Ask a Manager: My boss talks about “femtors” and “herstory”

[minoanmiss]

[N.B. The whole post is full of amazing things. There's a question about masking and a question about Ph.Ds and that's just two of the others.]



#4: My boss is very enthusiastic about women’s issues, which is great! But she insists on using phrases like “femtor” (for female mentor) and “herstory” instead of “history,” and these drive me nuts. Part of the reason is that the “men” in “mentor” and the “his” in “history” have nothing to do with gender, but it’s also because it seems patronizing in the same way that “girl boss” does. Is there a way I can bring this up?

That would be annoying as hell, and it’s also a quirk of your boss that you probably just need to accept. The exception would be if you have excellent rapport with her and she’s open to pushback in general, in which case you could maybe raise it … but I’m skeptical it’ll have much impact, and you’re almost certainly better off saving your capital for other things.

Comments

[goljerp]

femto is a SI prefix you don't run across much outside of nuclear physics Or certain branches of Physical Chemistry (I almost did research with someone who worked with femto second lasers. Dunno if that's still a thing, it's been a while.)