Is it really a Masculine community?!

I hear people in the media, especially women, talk a lot about how we’re a masculine community. I usually don’t really get what they mean by that but I think that it refers to how our community differentiates between males and females, in favor of males, giving them more rights and privileges. Anyhow, in a recent business trip I had two situations that reminded me of this concept and I’m going to talk about them now. I was going to supervise the handover, installation and operation of a piece of equipment in a place outside Cairo; as a service to another department ‘A’ in the organization where I work. I was on the mission with a female colleague ‘X’ and a male colleague ‘Y’. I’ve done the same job before and so I had more hands-on experience than my colleagues. Though this was pretty obvious, every now and then one of the staff to whom we were delivering the service, takes my “male colleague” ‘Y’ aside and talks to him about something related to the work we were doing. He does so as if we weren’t qualified enough to be talked to, just because we’re females. And though ‘Y’ told him to talk in front of us because we’re all in the subject together, he kept doing the same silly act till we finished our work and left. The other situation happened earlier when we met to start our journey. First, came a guy from department ‘A’ who is supposed to take care of administrative issues during the trip or at least that is what we were told. He asked me about who else is coming and when I told him that ‘X’ and ‘Y’ were, he simply said that “If I knew that ‘Y’ was coming, I wouldn’t have come. I just came so that you won’t be alone”, i.e. if I knew that a male was coming, I wouldn’t have come. Actually I was offended by what he said but of course he didn’t feel so at all and probably thought that it was a natural thing to say. I wouldn’t be bothered if such gesture came from a friend or a colleague because it would have meant that he really cares and not that he thought we weren’t up to the situation and needed baby sitting. Also in the latter situation, someone who really cares would act like a man not just like an image of a man. So is it really a masculine community?!






2 6 2009