Jeri...I thought about that a long time. Maybe 'deferring' was too strong a word, but it was WAY more than just being polite. The boss (the GS-12) spoke to the other women more ummm... 'forcefully'... than she did to me. To be fair, of the 7 in the office, only 3 really assigned me tasks, but the overall feeling was one I had never seen before. Of course, I never asked anyone there about it. I really doubt that THEY would have admitted to acting that way.

Interestingly, in the last 2-3 weeks I was there, they hired a younger woman who was a real advocate for women's rights and talked about 'issues'...and they seemed a bit uncomfortable with her doing so....just a 'oh, I don't go to those events' sort of reply when she said anything.

I don't claim this sort of thing was common, but I was pretty sure
of what I saw at the time.

I have worked in other places where the attitude was way at the other end of the scale, and I had to watch what I said...