Things My Male Tech Colleagues Have Actually Said to Me, Annotated
the-toast.net
the-toast.net
I mean I have known some dicks here and there that would really think the annotated version, but I have never met one that would say it out loud. They would just do the usual unprovable discrimination: lack of advancement, being a dick in the evaluation, failing interviews, lack of raise ... the usual silent career killers that women ( and foreigners, ... ) face. I have heard of some bosses being afraid that a women would go on maternity leave, but they would not ask - they would just assume there is a risk and find whatever other excuse ( and there are so many in our fields )
We have been planning interview strategies with my wife, so that she would subtly let it known that she is happy with the number of kid we have and that she is 100% in the job without being prompted - because she won't be.
Personally those are the kind of stuff I would like not to have to do. I'm more in favour of controversial stuff like quota of women in tech, than focusing on PC like "dongle" drama. If a big chunk of your bosses and colleague are women, I can't of somebody stupid enough to say shit like in the article.
“Most girls aren’t into this kind of stuff.” - if you are a programmer you should know that statistically, yes, most girls are not into "this kind of stuff". Nothing offensive.
“You got it! Clever girl!” - I could see myself going to a colleague tapping him on his head and saying "Clever boy."
“You don’t mind if we call you a ‘chick,’ do you?” - I don't imagine anyone asking. That's quite over-polite. Male equivalent - "dude".
“How did you learn to do all this?!” - don't see any gender bias whatsoever. Pretty impressive. Compliment.
“Wow, you’re pretty strong!” - again, compliment. Guys talk about their muscles all time, this only shows gender equality!
“No, when I complain about ‘geek girls,’ I don’t mean you. You’re a real geek.” - ok, this one, he's just trying not to offend you.
“He told me it sounds like we’ve got a new hot chick working here. I was like ‘yeah, man.’” - hot = good!
“But—you’re way too nice to be a lesbian!” - probably haven't met any lesbians. You're first and creating the image, you should be proud of yourself. Next time he meets one he won't say that.
“You know about making coffee, right?” - I have no idea how to make coffee, I make men always do it for me.
“Let me know when you want to do that so I can help you. No offense, but you just don’t know enough about it to try it on your own.” - why would you assume he is saying that because you are a women. It only means you are insecure about that fact.
“I had this female boss once, and I know I’m not supposed to say this, but I could totally tell when it was her time of the month.” - I am sorry, but I am really fucking annoying when on period and I do go around telling people: "Sorry if I'm pissed off, it's the time."
“See, that’s the great thing about you, I know I can tell ‘offensive’ jokes around you and you won’t care.” - why are you smiling then, if you are offended? I'm sure they'd stop if you told them.
“You and my wife could mud-wrestle naked.” - I am bi and I'd take that as a compliment.
“You’re a girl, but you’re not, like, a girl-girl, y’know?” - the fact that someone is not attracted to you is not the end of the world.
These interpretations are really valuable in identifying how a lot of these original comments may well be clumsy attempts at delivering a compliment, often from men who might feel as if they're walking on eggshells. On the other hand, the reason I posted is that even where such comments are well-intentioned, they can often signal a discounting of the female colleague's other abilities.
I've become more sensitive to this since an experience a couple of years on a film I was working on. Film sets are broadly gender-neutral. sure, there are more female make-up artists and male grips and camera operators, but those tend to be reflective of cultural and physical differences rather than institutionalized (more women have experience of dealing with makeup from an early age, it's easier for men to wrangle heavy lighting equipment or weighty 35mm cameras). I've met many people of the opposite gender to the one that might be expected, and the general attitude is 'if you know what you're doing it doesn't matter who you are.' I've never heard anyone express the idea that women can't be cinematographers, or this or that.
However, on this project, we had an actress who was cast in a sort of femme fatale role, and her best known credit was an appearance in a highly sexualized context on a cable TV series. And she was very, very hot - she's appeared as a model in a variety of men's magazines (the sort where they show hot women in expensive bikinis or underwear rather than actual nudity). To my surprise, a ton of people, including some other women, projected all their stereotypes of the 'bimbo' image on this actress and though everyone was formally polite (as far as I could tell) She was discussed int he abstract as nothing more than a hot body, along with general critiques of her intellect, acting ability and so on.
I had little contact with her during the shoot (short schedule + working as a department head = constantly busy), and my impression at the time was that she was perfectly smart but very stressed, which I put down to the working atmosphere that was created around her (and which was different on days when she wasn't on set - you get a feel for these things). The final straw was on the last evening, when there was a fight/action scene in which she was involved. As soon as she showed up, the lead actor just stood up and explained how it should all go down and how he would do all the work etc.
I didn't blow a gasket about it because we had a limited amount of time, although I remonstrated with the producers and director about it, but they didn't want to slow things down. I wasn't remonstrating to be noble, but because the actress had black belts in more than one martial art, had studied in China, and had numerous credits as a fight coordinator, far more experience in this specialization than anyone else on the set. She also had a degree cum laude from a prestigious university in a challenging subject and a bunch of other accomplishments, and yet most of the cast and crew were treating her as little better than a mannequin.
tl;dr many of the original comments might have a positive intent, but unfortunately it's all to easy to be positively dismissive of someone's actual abilities without really intending to.
This one is a repost, by the way.