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Comment by raducu | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of a previous workplace.

An otherwise cool female coleague kept making claims people were misogynistic, at first I thought she was joking or that she did have some claim, because someone made an unintentional mysoginistic joke.

Then I left the company, and I talked with an ez coleague who was promoted as a team lead.

The guy was into some new age stuff, about helping everyone, and she was slaking/not interested; the higher ups wanted to fire her.

Not my friend, he really believed in her.

When it was clear she was about to be fired, she complained about him to the HR, that he's sexist and all that.

That guy was the least sexist guy I've ever met and the only one caring for her.

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> someone made an unintentional mysoginistic joke

"mysoginistic" in the sense of "I literally hate women" or in the sense of "I think women are less capable than men" or "I liked a physical feature of her"?

There's more to choose from, the list of things that are called "misogyny" nowadays has gotten incredibly expansive.

I think the concept is pretty straightforward? It's if you believe women < men generally (not like, avg(women height) < avg(men height)).

The last one, "I liked a feature of her" is not misogynistic absent of context. The context here is really important. It's like saying "I like your haircut". Did I pass up promotion for another person in a non-modeling job because they had a shitty haircut?

I think the problem was the "unintentional" part, which seems to be contradictory.

I clarrified it, basically someone made a remark/joke that is clearly sexist, but he never displayed sexism at all.

It was just unprofessional I would say.

For instance I can appreciate a dark joke that would clearly be sexist/racist/antisemitic/homophobic, I can even reproduce it in a like-minded circle of people, and I still don't consider myself sexist/racist/homophobic.

Not sure I understand the analogy. You mean speaking professionally in a professional context is not (should not be?) misogynistic. Then is it not a little strange that you're commenting on a person's haircut, who is not applying for a modeling job for which they're required to cut their own hair?

You seem to be implying that it's not professional to mention a haircut. What is unprofessional about it?

I've had my haircut mentioned at work… because I'd had a haircut. It's people trying to be nice or make conversation, and neither of those things are unprofessional.

Parent comment seemed to mention promotions based on appearance? Something else?

I understand your point, of course, but it does not actually explain theirs.

Fair enough, I should've taken that into account.

I work from home so the only person who remarks on my hair is my wife, and her comments, if overheard, might pass for misandry. I'm trying to forment a Twitter mob against her in response.

You are right that context is everything, but it works both ways.

You can make a sexist joke without being sexist, but it can still be inapropriate/unprofessional, and it can still cost you dearly.

You are right, I should have said sexist joke.

I witnessed such a joke, from a brogrammer -- he thought it was funny, but noone else did, especially knowing how sensitive the female coleague was -- someone broke a pot of plants and he said "Why should we clean it, we have plenty of women around here" -- I just know the guy, the tone of his voice, and so forth, and I know he just tried to be funny, but at the end of the day, that was a sexist remark, we knew it, he knew it after he said it, he should have apologized, but he didn't.

But that was the only instance that struk me as sexist, and the guy always helped female coleagues, in no way did see any other "bad behavior" from him, it was just that guys generally have thicker skins when it comes to jokes and jabs, and he was usually very friendly, I've worked in male teams that were outright toxic, he was nothing like that.

Even that example is very suspect - lampooning sexism is not sexism.

It's a very, tired joke, and context matters. Like how jokingly saying "call over one of the nerds, they'll sort it out" regarding a difficult problem would be okay in a technology company, but on the risky side (as in, likely to cause a bad feeling) in high school.

Of course, high school kids haven't learned etiquette and don't care, but we want to hold higher standards in the workforce.

I agree context matters, which is why the context from the second paragraph of the parent comment is rather important.

If you take a step back, you could actually look at this as a sign of progress in society. Things are moving enough for sexism to be a concern to a company - even if it's for cynical reasons and it has been weaponised by a dishonest person. Progress is bumpy and people can end up suffering during a transition.

This could easily be made into hilarious copypasta

The problem is what is good for society can hinder progress in certain individuals, as in this case.

It's not just a regular weapon, being acused of sexism or sexual harassment or God forbid rape is a nuclear weapon, it can do such tremendous damage to an innocent man with zero damage to the one making false allegations that there's no wonder men a really careful.

We have reached a local peak for sexual equality, but I don't think it is possible to move forward as long as mens lives can be completely destroyed by false allegations.

> The problem is what is good for society can hinder progress in certain individuals, as in this case.

That was exactly my point.

Sexism in the workplace has gone from normalised, to being recognised as a potential issue, to having a process which can deal with it all within my lifetime. To expect a perfectly executed deescalation undoing hundreds of years of history across all of society is disingenuous.

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