[FuzzyDunlop]

There's a startling lack of empathy here. Overcoming feelings of isolation and trying to get more involved is easier said than done for some, and the whole concept of taking something by the horns and just fucking dealing with it, or offering advice by 'telling it like it is' is astonishingly unhelpful to anyone who feels upset or down because of something. Not just sexism, or isolation, but depression, anxiety, loneliness, and all manner of things which will cause a person to feel like they're on the outside looking in, or beyond reproach.

The entire post cries out for such an empathetic response and I'm not surprised in the slightest that none is forthcoming in this thread.

I've had experiences myself relating to this attitude to things, and know that posts like this are incredibly difficult to write, and the emotions are difficult to discuss. I'm glad the author found the courage to publish it.

[overgryphon]

I'm not trying to say that she should "just deal with it". These are legitimate feelings and struggles, but they have nothing to do with sexism. Her attributing these problems and feelings to sexism prevents any actual discussion of how to effectively address these feelings because that's sexist, obviously she plays no role in this if it's because of her gender.

She's victimizing herself, and by association all of the other women in tech who only work with men. Honestly, I'm a bit defensive here because I'm tired of being told by other women that any problem I encounter at work is because of my gender.

Getting involved is hard, and takes practice. Same goes for mentoring others. Had she simply wrote about those struggles, the comments would be filled with similar anecdotes and empathy from all the people in HN who have been there regardless of gender.

But claiming all of these feelings are because of her gender is, well, sexist.

[jacalata]

It sounds like you are so defensive that you're not willing to recognise that any problems could be because of their gender, which is just as likely to be wrong as the people who insist that all problems are because of gender. How do you know that she wasn't a perfectly capable lead with team members who didn't take her seriously because she was female? Do you literally believe that's an impossible scenario?

From the article, while I can't judge her abilities as a lead, at least part of her problems were to do with feeling like she was being treated differently because she was a woman and having no way to verify this. If she was one of a number of women, then it would be much easier for her to check on that feeling and see if it was true. When you are the only one of your kind, you can't look for people with similar backgrounds to look for correlations, so you can't really tell if there is a pattern or not. If I thought that it was completely unrealistic and impossible for any developers to be sexist, then I might write this story off as entirely her own neuroses - but I am not convinced that is the case.

(also, given the numerous comments along the lines of 'you don't like assholes well get out of tech then', I suspect she would have hit pushback no matter how she phrased any stories of struggles with dealing with assholes)