Fundie boys and female coworkers

[YPestis]

How do fundie parents teach their sons to deal with possible female coworkers in the future? Or even female bosses? The Maxwells stress running one's own business as a way to avoid distasteful workers. Steve Maxwell notes he refuses work lunches with women if it's only them. However, I can't assume every fundie in the patriarchy movement can successfully run a business. Plus, even self-employed businessmen may end up dealing with women in a work capacity (i.e female suppliers, female auditors etc). Realistically, many fundie boys will end up dealing with female coworkers and/or taking orders from a heathen woman boss. Fundie bloggers write scathingly of women workers, but none have mentioned it as a personal issue for their husband. I often wonder what, if anything, fundies would say about how biblical it is to continue to work in a job with daily interaction of female workers, or how it turns headships into goo to take orders from a female boss. Anyone seen any references to this issue fundies have? Or know of any fundie families we know of whose sons/husbands probably have to deal with these issues?

[Closed Womb]

My husband worked with a Fundie who just ignored women. Woman writes an email, it goes unanswered. Woman boss is ignored/disrespected. The corporate world can sometimes be very unfair, as large companies are afraid of being sued (ie, you fired me because I was too close to retirement, etc.)

A friend's husband (fundie lite family) also hated working for women. He would just ignore her as much as possible and then complain on off hours.

Those are my only two experiences with the matter. Neither man faced any disciplinary repercussions for his insubordination.

[Coconut Flan]

I supervise a fundie/pentecostal guy. His religious views sometimes get in his way, but it's not in dealing with me but in being able to stand up to people. He takes the view of turning the other cheek waaayyyy too far when it comes to getting the job done.

I think if I wore short skirts or revealing blouses it would be a problem for him, but I tend to dress very covered at work.

[nokidsmom]

We had a fundie guy in our department who was a contractor filling in temporarily for an open position. He was quite condescending to female employees especially those he considered to be in lower positions like admin assistants and techs (this is an engineering R&D facility within my company). He did not take well to being questioned or challenged by anyone but he got particularly riled up when it was by a woman and yes, I was one of them. Then a funny thing happened where a change in the organization had him reporting to a female boss. All of a sudden, he dropped the condescending act real quick now that his paycheck depended on it.

[Wandering]

This is probably one of the many reasons why fundies try to push their sons into being business owners.

[sparkles]

Steve Maxwell notes he refuses work lunches with women if it's only them.

He refused if there were women involved, period.

[salsa]

Shouldn't they be trying to proselytize them? If they could get all the women out of the workforce, then society would be set right.

[RosyDaisy]

I have noticed some things about Pentecostal and AoG men and how they act around female co-workers. They won't come right out and say anything or engage in rude, harassing behavior, but you can just tell they believe they belong in positions above women.

[Mountain Girl]

I have noticed some things about Pentecostal and AoG men and how they act around female co-workers. They won't come right out and say anything or engage in rude, harassing behavior, but you can just tell they believe they belong in positions above women.

People like that are probably at the forefront of the War On Menfolk movement. Maybe they could, I don't know, get an education and work hard enough to earn a higher position?

[margiebargie]

I have noticed some things about Pentecostal and AoG men and how they act around female co-workers. They won't come right out and say anything or engage in rude, harassing behavior, but you can just tell they believe they belong in positions above women.

If you're the boss (or even the co-worker) in this situation, it's a good idea to keep a log about employees like this. They won't do any one thing that's enough to get themselves fired, but if there is a pattern of subtle, disrespectful, work-dodging behavior a log is a good way to detect it and bring it to light.

[lilith]

He refused if there were women involved, period.

On the basis that before he loved Terri he (scandal of scandals) liked her and enjoyed her company. So if he spends time with another woman in a work environment he takes the risk of liking her and enjoying her company, and that can only ever lead to love and desire and SIN!!!!!!

[Effie]

How do fundie parents teach their sons to deal with possible female coworkers in the future?

Kelly Crawford for example, teaches them to question the ethics of women working outside the home. :roll: generationcedar.com/main/2008/02/working-women-another-problem.html

I guess female co-workers can expect a lot of hostility from those manly fundie men.

Edit. Wtf is this?

Older women should not be asking young girls graduating high school questions like, “So what are you going to do?†They should be saying things like, “Are you getting prepared for marriage? How are your homemaking skills? Is there something I could help you with?†- generationcedar.com/main/category/working-moms/page/4

I think my dislike for Kelly is close to hate...

