First I'm like - "Woah, I can't imagine someone would be so insensitive to make joke like this!" and get all fed up and upset.
But then... then I freeze, because next example is something that I can imagine myself saying.
"Oop, Katie's got the low cut dress on today! I know where I'm sitting!"
I... I'm at loss of words. I was trained during my teenage years, that it's cool to say things like that. As I'm getting older, I see how sexist and demeaning this is. But it's really hard to break this habit, and this "Hey, it's just meaningless joke, right?!" line of thought. I try, I really try, but sometimes I forget myself.
On a similar note - I have exact same problem with how I perceive woman and man having multiple sexual partners.
"Good key opens many locks, but good lock is opened by only one key" and all that bullshit - I know that it's ridiculous to hold woman and men to different standard in this regard, and I mostly learned to don't do that, but my... instinct that was ingrained in me by society tells me otherwise.
I find myself struggling to suppress my subconscious mind in this regard, and frankly, I don't know how I can help it.
Edit for clarity: I don't have problem with such posts being written and upvoted, quite opposite actually, I'm glad they are written and read. I have problem with how posts like this make me feel.
It's a big deal. Not "lightening up" is a service to the company (and, I guess, the whole industry). I'm married to a woman who has put up with a lot of shit in this field (for instance: job interviews in which she was shown pictures of her interviewer's bare ass; I was, fortunately for all involved, in a different state when that happened) and am the father of an absurdly intelligent 10 year old girl who will, with enough not- taking- one- iota- of- shit for the next 10 years, not have to suffer any of this.
Well, I guess I ought to weigh in on this one, since I am the interviewee in question. First, the story.
During the interview, I was interrupted while answering a question with, "I think I have a tick." My brain immediately thinks, "He's on eBay and has just won a copy of The Tick." But then he swivels the monitor around to show me a flesh-colored rectangle with a round, red area in the middle of it. I'm pretty sure that while we were talking, he stuck the camera into the back of his trousers and took the picture, as I recall seeing a flash and him fiddling with connecting the camera. However, it was my first interview in a long time, and I was very nervous about returning to paid employment after 6 years as a stay-at-home-mom.
What did I do? I gave him instructions for how to remove it. After all, I am a mom.
So... I've been "in technology" for a long time. In middle school, I picked the locks to let myself into the computer lab. In high school, I was the only female student in CS (also trigonometry and pre-calc). In college, I was the only female ever in the computer lab. I studied audio engineering -- which is a great deal less friendly to women (or was) than IT. I have dealt with a lot of weird situations that would not have occurred if I were male. On the plus side, I've never had to wait in line for the toilet.
This is my opinion: shit is going to happen and you have to roll with it. Given your life experience and temperament, this may be challenging for you. But if you want something bad enough, you'll find a way to get it, no matter how much shit you have to step in on the way.
My observations: men harass each other with equal or greater tendency than their female peers. Myself, I have said things to my male co-workers that have caused them to make the "that was inappropriate" flinch. Also, we can't squelch biology, no matter how smart we are -- if there are boobs in view, his lizard brain is going to notice them.
My hypothesis: men are socialized to shrug it off or suck it up, and may even become desensitized to it after a while. Women are socialized differently. To be frank, I don't completely "get women," even though I am one. Two events in my life have forced me to interact with large and varied groups of women, first being motherhood and second being roller derby training. I somehow managed to offend some of these women, and I'm never quite sure how I do it. But once it happens... they pretty much avoid me like I'm diseased. Anyone, male or female, who reacts to something unsavory in this way is simply going to have a harder time getting by in business. Or anything else, for that matter. Curiously, women seem to be much, much better than men at ignoring their lizard brain. Might be nature, might be nurture, but it is a definite advantage.
If I had a dollar for every time someone has told me to lighten up (or, in the case of my mom, Erliechda!), I'd be driving a Veyron around my private island. And sometimes it does weigh pretty heavily on me that, no matter how hard I bust my ass, there is always going to be some person who wants to write me off for attributes I cannot control. But that's where you learn who your friends are, right? There is a long list of people in my life who have plenty of respect for me, ask me for advice on stuff and things, and treat me like a regular human being. I prefer to be thankful for those people than let the rest drag me down.
Katie, you get nothing but empathy from me for how you feel, despite how critical this post may sound. I have a son and a daughter. The world does treat them differently. Nobody has ever "taken me aside" to tell me I am "going to have trouble" with my son when he gets older. It's flat out offensive to have a teacher deride my baby girl for being outspoken and spunky. It is painful to see what criticism does to her self-esteem. When someone IWASJUSTs you, they are being twice rude. So this is what I told both my kids, "If you had a $20, would you give it to $BULLY_NAME?"
"No," they responded.
Well, if you wouldn't give someone a $20, then don't give them the power to hurt your feelings.
job interviews in which she was shown pictures of her interviewer's bare ass;
Holly horror story!
Sadly I am not surprised to hear this, because I've heard many similar stories. And yet out of the very large number of male friends in the industry I have, including myself, none of us have ever or would ever do anything like that. The paradox here is answered by the fact that a tiny share of creeps will always be found in any sufficiently large set of humans. And the larger the set, the bigger the number of creeps.
Thus I think the only way to guarantee this kind of thing becomes part of the past is to radically increase the share of women in the industry.
Now, that doesn't prevent creeps from being creepy, but it does guarantee that the small number that they must be, can never be creepy to a large number of women.
This is kind of depressing as it basically assumes we can never completely get rid of creeps. But does anyone believe 100% proper behavior, from 100% of the people, 100% of the time is possible?
job interviews in which she was shown pictures of her interviewer's bare ass;
What the hell?
How on earth did that happen, I really can't imagine why anyone would think that doing this could possibly have a positive income without having drunk a minimum of 5 beers.
job interviews in which she was shown pictures of her interviewer's bare ass;
I'm intrigued. How the heck did that scene play out? How exactly do one produce an image of his ass in an interview. How come he had one taken in the first place. So many questions ..
As a woman, a woman in tech AND a mother to a little girl: thank YOU.
Thank you for supporting your wife, thank you for teaching your daughter that she doesn't have to take this crap, and thank you for not being part of the problem in the first place.
What would have been the appropriate response to the picture? Can someone give me a pattern to work with here?
edit: I haven't run into sexism yet (still a student, but a female in a male-dominated field) and I don't want to be the deer in the headlights when it happens for the first time. And it seems that it will happen, the way everyone talks about it.
