Ten years ago, previous place of employment, we had a guy leave the team. The idea was to replace and recruit internally. There was this young woman, junior consultant in a different team, early 20s, that had caught my attention due to her drive and general fearlessness.

Upon strongly suggesting hiring her my then manager replied: “but she’s a girl!”.

Granted, he was almost 60 at the time (different generation and times) but my jaw dropped... This guy who I really appreciated as a manager could have such views? I had no idea up to that point.

I’ve never personally known this happen to a “boy” in our industry.