Women engineers get real about the worst sexism they’ve experienced at work

We have to be careful to identify genuine sexist behavior, and call it out, but also acknowledge that not every bad experience for a woman is based on sexism. Not every bad experience for a gay man is because of homophobia.

I have worked as a programmer for 25 years and I can assure every woman out there that men often treat other men very badly. I have seen programmers go ape shit because someone changed their code. Deliberately criticize another's work in front of a group in order to undermine them. Men play politics and undercut other men to boost their own reputation and career chances.

Some of the twitter comments identify sexist situations but some look to me like a man being a douche for reasons that might have nothing to do with sexism. We do not want to develop a culture where any comment to a woman/gay is always interpreted as sexism/homophobia. Let's not allow the pendulum to swing from one extreme to the other.

Back in my day they just taught us we weren't allowed to make women feel bad about getting opportunities they didn't earn. Guess it didn't work?