Following situation:
Part of my lab (I am a physicist) was going to a conference in Germany for a couple of days, so we had to book rooms at the hostel there. For junior scientist only double rooms were available; I (female) and a colleague (male) decided to share a room, as we didn't want to stay in a room with people we didn't know. We didn't give this any second thought, but when our boss noticed he made some remarks to me like :" You should rather share a room with another woman, what will other people think...". I was quite shocked when he told me, because to me it seemed perfectly normal to share rooms with male friends , I had done that numerous times in the past. We ended up sharing the room anyway, but I am still wondering...
I am now working in an international organization and have already asked people from different countries about their opinion on the subject, so far it seems to me that in general it is more like an age thing than country dependent. I'd like to gather some more opinions, so please go ahead!
Part of my lab (I am a physicist) was going to a conference in Germany for a couple of days, so we had to book rooms at the hostel there. For junior scientist only double rooms were available; I (female) and a colleague (male) decided to share a room, as we didn't want to stay in a room with people we didn't know. We didn't give this any second thought, but when our boss noticed he made some remarks to me like :" You should rather share a room with another woman, what will other people think...". I was quite shocked when he told me, because to me it seemed perfectly normal to share rooms with male friends , I had done that numerous times in the past. We ended up sharing the room anyway, but I am still wondering...
I am now working in an international organization and have already asked people from different countries about their opinion on the subject, so far it seems to me that in general it is more like an age thing than country dependent. I'd like to gather some more opinions, so please go ahead!
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