>(for instance: job interviews in which she was shown pictures of her interviewer's bare ass; I was, fortunately for all involved, in a different state when that happened)
Why? Because you would have beat his ass? Cause you would have shown him what happens when he comes on to your woman? You would have had an unkind word with him? Do you not believe your wife can handle herself?
Trying to bash down a gender role by reinforcing another is pretty silly.
As the woman, I've been the only person in the group asked to put together a pot luck (presumably, this work is beneath the males). I've been the only one asked to take notes in a meeting... even if I'm the one who's presenting (because my title really should be 'secretary who we let on the servers').
This, more than the jokes and comments, is the meat of the problem. Inappropriate jokes can be much more easily addressed as soon as they happen - if you're in a meeting and your boss asks you to 'please pull up your blouse because your wonderful breasts are distracting everyone' you can much more easily address it right then and there.
But if your boss asks you to take notes, the first couple of times it happens, it could just as well be random (though it isn't, really). It is much harder to say 'no, not taking notes, you only want me to do that because I'm a woman' even when it's true. What's worse is that even when you do notice a pattern, it's harder to address than a rude remark. It's (a) hard to prove it was because of your sex as opposed to some other aspect of your personality ('maybe he thinks you're just good at organizing potlucks, sheesh' - 'you took notes that first time so well!') and (b) behavior is much harder to correct when you have to point out things that happened in the past. 'I take notes 50% of the time, in a group of 5' just doesn't seem to have the same effect on humans, especially in a society where intent is often judged above effect.
I'm not a woman, but this is what it seems to me, from what I've observed.
edit: I can't find the study I was looking for, but they had a group of people evaluate two sets of identical resumes, with female and male names, for 'competence' and 'likeability'. For males, competence was correlated with likeability, but for females it was anticorrelated, even though the resumes were identical. Less people will think you an 'ice queen' if you call out an inappropriate remark, but countering the above form of sexism seems far more difficult to do while preserving 'likeability' -- 'what's the big deal, I just asked her to take notes!' If anyone else knows where the study is, I would be grateful.
It seems to me that this is where the men on the team can help: As a man, I'd volunteer to take notes.
Of course, this may not be tempting, because you may be on the kind of team where you just know that, if you volunteer to do some thankless task, you'll be stuck with it forever. And that is an entirely different kind of problem. But it's a problem that should not be covered up by deploying sexism.
In my mind, an important point here is that NO ONE should be asked to put together a pot luck. Why does anyone think this kind of thing is appropriate in the workplace? It makes me want to vomit when workplace boss becomes social boss. If anyone ever told me to put together a pot luck my immediate response would be "go fuck yourself."
I'd be inclined to give the author the benefit of the doubt, and take serious the problem she's chosen to flag. She's saying that the attitude of "lighten up" is a problem in and of itself. To say that the "meat of the problem" is something else is really kind of like saying "lighten up."
> As the woman, I've been the only person in the group asked to put together a pot luck (presumably, this work is beneath the males). I've been the only one asked to take notes in a meeting... even if I'm the one who's presenting (because my title really should be 'secretary who we let on the servers').
Had a new project manager/analyst join a few months ago, and he bakes a different cake for us each week. it's awesome. :)
The notetaking situation as you describe it (not necessarily the way Katie was treated) can probably be averted by politely declining, such as, "Can someone else take notes this time? I like to put more focus on this particular discussion." If it's happening even more frequently than, say, 50%, then perhaps something along the line of suggesting everyone taking turns (if it's a regular meeting).
At my previous workplace, it's usually the host who sends out meeting notes or action items if needed. Otherwise, the task falls into the hands of the project manager, if one is present in the meeting.
However, I also feel sorry for all male programmers. A lot of male programmers I've met have extremely pent-up sexual drives. A lot of them do not feel comfortable with women or society.
The prototypical male programmer was extremely nerdy in adolescence, had minimal interaction with women, and sex life - forget it. Now they are working in a job where they can just do what they like - program - and a woman comes along with all those pheremones and everything. And yes he acts awkward and crazy because holy shit there is a WOMAN who does what he does.
I fucking hate all of this talk about "manchildren" and "brogrammers" and whatever else. Stop essentializing the problem. Stop the man hate. Fucking hell.
Do you really think the man who said:
"Oop, Katie's got the low cut dress on today! I know where I'm sitting!"
is a happy, mentally-healthy, well-adjusted human being? Hmmm? Where's the compassion for him?
Why is our reaction to superficial wrongdoing so fucking immediate and moralistic? As if he's not a person with his own problems?
I'm at a loss for words, this whole clusterfuck makes me so angry.
I fucking hate all of this talk about "manchildren" and "brogrammers" and whatever else. Stop essentializing the problem. Stop the man hate. Fucking hell.
If you're experiencing this pushback from women in the profession as 'man hate' that's certainly your right. I view it more as listening to a professional colleague telling a story from her perspective. I'm not experiencing it as hate, more as hearing from a woman 'this is my perspective'.
Do you really think the man who said:
"Oop, Katie's got the low cut dress on today! I know where I'm sitting!"
is a happy, mentally-healthy, well-adjusted human being? Hmmm? Where's the compassion for him?
Perhaps he's a victim too - none of us know the full story and we can speculate until we're blue in the face. But wouldn't you agree that his actions are highly unprofessional, creepy, and personally discouraging to one particular woman, and part of a broader pattern of discouragement toward women in technology overall?
I'm at a loss for words, this whole clusterfuck makes me so angry.
So what do you recommend to fix the problem? Where will you direct all that energy that your anger has activated?
I agree that the guy is probably suffering from his own insecurities, but the bottom line is that he allowed his issues to place him in a situation of antagonizing a co-worker, probably without any repercussions, which speaks to a general climate of discrimination against women in the workplace. Still, some of your other points are interesting and I feel are valid in a larger context. Zen monasteries in Japan were segregated - women were a minority anyway, probably to a very large extent, but there were women monks, and they were generally not allowed much interaction with the male monks. All discipline among the males fell apart when a woman was in their presence, as the culture really gave them no background for normal interactions between the sexes. The head monks chose to sidestep the problem -- what could they possibly do to address the ills of the society at large?
Sure, he has problems. We all have problems. But when you make your problems somebody else's problems, you're still an asshole.
It would be great if one of his colleagues would pull him aside, explain some things to him with a LART, and suggest that he get a therapist and an Ok Cupid account. But that's not obligatory, and is definitely not the problem of the person to whom he's being an ass.
