Dealing with the man

There's a man I have to work with on a project.  Let's call him Michael.  There's another man who also works on the project, but that man and I are on the same team.  Let's call him Seamus.  So the way communication works on this project is that e-mails are from Seamus and me as a unit to Michael (and vice versa).  Now, when we first started this project, I was too busy to generate any of the communications and was out of town, so all the initial e-mails from our end were sent out by Seamus (after being read and edited by me), who would e-mail Michael, signing both our names and CCing me.  But every single time Michael responded, I was removed from the thread in his response, so the response went only to Seamus, who would forward it to me with a wisecrack about how I must have been "accidentally" left off the response again.  Seamus would add me back to the thread and started putting a note at the bottom of e-mails that he was CCing me on the thread, thinking that would encourage Michael to include me in his responses... but alas, that "reply all" button got no use on Michael's end.  It seemed I was being deliberately disrespected.

"Maybe he doesn't know about 'reply all',"  I said to Seamus one day when I was back.  "Is that possible?  Can a successful, powerful man not know about the 'reply all' button in 2017?"

Seamus shrugged. "I doubt it.  I think he just doesn't really respect women as being worth dealing with if he can deal with a 'MAN'," he said, making mock "strong man" arms.

"Okay, let's find out." I said.  So the next e-mail to Michael came from me.  I CC'd Seamus but didn't even mention in the e-mail that I was CCing him.  Like Seamus's e-mails, I signed both our names, but I flipped the order, putting mine first....  Michael's response, which came days later, was addressed to both of us and included Seamus in the thread.  And it dismissed the content of the e-mail.

So dude knew about "reply all" after all.

Now all the e-mails come from Seamus's e-mail account and continue to include both our names in the signature, his first.  It's far more important to me that we get results on this than that I get Michael's respect, and I don't think I can change the ingrained attitudes of a middle-aged man at the top of his career, so I'll play the game.  Seamus no longer puts a note that he's CCing me, because it doesn't accomplish anything, so he just continues to forward me the responses with a satisfying wisecrack about it. 

But the kicker?  The part that makes me happy and lets me laugh at sad little Michael who thinks men are more valuable than women?  Every single one of the e-mails from Seamus to Michael -- every one -- is now completely, 100% written by me.

Is this how George Eliot felt?