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Comment by grace_engineer | Hacker News Reader

Hello, I am Grace. Please include women in the workplace. Talk to us. Don't omit us.

If you aren't sure if it's HR appropriate to talk to women at your workplace please check with your HR team.

I hope your HR team will encourage you to talk to women and ask what they like or dislike about their day-to-day. If they mention concerns or problems they’re having, I hope your HR team will encourage you to ask if there’s any way you could help make it better.

We are engineers answering from different countries. Different countries have different cultural norms and laws.

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I have a lot of respect for the concepts discussed here, but as a side note "check with your HR team" is a pretty bad idea in most cases. As it's often said, HR is there to protect the company. Not to help employees. Approaching HR with the question "Is it ok to talk to women?" is going to make that HR employee make a note in your file that you're potentially causing a harassing environment and there's documentation of you specifically targeting female employees. Not to mention, it sounds like a loaded a question. The type of thing someone would ask after a woman sounded offended or rebuked him, and the guy is going to HR to try to preemptively do damage control and get his side of the story out first.

Don't go to HR with your problems, it can only hurt you. If you're the victim of something inappropriate in the workplace, seek outside legal advice and follow their direction in communicating with HR.

Seconded, I have never worked at a company where talking to the HR team was a good idea for any reason.

If you are thinking about it you should probably seek a lawyer because they are not your friend.

Taking to HR is like talking to the cops. It's only a good thing when you have the grievance.

Even then they can probably nail you for something if they're so inclined.

Agreed, HR exists to protect the company, nothing else.

Nothing related to gender, but I once had a coworker at a mid-sized company angrily threaten me in his cubicle: "if we weren't in the office, I would slit your throat." I immediately went to HR about it and literally the first thing they asked me after I told them was "can anyone corroborate your story?" I couldn't since nobody overheard us, so I was screwed. It was the only time in my life that I actually feared for my life from another human being -- especially since I tried to report him. I walked to my car with a friend that night, fearing he'd be waiting for me in the parking lot.

This coworker had received complaints for other issues from others in my department as well, but the company just didn't act. He remained there until he finally was fired for incompetence.

You should have talked to the police too.

I second this. Grace's advice to include women is good. Going to HR is risky. My strategy is to just treat everyone about the same as well as I can. Make sure the pattern is clear in people's minds. Helps if any disputes, esp false claims, make it to HR. I hang out with them, too, if they're alright. I learn from the good ones. Anyway, it has side benefit that they mentally compare their experiences around me with what they hear. Should match.

Aside from wives, other elephant in the room: accusations of harassment, sexual or otherwise. So easy to make. I'd be curious to quantify the chilling effect this has on office relations.

> If you aren't sure if it's HR appropriate to talk to women at your workplace please check with your HR team.

In what workplace is it not appropriate to speak to someone else?

I agree, HR, or talking to a lawyer about the cultural norms and laws is super important. I've seen a few guys with good intentions to help our struggle, but just not socially savvy get in trouble, and just become super bitter against women.

>If you aren't sure if it's HR appropriate to talk to women at your workplace

I'm not sure what you mean by this. What's the meaning of "HR appropriate"?

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