This just makes me sad for the industry as a whole. Unbelievable that in today's world women have to put up with this.
Guys, want to know how you can help change these kinds of attitudes? When you see/hear another guy make these kinds of comments, pull them aside and have a talk. Maybe it's a gentle reminder of how hurtful and counterproductive these kinds of attitudes are, or maybe it's a forceful "I never want to hear that shit again" - depends on the type of personality you're dealing with. Regardless, you need to have the difficult conversations with friends or colleagues who act this way, because turning a blind eye and ignoring the problem doesn't help anyone.
I think it has to be immediate and public. That doesn't mean severe or disrespectful. Everyone has to do it, but it certainly should be set up from the top down that this is unacceptable and will stop.
I applaud the author for sharing her feelings. I also note that she does not speak for all women. All we can do is share our own experiences.
I've been through many of these discussions: sexism, racism, ageism, and so on. After receiving many a rhetorical punch in the nose, I have a simple rule: I don't do it, I don't approve of it being done, if I am in management I stop it. I also don't let people yank me around by the emotional heartstrings. I reserve moral outrage for things like millions of people starving around the world, or slavery, or hundreds of millions dying of disease. Others are certainly capable of being moved by whatever they desire, but I find more harm being done by actual people dying than by the compound personality flaws of millions of my fellow citizens.
I don't mean that to be insensitive. Like I said, I am in complete agreement that this goes on and it must stop. Immediately. I'm just saying from prior experience I find that discussions like this never tend to go anywhere productive.
I hate those "lighten up" comments. Bullies just love that phrase. Put someone down and when they push back, "ah gee, lighten up, it was just a joke". It's extremely cowardly and disgusting and reminiscent of prepubescent school yard antics. Many women have to put up with such shit on a regular basis.
As an employee of the University of California, I'm compelled to take annual sexual harassment training, that is, how to identify situations and behaviors that constitute sexual harassment as it has been legally defined. A lot of what was mentioned in the post and in the comments here would be regarded as reportable offenses, if not prosecutable offenses. People should know the law - this stuff can get you in real trouble. If you're in California, this might apply [pdf]:
If you're not in California, but you're running a business you may find it quite interesting, eg:
Sexual harassment is unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or
physical conduct of a sexual nature, when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or
implicitly affects a person’s employment or education, unreasonably interferes with a person’s
work or educational performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive working or
learning environment. ... This policy covers unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.
Incidentally, according to interpretations of US and CA law, it is OK to do things like (politely) ask a co-worker out on a date. But, if they say no, you are supposed to get the hint, and if you continue to ask, you're opening yourself up to charges of harassment.
From the training I took, my understanding is that if the low-cut dress comment or comments like it was repeated in the presence of a manager, the manager would have to act in some way. (A manager has a duty to not allow a "hostile work environment".)
Depending on the specifics of who was at the meeting, it does not matter that the person in the dress didn't mind, because it's not just about conduct a specific person finds unwelcome, it's about a hostile work environment.
Some people up-thread are more in the wrong about this than they seem to realize.
This is true but pretty unhelpful. The problem is that involving official proceedings or the law almost always looks like overkill. In the aggregate, these events amount to a very serious problem, but individually each one doesn't feel like enough to be worth making it official. Nobody wants to be known as "the person who got someone fired for a comment about a dress", even if they were totally justified. Even normal, decent people are going to be wary of you if you end up with that reputation, deserved or undeserved.
That's the essence of the problem I think. It's a big problem, but it's hard to do anything about it without being seen to be overreacting.
"What do you say to the guy who sits across from you when you dress up and makes a comment to everyone about it? "Oop, Katie's got the low cut dress on today! I know where I'm sitting!"
Yikes! What sort of a place was this, what sort of people was she working with? I've never seen/heard anything remotely like this.
It is sort of hard to generalize from such morons to the whole tech field.
I can't seem to find a study which showed that while only %3 of men ever make such comments, women involved in our community experience this a steady stream of subtle harassment. And the sad fact is that this is due to the lopsided share of men to women.
If we had a 50/50 split some women would never hear such comments, some would hear then extremely rarely, while the percentage of men making them would stay the same.
And can we ever hope to get 100% of any large group anywhere, to never make occasionally offensive remarks? The crux here really is that this type of offensive remarks have only one target - women, and that combined with the lop-sided sex ratio results in harassment.
Dunno. I'm a woman, and I think that blog poster needs to lighten up.
I've worked in IT for years - usually as the only woman on the team - and I've never felt degraded or discriminated against for being female. Maybe slight prejudices in the beginning when the guys think I'm not as good as them, but I enjoy proving them wrong. There is banter, and sometimes it's not 100% HR approved, but I've never felt that it was mean spirited or intended to put me down. I've found that by and large, computer engineers are super-nice, funny, and respectful towards women.
The comment about the guy noticing her low-cut dress and wanting to sit near her... not entirely appropriate, but is this really bad enough to run to HR and complain? That said, I wouldn't feel comfortable drawing attention with my clothes, so I would never wear something low-cut. I find that a lightweight cotton dress shirt is more comfortable than a tight, low-cut top anyway. If someone asked me to arrange a pot-luck or bring them coffee, it would simply not be happening.
I'm on the East Coast though. Maybe all the disrespectful frat boy "brogrammers" are working on the West Coast?
My wife puts up with this all the time. She is an assertive and decisive businessperson, but is labelled "abrasive" and "a bitch" because she isn't meek, submissive and soft-spoken. The same behavior in males is encouraged and rewarded.
My parent's generation moved us past overt sexism; our generation needs to move us past subtle sexism. Otherwise, we are still wasting a large part of our human potential.
Honest question: Why is it so bad when guys treat gals like they're just one of the guys?
Guys give each other small disparaging jabs all the time, be it the workplace or a party between friends, it's what we do to fit in; it's how our social groups work and what keeps them together.
I've never been female, so I don't know what it looks like from their perspective, but to me telling a lass to go back to the kitchen is on the same level as telling a guy he should stick to computers because he sure as hell sucks at talking to girls.
Thanks for this. I’m going to be more aware of these kind of things and more watchful to make sure I don’t contribute to this myself and more observant of those around me.
Now, I have a question for the women here — sometimes I’ll hear a woman make the joke about belonging in the kitchen. Do you have insight into why that might happen sometimes and what the best sort of response would be?
