Hola otra vez,

I don´t mean to vent, but I need to discuss this with people who are in Spain, but are not Spanish. My Spanish friends all seem to think my experiences in my possibly-soon-to-be-gone job are normal, but as a person who has worked in the UK and the US, my experience has been well...not so pleasant and very different.

I joined my company in March and worked for an English boss. Besides him, I was the only other ex-pat in Spain at this company. Additionally, I am the only woman, American and minority in a management position at my job.

My English boss left a few months later to work back in England. He was replaced my my worse nightmare - a young, sexist Spanish boss who proceeded to make my life hell.

Eventually, I found that my projects were being taken away and given to other people and that I wasn't getting any new projects. I went to talk to my new boss and he told me that perhaps I should cut my hair!!!

Anyway, I kept on working with my team and projects and doing the occasional extra projects that my boss asked me to do for him. And of course, when I finished with any reports/proposals/anything that had a written end, my boss would take them and remove my name from the work and then put his own name (thereby taking credit for all that I've done).

I kept trying and started a new project which was fairly successful, despite all around me. It was a solution that solved a lot of problems. (thereby saving money and time, etcetc)

Anyway, so I thought around review time that I would get a decent review. However, when I went for my review with my boss, he proceeded to talk about the following
topics:

-my hair
-how the other woman in the office don't like me
-how being attractive is difficult in
-how nice my body was

Now - I am fairly nomal looking, wear only work appropriate clothes at work, and yes, have long hair which I keep tied back in clips or a bun every day at work.

He didn't even mention anything about my work performance AT ALL!!!

Now, as you all know, the company is going down and has shut down several projects, etc.. and laying off people and of course, I am actively looking for new work, so I will be out of this place as soon as I can go!

And I know that Spain is supposedly a sexist country. But, having been here a year now, all of my Spanish male friends are very decent and totally non-sexist. They help their girlfriends around the house, never have made make sexist comments, etc...

And because I have worked in mostly male environments, I don't really mind if I am with a group of men from work....say at a bar or some place social and they start talking about women. This is totally normal to me - I am used to it after working 7 years in an all male environment and it doesn't bother me a bit! It's just at work -in the work environment and AT MY JOB REVIEW that really upsets me.

Anyway, I'd like to share work experience stories with any other people who have had similar experiences? Is this really normal in Spain? Or am I being singled out because I am a woman? And again, do I have any rights in this situation?


Sorry this is so long and thanks for listening...

SWE

Spain has come 50 years in 25, since 1975. There are still some hangups socially and you'll run into these kind of people. But you are correct in that this type of behavior is uncommon. I've never seen it myself (however I probably don't take notice of these things as much) here in our office.

Working in Spain requires a bit of adjustment, in interaction and just the way things are done, but it's only work and after the day is done that's that. If you wake up in the morning and dread going, that means quit and do something you enjoy. (Not trying to lecture, just my opinion).

Since you don't want spanish professionals to participate I won't . But I think the Information Technology world here is not sexist at all. I am sorry I have dared to speak, But I will respect your desire of not interacting with spaniards.

I also worked in Spain and I can see where you're coming from. I also agree that the vast majority of Spanish men are complete gentlemen- I felt more comfortable walking down the street there than I do in the US! But, there is still a lot of institutionalized discrimination against women, people over 40, and non-Spanish people in the workforce. For every man that's on the dole in Spain, there are 4 women. I worked in many different companies (I taught on-site English classes), and 90% of the employees were very young, handsome men. But it's changing there. The thing about the appearances-- they base a lot on appearance in the workplace. Just think- you have to include a photo of yourself with your resume, along with your birthdate and marital status! I was horrified when I found out about that, but it's totally normal there. There's a huge cultural difference that we Americans with our "PC-ness", which I admit can be over the top sometimes, find very shocking. And they've never had any kind of sexual harassment or racial sensitivity training, so they find it perfectly acceptable to tell you you have a nice ass. But I do agree that that boss is a particular a**hole.