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Comment by lc9er | Hacker News Reader

I feel like this is genuine take. I don’t know your age or anything other that what you wrote, so I’ll relate my experience.

I saw many of these same initiatives beginning as I was moving through high school and college. Being young and generally feeling like I treated people fairly, I assumed that most of the world treated others the same. Sexism seemed antiquated.

Fast forward a couple of decades and the women in my life still get second-guessed, mansplained, faced lowered expectations, and/or past over for promotions.

Some of it is blatant sexism. Some of it is sexism-light, where not being part of the boys’ club leaves them excluded from the power-clique. They still have a markedly different professional experience than I do, because they are women.

Is there a better way to handle this than what you described? Maybe. But I don’t think the need for such support mechanisms has expired yet.

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The unfairness of the system you describe, also happens to other men who don't get promoted or don't have time for side projects, or comment on HN, and aren't in the same clique, etc. Maybe we should target the core problem, instead of making it about gender.

>the women in my life still get second-guessed, mansplained, faced lowered expectations, and/or past over for promotions.

My wife works for a non-profit. Her supervisor (a woman) was up for a promotion. She has worked at the place for 5 years. A guy who was newly hired 2 years back was also up for the promotion but he had more experience for the role (he had worked at a bigger firm and had done work at higher levels before, it's a legal nonprofit).

These were the only two up for the role. It's between work experience and time with the organization. Whichever you value more will probably determine who you choose. The big boss (a woman) ended up choosing the man over the woman for the job.

The woman was qualified. No doubt. For my wife and her supervisor, this was another example of sexism, women getting passed over for promotions again. But for the big boss (a woman) or for someone else on the outside, it's not so clear. Her leg up was her experience in the org. His leg up was his experience from other orgs.

When looking at a situation like this, how can you prove this is sexism? For someone it will be proof positive of sexism. For another it won't be.

Explicit, institutional sexism towards males is easy to spot out. Towards women, it takes this form, where you can't honestly say you 100% know it's sexism.

So what do you do then?

Over smaller sample size of 1 jumping to conclusions is not in good faith.

if the superboss has done this consistently in the past, then your wife's supervisor has grounds[1]. However with a sample size of 1 , it could be hundred factors and it is unfair to accuse anyone .

[1] Even when is there larger sample it is nuanced and tricky to really say, unless the superboss explicitly favours women there are inherent biases in the system against them, for example amount of mandatory maternity leave u.s. offers is pitiful, there are lesser women in STEM etc, the super boss selection criteria may be biased because of underlying biases not necessarily her own. Doesn't mean she should get a free pass, It should be investigated/reviewed before jumping to the conclusion of labelling someone sexist.

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