Some women are secure enough that it bounces off when stupid people act stupid. Some are making meta-jokes about sexism and how backward comments like that are. Some are comfortable with the prototypical 50s-style gender roles that you abhor.
To know "what the best sort of the response would be," you'd have to know a lot about the person you're talking to and how they'll respond to your unsolicited advice, and no one on HN is going to be able to grant you that.
But then, I'm not too sympathetic to what strikes me as an arrogant desire to transform the primitive worldview of a thinking adult with your wet blanket nostrums. By all means intervene if someone's being demeaning to another person, but in the case of a woman making a kitchen joke, I doubt you're dealing with a neanderthal waiting to be shaken into the 21st century by sobering thoughts about how retrograde it is to even joke about such things.
Emotional fragility has got to be at an all-time high these days.
Heh. I have a blog post about that as well! Basically, some women do really believe in 'traditional' roles for women. Maybe they've benefited from the current situation. Maybe it's part of their upbringing. If that's why they're making the comment, feel free to call them out on it.
If they're doing it to be ironic (I know I have), then you can probably shrug it off. Many of us have learned to be subversively snarky to put off the ones above.
I'm not a woman, but my response in the past has always been: "Jeez, I wouldn't even joke about that."
You can be friendly and still express disapproval.
Context does matter, women do have more latitude in making that kind of joke, but it still isn't something I like having reinforced (lots of people suck at context).
Why would they do it on-purpose/non-ironically/non-sarcastically?
I've also known women to do it thinking that it will help them fit in. To be one of the guys. It really sucks to be excluded.
Women can also behave badly just like men do. If you work in a sexist environment, you can pick up those attitudes and become tone-deaf. Maybe they don't realize how much it can hurt other women to reinforce that sort of idea.
While I sympathize for the person, I can't help but wonder if it was the right decision. She's going to be facing the same problems in every male-dominated industry; is it worth giving up the thing you love? I can't answer, obviously, because I'm male, and in a different position besides that.
Thankfully, I've never run into this in real life. I've always worked with coworkers respectful of each other, and I can't imagine tolerating that kind of sexism without any confrontation. One would think people would learn to interact—or rather, which interactions are harmful—with people of different genders at a younger age.
While I agree that leaving the industry might not be the best choice (luckily she did not), we do need to realize that even though this happens in many other industries, IT is one with relatively few women in the first place so think of how lonely it could feel to be singled out and feel like nobody is on your side.
Until you feel that, you might empathize, but you can't relate. The easiest way to deal is to think about how you'd want your mother, sister, or spouse to be treated. If you wouldn't like it for them, don't ever stand by and do nothing when this stuff happens. Also, about losing a job or business...if you put a job or a client ahead of your ethics, it's time to do some self refactoring.
Being an ex-queer (bi ;) I've had to put up with my fair share of subtle jabs and general discomfort with my presence. After a long time I figured out that the only thing that worked for me was to be more dominant than 'them.'
The thing is, women (and queers) are fucking powerful, they're just powerful in a different way. Ironically, but not unsurprisingly, women are taught not to use this power as it's 'inappropriate.'
You see, men don't have a clue as to how group dynamics work. Women do and have been trained in this from childhood on as it is their 'arena' just as much as the sports field is ours.
When we enter the workforce however, suddenly 'fair' means fighting like it happens on the sports field, 'fair' means fighting the boys' fight.
In the workplace, open competitiveness and overt displays of hierarchical dominance (boy's game) are perfectly acceptable, but figuring out the motives of your enemy's friends, observing when he breaks them and subtly informing those friends about that in order to weaken his support base (girl's game) is considered 'nasty.'
When I finally accepted that this was bullshit, everything turned around for me.
Whenever someone did something like this to me, over the next few days several of his allies would get a quick visit from me with some nice small-talk and a little one-liner thrown in about how X hurt me by doing Y. Within days X would find himself somewhat more alienated, perhaps reprimanded slightly by one of his peers about Y, left to wonder what he did wrong.
Over time it was as if a subconscious message spread across the workfloor: "You'd better respect me. If you don't your life will become a lot harder and you'll have no idea how the fuck it happened."
Now for everyone who reads this and thinks my description of this is disgusting, please understand that I'm merely able to describe it this way as I've had the fairly unique perspective of having been a part of both 'worlds.' From a woman's perspective an in-depth analysis of mens' quest for dominance would sound equally messed up.
Just like very few men understand a woman's world, very few women understand a man's world.
TL;DR; Men and women establish hierarchies in different ways. Women have been taught their way is inappropriate in business. They should do it anyhow.
P.S. Funnily enough, after I started dating a girl and 'became straight,' the women on the floor suddenly started calling me out on this behavior and nudged me back into the 'male hierarchy.'
"In the workplace, open competitiveness and overt displays of hierarchical dominance (boy's game) are perfectly acceptable, but figuring out the motives of your enemy's friends, observing when he breaks them and subtly informing those friends about that in order to weaken his support base (girl's game) is considered 'nasty.'"
It is nasty. It's called passive-aggressiveness and it undermines honest communication in the workplace. It will make people unwilling to treat with you honestly. The fact that you think this form of behavior is more natural to women than men is actually quite sexist.
> men don't have a clue as to how group dynamics work
Do you think that those thousands upon thousands of (male) political leaders who climbed to the very tops of their social hierarchies -- from Crassus to Clinton, over thousands of years -- got there by pure luck without understanding how group dynamics work? How to make and break alliances? How to inform on their competitors?
Open competitiveness and overt dominance won out in our culture because they worked, not because alternatives were unavailable to men. Those traits allow to create stable organizations which went on and conquered the world, often literally. There's nothing stopping men from mastering intrigue, it's just very destructive, much more so than competitiveness and dominance, even fistfights will damage the group less than constant shifting and mind games.
To whatever extent the "girl's game" is such, it's largely because for centuries, female social hierarchies consisted of social groups of gossiping housewives and male social hierarchies consisted of business and politics--though the two certainly intersected when the wives of businessmen and politicians talked. (One notable intersection happened during the Andrew Jackson administration and ultimately led to the end of John Calhoun's vice presidency: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petticoat_affair)
Analogously speaking--just because whites held social power over blacks by virtue of better education doesn't somehow mean education itself is an artifact of white supremacy, it means that lack of education is an artifact of oppression. Likewise, having to passive-aggressively gossip in the background isn't some kind of feminine power, it's an artifact of oppression against women preventing them from speaking and acting more openly. If women are going to be peers and equals to men in a professional workplace, they should act like it.
