions why her attire or feminine attributes should imply she is more suited to such tasks than her male counterparts. Although she recognizes the triviality of the issue, she also sees it as part of a larger pattern of gender-based expectations that can undermine professional equality. The author suggests that small changes, such as declining to take on these gendered tasks, could lead to significant improvements in workplace dynamics.

Opinions

The author believes that being asked to organize team lunches solely because of her gender is demeaning and implies that her capabilities as an engineer are not fully recognized.
She points out that the responsibility of organizing a team lunch should be shared among team members, as it is a team event.
The author feels that the consistent delegation of non-engineering tasks to female team members is akin to being relegated to traditional gender roles, such as making sandwiches in the kitchen.
She acknowledges the difficulty in challenging such requests from a manager but also emphasizes the importance of taking a stand against seemingly small injustices for the sake of larger progress in gender equality.
The author encourages other women in similar situations to consider pushing back against these expectations, suggesting that it could empower them and contribute to a shift in workplace culture.

Do you think that when I put on my heels in the morning, I traded my brain in for pretty shoes?

After working as an engineer for over a decade now, I’ve noticed a few consistent biases in the workplace.

I work on a team full of engineers. Every single person sitting at the table has their degree in engineering, the iron ring on their pinky finger that marks them as a Canadian engineer, and the privilege of adding the professional engineering designation of P.Eng to their email signature.

So can someone please tell me why the boss always asks a female engineer to organize the team lunch?

Last I checked, all our qualifications are equal, I’m not the most junior on the team, and my time as Ms. Engineer is just as valuable as Mr. Engineer over there. So is there any particular reason why I’m running around collecting individual lunch orders instead of, oh I don’t know, doing my job as an engineer?

I get it — it’s not life or death. But it’s certainly become a pet peeve of mine.

Does the fact that I wear skirts and dresses automatically demote me a few rungs down the hierarchical ladder? Do you think that when I put on my heels in the morning, I traded my brain in for pretty shoes? Or do you think that somehow, my feminine attributes make me better suited to arrange lunch for the team?

If these men are as good at their engineering jobs as they claim to be, I’m sure they can manage to arrange a team lunch or two, considerations for allergies and dietary restrictions included. After all, it’s a team lunch. Shouldn’t it be a team responsibility to organize?

I can’t shake the idea that when a manager consistently and only asks the women on the team to do this kind of work, it’s the workplace equivalent of being sent to the kitchen to make sandwiches.

On better days, I think to myself, “Hey, I’m getting paid to do this!” On not-so-good days, I’m muttering, “Well, why don’t you ask Mr. Sits-With-His-Legs-Spread-Wide-Open over there to arrange lunch?”

Ladies, I know it’s hard to say no when your manager is asking you to do something, especially something that isn’t particularly hard to do. Sometimes it’s easier just to do it than to fight it. You ponder if this is really the hill to die on.

Well no, it’s not the hill to die on but I also believe changing little things can accumulate to have a big impact. So the next time you’re unfairly saddled with lunch duties, let’s try suggesting we give Mr. Has-Never-Organized-A-Team-Lunch this opportunity instead.