Contractors & Chauvinism
Chauvinism is bad for business. The second largest group to purchase homes, after married couples,are single women. On my block alone at least a third of the homeowners are single women. BTW this is the group that by and large started CHNA which spearheaded the Landmarking of Crown Heights North…yes the core group (the Board)…
Chauvinism is bad for business.
The second largest group to purchase homes, after married couples,are single women. On my block alone at least a third of the homeowners are single women. BTW this is the group that by and large started CHNA which spearheaded the Landmarking of Crown Heights North…yes the core group (the Board) was mainly women.
While it may seem archaic to post on gender inequality the fact remains that in spite of our buying power many contractors/building supply vendors make inappropriate remarks and behave in offensive ways that frankly will continue to loose them business, at least mine.
Todays’s event prompted this post.
During a transaction at the electrical supply store on Rogers and Licoln Place in response to my question on price, the proprietor made a comment about women ,trying to be jokey I guess.
THen his assistant said: “Want me to beat her?”and chuckled.
I could hardly believe it.
“Excuse me…what did you say?”
“oh…maybe I should get my whip…ha ha”
“THis is not amusing…joking about violence against women is not funny….it’s offensive and you are out of line”
He got very tense, stopped laughing and the owner stepped in and apologized, then the staff member who said it apologized …
In the past weeks while this current renovation has been underway some of the comments made by folks interviewed:
“Don’t need to worry your pretty little head about that” (not hired)
“You look so delicate”(not hired)
“Oh you seem like you have a brain and know what your are talking about” (lol NOT HIRED this guy had the thickest Bensonhurst accent imaginable)
“linda…sweetheart”(not hired)
One friend shared that a contractor actually made a physical pass at her while she interviewed him for roof replacement…this woman owns a couple of apartment BUILDINGS plus her own brownstone…she was mortified and he was not hired.
This is not everyone but the lack of awareness is common enough amongst contractors’& vendors’ and prompted this post.
misogyny doesnt make a man a bad contractor. I’d rather find a good and honest contractor and deal w/ some backwards ideas than be stuck w/ a guy who tells me everything I want to hear but disappears 1/2 way through.
I didn’t say that, tmod. I think my post was a little more nuanced than that.
People who renovate brownstones are spending tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. And while doing so they’re being told by people like eman and denton they have to just accept and try to fit into the “culture” of these workers?
Whatever. Not by me. I would never hire anybody who made comments like the ones that were listed. How about these contractors and workers trying harder to fit into MY culture as their employer? You know, like I have to do when I’m hired by somebody! I think that’s argentina’s main point, that the new “culture” of homeowners in the United States is this: Women are a significant group of homeowners and even when married are more often the boss on these jobs, so act professionally and with courtesy or you don’t get hired.
“The surprising thing about this thread is it is full of women I had previously assumed were men.”
You sexist 🙂
The surprising thing about this thread is it is full of women I had previously assumed were men.
Listen, the reality is that women get hazed in stereotypically male work environments, and shouldn’t need tougher skin than men in similar positions but absolutely do.
As a woman who has worked on way more jobsites than offices, I have survived and thrive because I have a very dirty mouth, am not afraid of conflict and am just about impossible to offend. I also go ahead and sympathize with how weird it looks to see a tiny blonde woman lifting a 100-lb bag of cement, actively point out that I am smaller than my co-workers, and generally don’t try to act like everything’s normal. I am a novelty, and honestly it’s easier and more honest to work with it than it is to work against it.
You can’t change people, but you can behave as if you will be treated the way you want to be treated, and empathize with the fact that a lot of people in the trades have very little formal education, come from countries that are really sexist, and live in a much more gendered world than you do. This mixture of integrity and empathy is strong. It doesn’t work instantly, and is more about developing relationships than negotiating the hardware store, but it works really well.
eman1234
since when is making a pass at a woman considered a culture?
You’t can’t imagine how many men bug the crap outta me on a daily basis.
Tis the season to be jolly………
the stupidest part of this is that some of my employees are women. and we still make dumbass sexist jokes..
“where they called my husband for a decision, who would have to call me; who would call the plumber/electrician, who would then call my husband back instead of me.”
Seems like your husband’s fault here, lol. Why didn’t your husband just tell the contractor you were in charge, and refuse to discuss it?
Ask him that tonight over dinner 🙂
LOL — we talked numerous times about how asinine it was that contractors refused to call me. It was like they were going through contortions NOT to talk to me. My husband and I would both tell them to stop calling him and to call me, yet they couldn’t get it through their thick heads. Like a mental block or something that a woman would have decision making capacity.
I used to deal with this nonsense all the time when I worked in IT as a programmer and doing tech support. I worked at a huge academic medical center and the doctors would always questioned my ability when I showed up to fix their computers; my male colleagues never got second guessed like I did. Since they were essentially paying me, I took more BS than I would have liked, but when I’m doing the hiring, I reserve the right not to work with any contractors who have a pathological inability to respect women!