I have to disagree. I've had to manage a team of around 40 people who compete nationally (not tech per se, but I believe the same applies in a work place), and it only takes one person with the behaviour you describe to completely wreck how everyone operates and gets along.
We went from a tight knit, supportive group to being watchful of what we say, wondering who's out to get us and generally having to "watch our backs". Loyalties were split, motives were changed and within a matter of weeks it was an incredibly poisonous atmosphere.
If you want to get ahead - be better than those you're competing against. Don't try to undermine them, it does get noticed and unfortunately - for a small personal gain you're causing a hell lot more damage without even realising.
My non-programmer friends and family are always bewildered when I tell them that I hope my daughter doesn't grow up to be a programmer. The reason why is because I'm afraid her life would be like the OP's. There is indeed a subtle sexism in our industry. That's why things like yesterday's Sqoot screwup happen so frequently.
Of course, every workplace is different and I'm sure there are plenty of places where women don't have to deal with the bullshit described in this article. However, they are far from the norm. I can see why the OP would want to leave the industry rather than be the person constantly reporting people to HR and lecturing them about proper behavior. It may be the right thing to do, but it's also extremely uncomfortable and just as likely to create an even more hostile working environment than before.
Would you enjoy working with this author, regardless of gender?
I work on a small team - just over 20 people - with only four women.
Every single one is a hilarious, self-possessed, confident individual. All the men, myself included, treat them with respect... meaning, we tease the shit out of them.
To do otherwise would exclude them from the team. Have you ever seen a cohesive group that didn't joke around? A tiny fraction of the jabs traded by men are HR-approved... if we filtered that for the women who work with us, we would be treating them as if they're too weak or too sensitive to be a part of the group.
So instead, we treat them no differently than any other team member. If one of the other coders were to arrive unusually dressed up, I would absolutely comment on it, regardless of whether it's a suit or a dress, but one of the ladies would probably beat me to it. Frankly, the women push the HR line harder than any of us guys, and we love them for it.
If you find that people are consistently telling you to "lighten up," whether you're male or female, you shouldn't assume that the world is conspiring to put you down. You're probably just no fun to work with.
Sounds like another argument for more people to read "How to Win Friends and Influence People"[1]:
For the people making sexist comments, there are lots of interesting stories and points in there. But obviously you can't force people to read the book, and expect any difference!
However, it is very applicable for the OP also. Take for example this overview of one chapter:
How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment:
Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
Let the other person save face.
Praise every improvement.
Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
Make the other person happy about doing what you suggest.
[+] [-] klausa|14 years ago|reply
First I'm like - "Woah, I can't imagine someone would be so insensitive to make joke like this!" and get all fed up and upset.
But then... then I freeze, because next example is something that I can imagine myself saying.
I... I'm at loss of words. I was trained during my teenage years, that it's cool to say things like that. As I'm getting older, I see how sexist and demeaning this is. But it's really hard to break this habit, and this "Hey, it's just meaningless joke, right?!" line of thought. I try, I really try, but sometimes I forget myself.On a similar note - I have exact same problem with how I perceive woman and man having multiple sexual partners. "Good key opens many locks, but good lock is opened by only one key" and all that bullshit - I know that it's ridiculous to hold woman and men to different standard in this regard, and I mostly learned to don't do that, but my... instinct that was ingrained in me by society tells me otherwise.
I find myself struggling to suppress my subconscious mind in this regard, and frankly, I don't know how I can help it.
Edit for clarity: I don't have problem with such posts being written and upvoted, quite opposite actually, I'm glad they are written and read. I have problem with how posts like this make me feel.
[+] [-] tptacek|14 years ago|reply
So I guess what I'm saying is thanks.
[+] [-] elptacek|14 years ago|reply
During the interview, I was interrupted while answering a question with, "I think I have a tick." My brain immediately thinks, "He's on eBay and has just won a copy of The Tick." But then he swivels the monitor around to show me a flesh-colored rectangle with a round, red area in the middle of it. I'm pretty sure that while we were talking, he stuck the camera into the back of his trousers and took the picture, as I recall seeing a flash and him fiddling with connecting the camera. However, it was my first interview in a long time, and I was very nervous about returning to paid employment after 6 years as a stay-at-home-mom.
What did I do? I gave him instructions for how to remove it. After all, I am a mom.
So... I've been "in technology" for a long time. In middle school, I picked the locks to let myself into the computer lab. In high school, I was the only female student in CS (also trigonometry and pre-calc). In college, I was the only female ever in the computer lab. I studied audio engineering -- which is a great deal less friendly to women (or was) than IT. I have dealt with a lot of weird situations that would not have occurred if I were male. On the plus side, I've never had to wait in line for the toilet.
This is my opinion: shit is going to happen and you have to roll with it. Given your life experience and temperament, this may be challenging for you. But if you want something bad enough, you'll find a way to get it, no matter how much shit you have to step in on the way.
My observations: men harass each other with equal or greater tendency than their female peers. Myself, I have said things to my male co-workers that have caused them to make the "that was inappropriate" flinch. Also, we can't squelch biology, no matter how smart we are -- if there are boobs in view, his lizard brain is going to notice them.
My hypothesis: men are socialized to shrug it off or suck it up, and may even become desensitized to it after a while. Women are socialized differently. To be frank, I don't completely "get women," even though I am one. Two events in my life have forced me to interact with large and varied groups of women, first being motherhood and second being roller derby training. I somehow managed to offend some of these women, and I'm never quite sure how I do it. But once it happens... they pretty much avoid me like I'm diseased. Anyone, male or female, who reacts to something unsavory in this way is simply going to have a harder time getting by in business. Or anything else, for that matter. Curiously, women seem to be much, much better than men at ignoring their lizard brain. Might be nature, might be nurture, but it is a definite advantage.
If I had a dollar for every time someone has told me to lighten up (or, in the case of my mom, Erliechda!), I'd be driving a Veyron around my private island. And sometimes it does weigh pretty heavily on me that, no matter how hard I bust my ass, there is always going to be some person who wants to write me off for attributes I cannot control. But that's where you learn who your friends are, right? There is a long list of people in my life who have plenty of respect for me, ask me for advice on stuff and things, and treat me like a regular human being. I prefer to be thankful for those people than let the rest drag me down.
