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Comment by smoody | Hacker News Reader

I know exactly what you're talking about. I once worked for a software company where the female engineers/managers way outnumbered the male engineers. It became known as a friendly place for female engineers to work and that, in turn, attracted more female engineers.

But that's not my point. My point is, at that company, I would often go to engineering meetings (with five to seven other people) where I was the only man in attendance. And I can tell you without a doubt that it was hard to get my opinion heard and I felt isolated.

So, I completely agree with your argument. You don't know what it's like until you've been there.

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I'm a man, and I've worked as an ER/ICU nurse for the past 15 years. Being a gender FOO in a gender BAZ dominated industry can be unpleasant and challenging at times.

Not to complain, but to make the point:

* I almost got expelled from nursing school because of what I believe was discrimination towards men. I've talked to other men who've had similar experiences.

* I worked on a unit where my charge nurse repeatedly called me a "boy nurse".

* I am frequently referred to as "one of those male nurses".

* Many patients have asked me, "are you going to go on to be a doctor". When I tell them that I'm not, I hear, "Oh." and get a surprised, concerned look.

* I've had my ass pinched/slapped by coworkers. (I'm married. It's not appreciated)

* I had a coworker ask me to help with her, "fertility problems" and don't I look just like her boyfriend.

* Last week, I had a coworker come behind me and start braiding my long hair. I had to tell my coworker that I don't like people messing with my hair. Can you imagine if I did that to a female coworker at Google, IBM or Ford?

* I'm frequently around when women trade child birthing stories, or hear coworkers talk about their menstrual cycles.

* I've had bosses talk to me about how men don't really do foo very well as nurses.

* I'm frequently asked to "be a big, strong man and help me move my patient". I have back problems from 15 years of being asked to do things because of my size and gender.

* I've often been asked to care for hostile, combative, drunk or otherwise chemically altered patients, because I'm a "big, strong man".

I could go on.

Let's just say that I'm happy to mentor any man that comes into this profession. There are certain tricks of the trade that will help a lot that I've picked up along the way. And, there are benefits to being a man in this profession as well.

If the gender FOO's want to get together and help each other out or talk about how to deal with being FOO around so much BAZ... More power to them.

I'm a bit confused about the last two points. If you were a big strong female would they not have asked you to help move patients or take care of hostile patients? Were you asked to help with physical tasks because you are a man or because you are strong?

I suppose that's a good point.

In thinking about it, however, I haven't noticed when working in an ICU that stronger women are asked to care for the 400+ lb patients more often.

It is a fairly common occurrence, however for men to be asked to care for certain patients because "men are stronger". I've also been told by women that they are glad to have more men in the industry because "men are stronger".

I could be wrong, but I struggle to think of an instance where it would be okay for me to to categorize female coworkers as being inherently better or worse because of a physical attribute, however.

Somehow, I've managed to have more women bosses than men bosses in my programming career. I've never had a problem communicating with them, or felt uncomfortable voicing my opinion. I suppose that's different, though, than having the coworkers mostly female, too.

Mind you, I am not saying that I have any complaints about my own experience. The women in question have been good bosses, and mostly have let me use my own judgment in deciding how to complete the tasks assigned to me. For those of us programming as an employee, for the most part I think this is all we really want.

Maybe this is why I have a hard time accepting programs that seek to pump indifferent women into computer science/programming fields. I can't relate to the idea that women are discriminated against in this field when, more often than not, it has been a woman telling me what to do. For what it's worth, most of these women seemed more than happy to let others do the implementation and make technical decisions, while they focused more on the parts of the work that require human interaction. This is not to say that they did not understand the technical questions or were incapable of doing the implementation, just that it did not seem to interest them as strongly as the inter-personal aspects.

Having said that, I don't have any objections to this program being offered to help women entrepreneurs. I agree with the sentiments expressed elsewhere that men in women dominated fields find the same need to talk to men who have "been there" and can relate to the minority experience.

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