Currently, more women than men are graduating with degrees in accounting. However, in my experience, there are still far fewer female partners in public accounting firms than there are male partners.

I’m sure I could write a huge post speculating why there are still so few female public accounting partners, but this is my blog so I’m going to write about me, a 23 year old first-year female accountant. Making partner is not remotely on the radar, but what is it like starting out in accounting today?

I certainly think that any woman working in public accounting who really wants to make partner these days has a good shot of making it. The barriers to get there for women aren’t nearly as high as they used to be.

However, what I see facing myself right now is a gap between how the male partners treat the male first years, and how they treat the female first years.

Disclaimer

I know full well that:

1) I think too much

2) I can be way too sensitive

These two things definitely make my life harder, and I’d probably be way happier if I just didn’t try to figure out why people act the way they do.

A Tale of Some Men at a Bar

So, a few weeks ago, I get a call from my friend, the male new hire. He was super excited because the partner he works for had pulled him out of work a few hours early and taken him drinking at a bar next door. He really likes the partner he works under, and is super excited about any bonding time that they get. Believe me, I was excited for him too

Until I found out that one of the partners I work under had gone to join them, along with the male senior staff on our team. Only he didn’t invite any of his new hires. A fairly new guy from the tax floor was invited too.

So now I’m imagining this great outing of a bunch of guys, where basically the only people left in the office (it was kind of empty to begin with) are myself and one of the female new hires I share an office with.

So, I definitely feel like we weren’t invited because we are women. Plus, I really really hate being excluded. The male new hire who told me how awesome this gathering was, however, had no clue that I’d see it that way.

What to do?

Has anyone out there worked in a situation like this? For my job over the summer, every single person who worked in the accounting department was a female, so this kind of thing never came up.

Is there anything you can actually do to mitigate this kind of stuff? Organizing your own gatherings, etc? Or is it something that just happens and you have to ignore?

Conclusion

I know this one story isn’t a big deal, but it just gives me a bad feeling inside about working for these guys. I think it might be presumptuous of me to expect any partners to pay attention to us new hires, but I think seeing that the other partners do like to try to spend some time getting to know their new hires is also part of what bothers me.

Any thoughts, similar stories, or encouragement? I’ve heard that the partners start treating you like a real person after you’ve been there for 2 years at most firms. What’s normal?