Katie, you get nothing but empathy from me for how you feel, despite how critical this post may sound. I have a son and a daughter. The world does treat them differently. Nobody has ever "taken me aside" to tell me I am "going to have trouble" with my son when he gets older. It's flat out offensive to have a teacher deride my baby girl for being outspoken and spunky. It is painful to see what criticism does to her self-esteem. When someone IWASJUSTs you, they are being twice rude. So this is what I told both my kids, "If you had a $20, would you give it to $BULLY_NAME?"
"No," they responded.
Well, if you wouldn't give someone a $20, then don't give them the power to hurt your feelings.
[+] [-] bh42222|14 years ago|reply
Holly horror story!
Sadly I am not surprised to hear this, because I've heard many similar stories. And yet out of the very large number of male friends in the industry I have, including myself, none of us have ever or would ever do anything like that. The paradox here is answered by the fact that a tiny share of creeps will always be found in any sufficiently large set of humans. And the larger the set, the bigger the number of creeps.
Thus I think the only way to guarantee this kind of thing becomes part of the past is to radically increase the share of women in the industry.
Now, that doesn't prevent creeps from being creepy, but it does guarantee that the small number that they must be, can never be creepy to a large number of women.
This is kind of depressing as it basically assumes we can never completely get rid of creeps. But does anyone believe 100% proper behavior, from 100% of the people, 100% of the time is possible?
[+] [-] jiggy2011|14 years ago|reply
What the hell? How on earth did that happen, I really can't imagine why anyone would think that doing this could possibly have a positive income without having drunk a minimum of 5 beers.
[+] [-] troels|14 years ago|reply
I'm intrigued. How the heck did that scene play out? How exactly do one produce an image of his ass in an interview. How come he had one taken in the first place. So many questions ..
[+] [-] Jem|14 years ago|reply
Thank you for supporting your wife, thank you for teaching your daughter that she doesn't have to take this crap, and thank you for not being part of the problem in the first place.
[+] [-] kaybe|14 years ago|reply
edit: I haven't run into sexism yet (still a student, but a female in a male-dominated field) and I don't want to be the deer in the headlights when it happens for the first time. And it seems that it will happen, the way everyone talks about it.
[+] [-] benihana|14 years ago|reply
Why? Because you would have beat his ass? Cause you would have shown him what happens when he comes on to your woman? You would have had an unkind word with him? Do you not believe your wife can handle herself?
Trying to bash down a gender role by reinforcing another is pretty silly.
[+] [-] kevinalexbrown|14 years ago|reply
This, more than the jokes and comments, is the meat of the problem. Inappropriate jokes can be much more easily addressed as soon as they happen - if you're in a meeting and your boss asks you to 'please pull up your blouse because your wonderful breasts are distracting everyone' you can much more easily address it right then and there.
But if your boss asks you to take notes, the first couple of times it happens, it could just as well be random (though it isn't, really). It is much harder to say 'no, not taking notes, you only want me to do that because I'm a woman' even when it's true. What's worse is that even when you do notice a pattern, it's harder to address than a rude remark. It's (a) hard to prove it was because of your sex as opposed to some other aspect of your personality ('maybe he thinks you're just good at organizing potlucks, sheesh' - 'you took notes that first time so well!') and (b) behavior is much harder to correct when you have to point out things that happened in the past. 'I take notes 50% of the time, in a group of 5' just doesn't seem to have the same effect on humans, especially in a society where intent is often judged above effect.
I'm not a woman, but this is what it seems to me, from what I've observed.
edit: I can't find the study I was looking for, but they had a group of people evaluate two sets of identical resumes, with female and male names, for 'competence' and 'likeability'. For males, competence was correlated with likeability, but for females it was anticorrelated, even though the resumes were identical. Less people will think you an 'ice queen' if you call out an inappropriate remark, but countering the above form of sexism seems far more difficult to do while preserving 'likeability' -- 'what's the big deal, I just asked her to take notes!' If anyone else knows where the study is, I would be grateful.
[+] [-] mechanical_fish|14 years ago|reply
Of course, this may not be tempting, because you may be on the kind of team where you just know that, if you volunteer to do some thankless task, you'll be stuck with it forever. And that is an entirely different kind of problem. But it's a problem that should not be covered up by deploying sexism.
[+] [-] yelsgib|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blatherard|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] veb|14 years ago|reply
Had a new project manager/analyst join a few months ago, and he bakes a different cake for us each week. it's awesome. :)
[+] [-] lolilives|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ckpwong|14 years ago|reply
At my previous workplace, it's usually the host who sends out meeting notes or action items if needed. Otherwise, the task falls into the hands of the project manager, if one is present in the meeting.
[+] [-] yelsgib|14 years ago|reply
Yes, I feel sorry for this woman.
However, I also feel sorry for all male programmers. A lot of male programmers I've met have extremely pent-up sexual drives. A lot of them do not feel comfortable with women or society.
The prototypical male programmer was extremely nerdy in adolescence, had minimal interaction with women, and sex life - forget it. Now they are working in a job where they can just do what they like - program - and a woman comes along with all those pheremones and everything. And yes he acts awkward and crazy because holy shit there is a WOMAN who does what he does.
I fucking hate all of this talk about "manchildren" and "brogrammers" and whatever else. Stop essentializing the problem. Stop the man hate. Fucking hell.
Do you really think the man who said:
"Oop, Katie's got the low cut dress on today! I know where I'm sitting!"
is a happy, mentally-healthy, well-adjusted human being? Hmmm? Where's the compassion for him?
Why is our reaction to superficial wrongdoing so fucking immediate and moralistic? As if he's not a person with his own problems?
I'm at a loss for words, this whole clusterfuck makes me so angry.
[+] [-] theorique|14 years ago|reply
If you're experiencing this pushback from women in the profession as 'man hate' that's certainly your right. I view it more as listening to a professional colleague telling a story from her perspective. I'm not experiencing it as hate, more as hearing from a woman 'this is my perspective'.
Do you really think the man who said: "Oop, Katie's got the low cut dress on today! I know where I'm sitting!" is a happy, mentally-healthy, well-adjusted human being? Hmmm? Where's the compassion for him?
Perhaps he's a victim too - none of us know the full story and we can speculate until we're blue in the face. But wouldn't you agree that his actions are highly unprofessional, creepy, and personally discouraging to one particular woman, and part of a broader pattern of discouragement toward women in technology overall?
I'm at a loss for words, this whole clusterfuck makes me so angry.
So what do you recommend to fix the problem? Where will you direct all that energy that your anger has activated?
