There are gender issues connected with task and maintenance roles, of course. The following might be categorized under the task role "Information Giver":

Many women don't realize until they've moved a few rungs up the workplace ladder that men sometimes simply ignore what women say. If you haven't experienced this yet, you may be shocked the first time it happens to you. In fact, it can still be a surprise to me (although luckily it doesn't happen very often anymore). The story we hear over and over is that a woman offers an idea in a meeting and no one responds. The meeting proceeds as if she hadn't spoken. Later in the meeting, a man at the table rephrases the woman's idea, people grab at it, and it takes off. The man, of course, gets the kudos. This happens more frequently than you may imagine, which will offer small comfort when it happens to you. In any case, you must find a way to deal with it.

Source: S. Wellington, Be Your Own Mentor: Strategies from Top Women on the Secrets of Success, (New York: Random House, 2001), p. 90.

1		Have you ever been in a group discussion where this has happened? What did you think about it?
2		What are some strategies that can be used for getting yourself heard in a group or meeting?
3		When you are in a group, and when a person makes a comment that gets no response from anyone in the group, yet later in the group discussion the very same point is made by someone else-as if the point were never made before-is there anything that can be done right there and then, that would protect or at least recognize the person who first made the comment, and yet not admonish, chastise, or embarrass the person who has most recently made the very same comment? What might be said or done?