For example, the supervisor jumping to her defense. What did he say, exactly? Or failing that, what was the situation, how did he defend her? All we get is that he defended her, and she interpreted it as being sexist...sometime later.
It's pointless to make a pretence of scrutinising the article when it's obviously impossible for her to prove beyond all doubt that her recollection of events is accurate. Just believe it or don't. Don't go asking "where's the proof??", as if you are expecting her to have videotape evidence for all of this.
But, there's several stories in there where a direct quote of what was said to her would be more enlightening than her interpretation as to the motive behind what was said. Or failing a direct quote...how about just the basis of his "defense" of her. Did he call out the high quality of her work (seems fine), or did he say to lay off because she was fragile (seems not fine), or what?
Her supervisor is a real person too, and I don't see why it's okay to post a public accusation without some detail other than just interpretation...what you think his intention was.
Edit: You keep saying I don't believe her. Didn't say that. It is, however, a post of public accusations, almost all based on something that was said....without a single direct quote of what was said, or even enough detail to understand why she interpreted them the way she did. That's odd to me, whether I believe her or not.
There's a big difference between "excruciating detail" and "almost no detail, and not a single direct quote".
I see nothing odd in her leaving out direct quotations. She's telling us about a problem. She's not submitting evidence to a tribunal. However much detail she gives, you'll just say that it's not enough according to some arbitrary standard.
"One day, foldr jumped to my defense at a team event, in an awkward display of sexism."
You don't feel like there should have been a quote of what you said? Or lacking that, a little more detail as to why jumping to her defense was sexist? Like, that you defended her by saying the team should lay off because she's female? What if you defended her by calling out her high quality work? Is jumping to someone's defense somehow automatically an awful thing to do?
Edit: For what it's worth, I do believe that she was treated in a sexist way by some people there. I think, however, she may be projecting that onto other people that did not. I might feel differently if there were enough detail.
That sounds like you're saying the supervisor didn't do anything wrong, but rather that your coworkers took a reasonable gesture the wrong way? If so, that doesn't really jive with "One day, one of my supervisors jumped to my defense at a team event, in an awkward display of sexism"
I'm really not trying to be confrontational, just trying to understand. Is it that the "jumped to defense" thing was clearly sexist? Not asking for a direct quote, but what was the basis of the defense...something gender related, or the high quality of your work, or something else?
Personally, I don't just take someone at their word. As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, in this case you seem reluctant to give any evidence. Can't you see how that might make some people a little suspicious, especially if they've observed this sort of thing before?
But the way you talk about him totally is. You shouldn't defend people who give you undeserved favors at the cost of others, if this is what he did. And you absolutely shouldn't be surprised by the consequences, if you do.
Your coworkers may have felt equally threatened by this supervisor as you did by them. Associating yourself with people like him will do you no good.
> I feel like you are totally missing why I wrote this piece by focusing on one sentence.
No doubt. People have their own agendas to play, not everybody will support yours.
that's called "blaming the victim". how do you not "associate" yourself with your own supervisor ??
And maybe my yesterday post was too harsh. I take your word that you don't want favors. But be careful with how you present this guy - I doubt that he was exactly awkward, sexist, equal and fair all at the same time :) And you wouldn't want to give appearance of rationalizing somebody who actually happens to be unfair to others, that's what I wanted to say.
That's fair enough. For what it's worth, I do have sympathy, and I do believe that some people treated her in a sexist manner.
I disagree, and that's not what I intended with my use of the word "just". It seemed to me like the poster was saying "look, no sexism here in this sub-incident" and I meant that your post wasn't just about sexism, it was about harassment.
Providing detail would actually advance the cause of fighting harassment. It would better help everyone identify its specific forms even at companies that have diversity programs in place. In light of that, absence of detail should absolutely warrant inquiry.
> One day, one of my supervisors jumped to my defense at a team event, in an awkward display of sexism.
He was treating you with respect and you think it was sexist? As a male manager of female employees, what am I even supposed to do?
Extracting information from self-contradictory accounts is a bit of a black art, but this being said my guess is that he actually did something to deserve these labels just the OP isn't comfortable discussing it in detail. So calm down :)
I have to say, if the OP is comfortable in making these very grave accusations but not comfortable enough to explain what happened but just to give her assessment of the situation; it doesn't do her credibility any good.
There are a number of red flags noted throughout the comments, and much of this criticism has been met with "omg so horrible you have to believe the victim". This is a very worrying trend that will only lead to polarizing individuals into either of the hate camps; where those that rush to sympathize will create fertile grounds for false accusations and those who feel are being deceived are going to be desbelieving of actual victims.
It seems to me that the OP deliberately avoids naming concrete people and publishing whatever paper trail she has. Which is probably a good thing, after some known cases of one-sided accounts published completely with details and real names resulting in lynch mobs against the accused and sometimes also against the victim. Discussion forums are not a court, which is where you submit this kind of papers to "prove" things to one another in slightly more civilized and controlled conditions.
If you read the previous comments, she brought it up as proof that her statements were sincere.
And this is very much the "court of public opinion", which is why the author wrote this post and chose to publish it here. People will make their own judgment with direct consequences. For an accusation of this level when the story has many holes and all we have is one side, some proof is needed. If anyone's reputation can be trashed forever with an improbable accusation, any civility you speak of is doomed.
The background assumptions behind this sort of comment strike me as weird. It's as if you think that women themselves aren't able to tell whether or not they're being harassed, and this can only be determined by an online panel of (mostly) male nerds who have no direct knowledge of the relevant events. I.e., please tell us more details so we can figure out for you if you're actually being harassed or if you're just a crazy female.
It is the difference, though, between accepting a conclusion, and seeing the path that led there.
"This guy is incompetent because he writes insecure code"
vs
"He often wrote code that would allow untrusted input, of undetermined size, into a fixed size buffer. This behavior caused me to question his competence."
vs
"<the actual code, dumped here>. He was constantly checking in code like this, or worse. I question his competence."
The first requires you take the author's conclusion at face value. The second and/or third give you a better idea of why they got there, which makes it more credible.
And, while no names were named, there's enough contextual clues that I'm sure many at Apple know who's being talked about. So, it's less about "you're a crazy female" and more about "lots of people are being called sexist here (one supervisor, several coworkers), would be more comfortable with that if there were more detail".
I think she made a convincing case, but maybe you dont think so. But adding a direct quote would hardly do much.
I personally wonder if using a voice recorder would be appropriate in these cases. It's legally complex, because I dont think you can always legally record someone without their permission. But just having that kind of evidence, to play back to HR, to an attorney, a court, or even youtube, could be quite powerful.