[+] [-] flatline|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wpietri|14 years ago|reply
It would be great if one of his colleagues would pull him aside, explain some things to him with a LART, and suggest that he get a therapist and an Ok Cupid account. But that's not obligatory, and is definitely not the problem of the person to whom he's being an ass.
[+] [-] maukdaddy|14 years ago|reply
Guys, want to know how you can help change these kinds of attitudes? When you see/hear another guy make these kinds of comments, pull them aside and have a talk. Maybe it's a gentle reminder of how hurtful and counterproductive these kinds of attitudes are, or maybe it's a forceful "I never want to hear that shit again" - depends on the type of personality you're dealing with. Regardless, you need to have the difficult conversations with friends or colleagues who act this way, because turning a blind eye and ignoring the problem doesn't help anyone.
[+] [-] MattRogish|14 years ago|reply
I take a page from the Results Only Work Environment: http://www.rowe.iambestbuy.com/sludge_busting.html
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|14 years ago|reply
I've been through many of these discussions: sexism, racism, ageism, and so on. After receiving many a rhetorical punch in the nose, I have a simple rule: I don't do it, I don't approve of it being done, if I am in management I stop it. I also don't let people yank me around by the emotional heartstrings. I reserve moral outrage for things like millions of people starving around the world, or slavery, or hundreds of millions dying of disease. Others are certainly capable of being moved by whatever they desire, but I find more harm being done by actual people dying than by the compound personality flaws of millions of my fellow citizens.
I don't mean that to be insensitive. Like I said, I am in complete agreement that this goes on and it must stop. Immediately. I'm just saying from prior experience I find that discussions like this never tend to go anywhere productive.
[+] [-] kitsune_|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] b_emery|14 years ago|reply
http://atyourservice.ucop.edu/employees/policies_employee_la...
If you're not in California, but you're running a business you may find it quite interesting, eg:
Sexual harassment is unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, when submission to or rejection of this conduct explicitly or implicitly affects a person’s employment or education, unreasonably interferes with a person’s work or educational performance, or creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive working or learning environment. ... This policy covers unwelcome conduct of a sexual nature.
[+] [-] mturmon|14 years ago|reply
Incidentally, according to interpretations of US and CA law, it is OK to do things like (politely) ask a co-worker out on a date. But, if they say no, you are supposed to get the hint, and if you continue to ask, you're opening yourself up to charges of harassment.
From the training I took, my understanding is that if the low-cut dress comment or comments like it was repeated in the presence of a manager, the manager would have to act in some way. (A manager has a duty to not allow a "hostile work environment".)
Depending on the specifics of who was at the meeting, it does not matter that the person in the dress didn't mind, because it's not just about conduct a specific person finds unwelcome, it's about a hostile work environment.
Some people up-thread are more in the wrong about this than they seem to realize.
[+] [-] robertskmiles|14 years ago|reply
That's the essence of the problem I think. It's a big problem, but it's hard to do anything about it without being seen to be overreacting.
[+] [-] Jun8|14 years ago|reply
Yikes! What sort of a place was this, what sort of people was she working with? I've never seen/heard anything remotely like this.
It is sort of hard to generalize from such morons to the whole tech field.
[+] [-] bh42222|14 years ago|reply
If we had a 50/50 split some women would never hear such comments, some would hear then extremely rarely, while the percentage of men making them would stay the same.
And can we ever hope to get 100% of any large group anywhere, to never make occasionally offensive remarks? The crux here really is that this type of offensive remarks have only one target - women, and that combined with the lop-sided sex ratio results in harassment.
[+] [-] OneBytePerGreen|14 years ago|reply
I've worked in IT for years - usually as the only woman on the team - and I've never felt degraded or discriminated against for being female. Maybe slight prejudices in the beginning when the guys think I'm not as good as them, but I enjoy proving them wrong. There is banter, and sometimes it's not 100% HR approved, but I've never felt that it was mean spirited or intended to put me down. I've found that by and large, computer engineers are super-nice, funny, and respectful towards women.
The comment about the guy noticing her low-cut dress and wanting to sit near her... not entirely appropriate, but is this really bad enough to run to HR and complain? That said, I wouldn't feel comfortable drawing attention with my clothes, so I would never wear something low-cut. I find that a lightweight cotton dress shirt is more comfortable than a tight, low-cut top anyway. If someone asked me to arrange a pot-luck or bring them coffee, it would simply not be happening.
I'm on the East Coast though. Maybe all the disrespectful frat boy "brogrammers" are working on the West Coast?
[+] [-] nikatwork|14 years ago|reply
My parent's generation moved us past overt sexism; our generation needs to move us past subtle sexism. Otherwise, we are still wasting a large part of our human potential.
[+] [-] Swizec|14 years ago|reply
Guys give each other small disparaging jabs all the time, be it the workplace or a party between friends, it's what we do to fit in; it's how our social groups work and what keeps them together.
I've never been female, so I don't know what it looks like from their perspective, but to me telling a lass to go back to the kitchen is on the same level as telling a guy he should stick to computers because he sure as hell sucks at talking to girls.
[+] [-] alanh|14 years ago|reply
Now, I have a question for the women here — sometimes I’ll hear a woman make the joke about belonging in the kitchen. Do you have insight into why that might happen sometimes and what the best sort of response would be?
[+] [-] Prophasi|14 years ago|reply
To know "what the best sort of the response would be," you'd have to know a lot about the person you're talking to and how they'll respond to your unsolicited advice, and no one on HN is going to be able to grant you that.
But then, I'm not too sympathetic to what strikes me as an arrogant desire to transform the primitive worldview of a thinking adult with your wet blanket nostrums. By all means intervene if someone's being demeaning to another person, but in the case of a woman making a kitchen joke, I doubt you're dealing with a neanderthal waiting to be shaken into the 21st century by sobering thoughts about how retrograde it is to even joke about such things.
Emotional fragility has got to be at an all-time high these days.
[+] [-] kcunning|14 years ago|reply
If they're doing it to be ironic (I know I have), then you can probably shrug it off. Many of us have learned to be subversively snarky to put off the ones above.
[+] [-] huxley|14 years ago|reply
You can be friendly and still express disapproval.
Context does matter, women do have more latitude in making that kind of joke, but it still isn't something I like having reinforced (lots of people suck at context).
Why would they do it on-purpose/non-ironically/non-sarcastically?
I've also known women to do it thinking that it will help them fit in. To be one of the guys. It really sucks to be excluded.
Women can also behave badly just like men do. If you work in a sexist environment, you can pick up those attitudes and become tone-deaf. Maybe they don't realize how much it can hurt other women to reinforce that sort of idea.
