According to a March training session for Austin, Texas, city employees -- on the topic of female leaders -- women "don’t want to deal with numbers,” "act on emotions” and "ask lots of questions.”
After video of that training surfaced this week, women certainly did have a lot of questions. In particular, why on Earth did city manager Marc Ott think that employees needed a two-hour workshop on how to deal with people who are not men?
Ott had set up the training after Austin achieved a majority-female city council for the first time. On Wednesday, he apologized -- but not before plenty of those question-firing women took to Twitter, using the hashtag #WhatWomenAsk, to point out how offensive and backward-thinking the workshop was.
I'm great at math AND ask a lot of questions. Shouldn't everyone that's in a leadership role ask a lot of things?! #whatwomenask
— Joy P. | Founder (@WOWWCampaign) May 13, 2015
@ameseh "Am I expected to bring food to city council meetings, AND to clear your plates afterwards?" #whatwomenask
— Brady San Jacinto (@BradySanJacinto) May 13, 2015
Austin removed the video from its government website on Wednesday evening, but NPR affiliate KUT Austin had archived the footage and posted it to YouTube.