All my life I have heavily used the “I have a boyfriend card.” I learned early I could use it to deal with the bs some guys try. Now I am usually the only girl on my construction site and I happen to be the boss. Even though I use that card I still ALWAYS get the follow up, “are you married” to the point where I am now using the “common law card.” :/

I should say though that despite that I rarely encounter any blatant sexism that makes me feel uncomfortable. I also very rarely have trouble getting the guys to listen to me and have professional conversation. Usually I forget that I’m different. We’re all just focused on building. Would that be different if I couldn’t play those 2 cards? Maybe. Probably.

When I do encounter sexism though, I deal with it as soon as possible to keep the boundary of what is or isnt acceptable known. What I have realized is that for a lot of guys in construction they don’t interact with a lot of woman professionally so by default they mostly interact with women in a non-work environment. So I have to set the standard right off the bat so they know how to interact with me. You’d think it should be common sense but a woman in construction isn’t common.

Maybe it’s just Canada or my area or just me but when I read these kinds of posts I can relate sometimes but I don’t know how it could be so bad still from the guys.

If anything it’s the women.

I do 100% strongly agree with women teaching women things that make it worse To me that makes joking about having a woman card, whether viewed as a good or bad thing, no laughing matter at all. The fact that I started this comment by saying I learned early about the card is my point proven. I have never learned a different way to handle myself. Consequently I imagine most guys are used to that card being the acceptable version of “not interested, don’t bother trying for love or sex here.”