[+] [-] duaneb|14 years ago|reply
Thankfully, I've never run into this in real life. I've always worked with coworkers respectful of each other, and I can't imagine tolerating that kind of sexism without any confrontation. One would think people would learn to interact—or rather, which interactions are harmful—with people of different genders at a younger age.
[+] [-] kcunning|14 years ago|reply
It may exist in every industry, but this is the one I've chosen, and this is where I can start to make a change.
[+] [-] wilmoore|14 years ago|reply
Until you feel that, you might empathize, but you can't relate. The easiest way to deal is to think about how you'd want your mother, sister, or spouse to be treated. If you wouldn't like it for them, don't ever stand by and do nothing when this stuff happens. Also, about losing a job or business...if you put a job or a client ahead of your ethics, it's time to do some self refactoring.
[+] [-] jberryman|14 years ago|reply
1) I think I always imagine everyone here as a man, unless they identify themselves otherwise or I notice their username suggests they're female, and
2) reading the female voices here really gave me the sense of HN as a much richer, more interesting community
[+] [-] maco|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtrimpe|14 years ago|reply
The thing is, women (and queers) are fucking powerful, they're just powerful in a different way. Ironically, but not unsurprisingly, women are taught not to use this power as it's 'inappropriate.'
You see, men don't have a clue as to how group dynamics work. Women do and have been trained in this from childhood on as it is their 'arena' just as much as the sports field is ours.
When we enter the workforce however, suddenly 'fair' means fighting like it happens on the sports field, 'fair' means fighting the boys' fight.
In the workplace, open competitiveness and overt displays of hierarchical dominance (boy's game) are perfectly acceptable, but figuring out the motives of your enemy's friends, observing when he breaks them and subtly informing those friends about that in order to weaken his support base (girl's game) is considered 'nasty.'
When I finally accepted that this was bullshit, everything turned around for me.
Whenever someone did something like this to me, over the next few days several of his allies would get a quick visit from me with some nice small-talk and a little one-liner thrown in about how X hurt me by doing Y. Within days X would find himself somewhat more alienated, perhaps reprimanded slightly by one of his peers about Y, left to wonder what he did wrong.
Over time it was as if a subconscious message spread across the workfloor: "You'd better respect me. If you don't your life will become a lot harder and you'll have no idea how the fuck it happened."
Now for everyone who reads this and thinks my description of this is disgusting, please understand that I'm merely able to describe it this way as I've had the fairly unique perspective of having been a part of both 'worlds.' From a woman's perspective an in-depth analysis of mens' quest for dominance would sound equally messed up.
Just like very few men understand a woman's world, very few women understand a man's world.
TL;DR; Men and women establish hierarchies in different ways. Women have been taught their way is inappropriate in business. They should do it anyhow.
P.S. Funnily enough, after I started dating a girl and 'became straight,' the women on the floor suddenly started calling me out on this behavior and nudged me back into the 'male hierarchy.'
[+] [-] astine|14 years ago|reply
It is nasty. It's called passive-aggressiveness and it undermines honest communication in the workplace. It will make people unwilling to treat with you honestly. The fact that you think this form of behavior is more natural to women than men is actually quite sexist.
[+] [-] spindritf|14 years ago|reply
Do you think that those thousands upon thousands of (male) political leaders who climbed to the very tops of their social hierarchies -- from Crassus to Clinton, over thousands of years -- got there by pure luck without understanding how group dynamics work? How to make and break alliances? How to inform on their competitors?
Open competitiveness and overt dominance won out in our culture because they worked, not because alternatives were unavailable to men. Those traits allow to create stable organizations which went on and conquered the world, often literally. There's nothing stopping men from mastering intrigue, it's just very destructive, much more so than competitiveness and dominance, even fistfights will damage the group less than constant shifting and mind games.
[+] [-] philwelch|14 years ago|reply
Analogously speaking--just because whites held social power over blacks by virtue of better education doesn't somehow mean education itself is an artifact of white supremacy, it means that lack of education is an artifact of oppression. Likewise, having to passive-aggressively gossip in the background isn't some kind of feminine power, it's an artifact of oppression against women preventing them from speaking and acting more openly. If women are going to be peers and equals to men in a professional workplace, they should act like it.
[+] [-] dancesdrunk|14 years ago|reply
We went from a tight knit, supportive group to being watchful of what we say, wondering who's out to get us and generally having to "watch our backs". Loyalties were split, motives were changed and within a matter of weeks it was an incredibly poisonous atmosphere.
If you want to get ahead - be better than those you're competing against. Don't try to undermine them, it does get noticed and unfortunately - for a small personal gain you're causing a hell lot more damage without even realising.
[+] [-] scott_w|14 years ago|reply
I'd say the reason people find it "dirty" is the same reason dirty players get angry when they're fouled - they can't take what they dish out.
[+] [-] kpanghmc|14 years ago|reply
Of course, every workplace is different and I'm sure there are plenty of places where women don't have to deal with the bullshit described in this article. However, they are far from the norm. I can see why the OP would want to leave the industry rather than be the person constantly reporting people to HR and lecturing them about proper behavior. It may be the right thing to do, but it's also extremely uncomfortable and just as likely to create an even more hostile working environment than before.
[+] [-] strix_varius|14 years ago|reply
I work on a small team - just over 20 people - with only four women.
Every single one is a hilarious, self-possessed, confident individual. All the men, myself included, treat them with respect... meaning, we tease the shit out of them.
To do otherwise would exclude them from the team. Have you ever seen a cohesive group that didn't joke around? A tiny fraction of the jabs traded by men are HR-approved... if we filtered that for the women who work with us, we would be treating them as if they're too weak or too sensitive to be a part of the group.
So instead, we treat them no differently than any other team member. If one of the other coders were to arrive unusually dressed up, I would absolutely comment on it, regardless of whether it's a suit or a dress, but one of the ladies would probably beat me to it. Frankly, the women push the HR line harder than any of us guys, and we love them for it.
If you find that people are consistently telling you to "lighten up," whether you're male or female, you shouldn't assume that the world is conspiring to put you down. You're probably just no fun to work with.
[+] [-] dazbradbury|14 years ago|reply
For the people making sexist comments, there are lots of interesting stories and points in there. But obviously you can't force people to read the book, and expect any difference!
However, it is very applicable for the OP also. Take for example this overview of one chapter:
[1] - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influenc...