I have a secret for you. Shhhhh…lean closer…listen carefully to what I am about to say.

Ready?

Men in the workplace do not hate women in the workplace.

OK. Maybe I am generalizing a wii wee tiny bit but really I am willing to bet that if I anonymously polled men in corporate environments, at all levels, they would tell you that they are not categorically against having female co-workers.

I’m also willing to bet that:

• They don’t consider us to be wicked bitches.
• They don’t think we belong in the kitchen.
• They have no opinion whatsoever about whether or not we should breastfeed.

Now you are probably wondering where in the hell I would get enough information to be able to form such opinions. I have to confess that while I DID spend lunch with five male co-workers, I did not gleen this information from that bonding experience. What I did learn during lunch (you know, besides all the uses for dry ice) is that the menfolk are not on a desperate mission to keep the womenfolk out of their circle of office buddies.

I have always worked in male dominated environments and truth be told, I think that any woman that works outside the home will find herself in a male dominated environment. I am not the exception. I am the norm. Men have been in the workplace much longer than women have. It is true that more and more women are joining the workforce but I think male dominated workplaces will continue to be common for many, many, many years to come.

I digress…

As women in the workplace we have a job to do that goes above and beyond the actual job we were hired to do. It requires soft skills that we hopefully learned in kindergarten like how to play nice with others and how to make friends with complete and total strangers. Our extra job, as applied to the workplace, is quite simply to learn how to get along with our co-workers. Regardless of gender. We need to know how to play nice.

But there’s a catch to this “extra” job that we women have. Something that women may be surprised to find out about. Are you sitting down for this? Are you really ready? Ready? OK. Here it goes:

Men have the exact same job.

Women sure do like to beat themselves up over the idea that they are being so rudely excluded from lunches, happy hours and the like by the men they work with. Oh hell. Who am I kidding? I recently confessed that I was an F- in the department of caretaking social relationships with co-workers. But let me let you in on a little something that I have learned (OK, maybe I have always known this):

Men are not excluding us because we are chicks. In fact, they are not intentionally excluding us at all. Here is what I think is happening…women aren’t invited because women don’t express INTEREST in attending social outings.

Do you want to be invited to happy hour? I suggest that you try coordinating a happy hour and inviting the guys out to it. This will show the guys that you don’t mind going out after work for a little socialization. This same concept works just dandy for lunch too. Want to be invited to the weekly lunch gathering? Stand up and TELL SOMEONE YOU WANT TO GO. Are they going to say NO? Highly unlikely because like I said earlier, the menfolk in the workplace don’t think we are wicked bitches and they aren’t intentionally excluding us. If we haven’t EXPRESSED interest how are they to know we HAVE interest in attending these events?

Men, in case you don’t know this, are NOT, NOT, NOT mindreaders.

Sadly, I get invited to lunch probably once a week but because of my meeting schedule I usually can’t attend. Sometimes I wonder if my seemingly constant declines on invitations will eventually take me off the list of invitees. That hasn’t happened yet and I hope it doesn’t. Today when I was at the microwave warming up my food a male co-worker was finishing his nuke job on his lunch and invited me to join him in the cafeteria to eat. When I wandered down I found him and four other guys from the department grazing on lunch. I smiled wide and warned brightly that I was joining them there boys for lunch.

Not one single “BOO!” or “HISS!” out of the bunch.

We talked about Wii! Wii! (I had no idea Nintendo was French), skeet shooting (poor, poor pigeons), uses for dry ice (I googled “dry ice uses” and didn’t find one suggestion that was discussed at lunch) and we even talked about blush (sadly it was about making someone blush, not make-up applications. I’ll take what I can get I guess).

Honestly, it was a damn fun lunch. One of the best lunch outings I have had in a long time to tell you the truth. I’m glad I went and for all the women out there that think that the men are excluding you, forgive me for repeating myself: they are not excluding you.

Well. They might be excluding you if you are a colossal pain in the ass. But if you are fun or interesting or outgoing or have even ONE interesting thing to share, well then in that case I bet they aren’t excluding you.

If you have been feeling excluded by your male counterparts tell me why you think that is and what you plan to do to improve your skills in “playing nice with others”.

Ready?

Set?

Discuss…