[SpeshulTaterTot]

I've worked with a couple of Muslim guys who I considered pretty fundie, and they just completely ignored any woman in a position higher than theirs. I was a supervisor and had one of them ask me why I thought I could tell him what to do when he wouldn't even listen to his mother, that was lovely. I guess the fundie Christian guys act the same way.

[mkitten]

I've worked with a couple of Muslim guys who I considered pretty fundie, and they just completely ignored any woman in a position higher than theirs. I was a supervisor and had one of them ask me why I thought I could tell him what to do when he wouldn't even listen to his mother, that was lovely. I guess the fundie Christian guys act the same way.

I really hope that guy was fired for insubordination. If he outright refused to perform his job duties then he has no business being employed.

[Triplet3]

I've worked with a couple of Muslim guys who I considered pretty fundie, and they just completely ignored any woman in a position higher than theirs. I was a supervisor and had one of them ask me why I thought I could tell him what to do when he wouldn't even listen to his mother, that was lovely. I guess the fundie Christian guys act the same way.

What did you say in reply??

[Jinger Jar]

In college I worked at a call center with a fundie man. The male to female ratio there was about 5:1. We women didn't much care for him because he made it a point to let everyone know that his wife stayed at home with the kids, with the implication that there was something wrong with us because we didn't have husbands providing for us. He also refused to work the less desirable afternoon/early evening shift (11:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.) because he had church services, Bible study, prayer group, etc. every night, which left the rest of us having to work that shift more often while he waltzed out every day day at 5:00 p.m.

He also butted heads a lot with our supervisor, not just over the schedule, but over a lot of other managerial decisions she made. He'd call her out in meetings and get openly argumentative with her in front of others. I'm going back 30+ years here, but I remember his negative behavior towards her escalated after she got pregnant. I do remember him saying things like pregnancy hormones were interfering with her ability to make good decisions for the department.

The bulk of our job at this call center was to liaise between our customers and companies we contracted services for on their behalf. (We sold home warranties, so customer would call us when their ceiling fans broke or their roof leaked, and we would send out repair companies.) I remember him saying things like, "Why don't you have your husband verify that your garbage disposal is really broken and have him call us back if it is."

He was eventually fired. For theft of all things. For weeks someone had been filching loose change and other items from around our work stations. Someone caught him going through my friend's purse and turned him in. We were really surprised the thief was Mr. Bibles (we called him that because he kept two ginormous Bibles prominently displayed in his cubicle), but we were relieved he was gone.

[Jana814]

In college I worked at a call center with a fundie man. The male to female ratio there was about 5:1. We women didn't much care for him because he made it a point to let everyone know that his wife stayed at home with the kids, with the implication that there was something wrong with us because we didn't have husbands providing for us. He also refused to work the less desirable afternoon/early evening shift (11:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.) because he had church services, Bible study, prayer group, etc. every night, which left the rest of us having to work that shift more often while he waltzed out every day day at 5:00 p.m.

He also butted heads a lot with our supervisor, not just over the schedule, but over a lot of other managerial decisions she made. He'd call her out in meetings and get openly argumentative with her in front of others. I'm going back 30+ years here, but I remember his negative behavior towards her escalated after she got pregnant. I do remember him saying things like pregnancy hormones were interfering with her ability to make good decisions for the department.

The bulk of our job at this call center was to liaise between our customers and companies we contracted services for on their behalf. (We sold home warranties, so customer would call us when their ceiling fans broke or their roof leaked, and we would send out repair companies.) I remember him saying things like, "Why don't you have your husband verify that your garbage disposal is really broken and have him call us back if it is."

He was eventually fired. For theft of all things. For weeks someone had been filching loose change and other items from around our work stations. Someone caught him going through my friend's purse and turned him in. We were really surprised the thief was Mr. Bibles (we called him that because he kept two ginormous Bibles prominently displayed in his cubicle), but we were relieved he was gone.

Oh my Gosh how awful!! Did he try and convert any of your co-workers while he was their? That guys had issues! Before he was fired did anything happen to him when he made comments about the other females in the office?

[Jinger Jar]

Oh my Gosh how awful!! Did he try and convert any of your co-workers while he was their? That guys had issues! Before he was fired did anything happen to him when he made comments about the other females in the office?

