Do any men deal with this? I get so many letters about it and they are all from women, and I suspect it's because people are just less inclined to see women as competent professionals https://t.co/TYyXkMccd3

— Ask a Manager (@AskAManager) November 4, 2021

I used to get this often! Not so much anymore as I’ve gotten older and I also now look way more intimidating.

But yes, being treated like a kid even though you’ve been in the field as long or longer than your interlocutor does happen to men. Into my late 30s people assumed I was in my early 20s, and that I’d been only in my career field for 1-2 years. In reality, professionally I’d been in my various IT roles for 15 years, and had been involved with computing non-professionally for 10+ years before that. Often, it was people I was senior to by 5-10 years treating me like an intern — at least until I straightened them right out.