Outside of the Bibles and the flamboyant way he'd pray in in the break room before he'd eat, I don't remember him proselytizing at work. I suspect he thought we were beyond redemption because we were employed women and college students. Outside of the snide comments about our lack of husbands, he really didn't interact with us. During breaks and downtime he went out to the warehouse and talked with the guys out there.

I don't know how our supervisor and HR handled his rudeness. I just remember he made our staff meetings extremely uncomfortable a lot of the time.

He also hygiene issues, like he'd wear the same shirt for days at a time and frequently smelled just awful. You're right - he did have a lot of problems, and I doubt he was mentally very healthy. Another indicator he wasn't all there was the fact that this was a minimum wage call center job and was never going to go anywhere career-wise. Everyone else was a college student, a retiree supplementing a pension, or someone who needed to be working somewhere until something better came along. Age-wise and life-circumstance wise, he was the only person who could have and should have been working somewhere that either paid a lot more or provided some kind of a career path.

[SpeshulTaterTot]

What did you say in reply??

I told him I didn't care if he listened to his mother, since I was his supervisor, he had to listen to me. I had to write him up because he still refused to do as I said. He lasted in the company for all of 8 weeks. One of the other guys who acted like that got fired for sexual harassment. He kept telling us the woman he'd marry had to be a virgin and how German girls are all sluts, so I guess since we were all sluts, anyway, he thought it was alright to bite us in the arms and grab our asses in front of customers.

Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of Muslim co-workers and friends who are nothing like that. Those guys were just as close to fundie co-workers as it got for me. Christian fundies are still pretty rare around these parts.

[keeks21]

I don't think they manage it that well, I remember reading on a few fundie blogs the wives complaining about the emasculating she devlis at their husbands work.

I worked with a fundie muslim male co-worker who was the nicest and most well behaved co-worker of our team. We had women leaders and he was polite to them as well. His wife stayed at home and raised the kids but she'd come in and drop food over as a surprise, they seemed happily married to me. I added him to facebook and I was shocked to find the amount of fundie rants he went on! So I guess he managed to keep his professional and personal life separate.

[JeanneD]

Shouldn't they be trying to proselytize them? If they could get all the women out of the workforce, then society would be set right.

I know ! This could very well be their ministry - to save the poor souls of feminine coworkers. It would also solve the unemployment problem as there would be so many jobs available to the 'truly deserving'. Of course this may require talking to the temptresses and we all know what that could lead to . . . . :roll:

[YPestis]

There's some pretty interesting stories shared on this thread. I figure some of these spoiled fundie boys would have difficulties in the workforce due to this instilled sense of superiority over females. I bet there are many, many more fundie men working who are smart or polite enough to mask their distaste for female employees. As others noted, the most egregerious ones are fired quickly. Even subtle backbiting and harassment would probably raise eyebrows and damage promotion opportunities. As noted earlier, this is a big reason fundies we know prefer running their own business. They can avoid unpleasant things like female bosses.

I imagine fundie-lite families are smarter about raising boys to work in the secular world. They know to treat females in a professional manner, to keep offensive political views away from them, even as these boys are raised to believe men are the superior workers. That said, I wonder how much teeth grinding happens as fundie boys work under a boss they judge to be their intellectual inferior. I guess this is no different than teaching kids that different races are inferior or different religions make for poor workers. At the end of the day, few in our diverse society have control over who their coworkers will be, and at risk of getting fired, learn to deal with people different than them.

[keen23]

I'm one of just a few women in my office, the highest ranked female, and the head of the finance department. One of the other departments has a male admin. He's very conservative mega church Christian. He HATES having to come to me with questions and requests. Most of the time he'll send the question he has to his supervisor who then will email it to me- even stupid stuff like how much vacation he has left, and benefits questions. His supervisor got sick of being the middle man and yelled at him recently "Dude, ask her yourself. What, are you afraid of vagina or something?"

[mkitten]

I'm one of just a few women in my office, the highest ranked female, and the head of the finance department. One of the other departments has a male admin. He's very conservative mega church Christian. He HATES having to come to me with questions and requests. Most of the time he'll send the question he has to his supervisor who then will email it to me- even stupid stuff like how much vacation he has left, and benefits questions. His supervisor got sick of being the middle man and yelled at him recently "Dude, ask her yourself. What, are you afraid of vagina or something?"

That's fantastic! How did he reply?

[JaChelle Sugar]

He's not afraid of vagina (that wouldn't be manly now would it, and it just might make him gay), he just wasn't trained by mommy and daddy on how to deal with the real world women usurping authority over men.