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> Kimberly wrote, “Two girls in a group had been working on the robot we were building in that class for hours, and the guys in their group came back in and wit

by hashkb 10y ago

> Kimberly wrote, “Two girls in a group had been working on the robot we were building in that class for hours, and the guys in their group came back in and within minutes had sentenced them to doing menial tasks while the guys went and had all the fun in the machine shop.” I see this all the time. Women don't feel able to confront men about things like this. Without speculating as to why, I'll say that when I've seen women hit back ("like a man would") it often works. It sucks but you sort of have to engage men on their level, which means meeting aggression with aggression. People are always going to try to take advantage of each other, and men respect aggression.

parennoob 10y ago
Note that this is a self-report. Without actual data, it loses a large part of its significance. Here is my self-report (also admittedly insignificant) -- when I was at college doing machine shop projects, there would be few girls who would enthusiastically volunteer for the machine shop. So the guys would have some misguided chivalrous instinct to say "Okay, I'll do the machine shop work", because they thought they were expected to. Even most American men I know today would be diffident about saying something like, "Hey Jessica, I notice you've been signing up for doing reports for the last two projects; do you want to work in the machine shop for this one instead while I do the reports?" The outcome of this is the exact same as your reported incident, but the motivations are different. My solution would be to make sure women know that they are expected and encouraged to sign up for tasks involving a lot of physical labor and possibly danger (a machine shop isn't the safest of places, even with all the precautions). Social attitudes can make a lot of difference, and the traditional social attitude in the US heavily favors males doing physically demanding and "dirty" tasks more than women. This affects both men and women when splitting up tasks, but it is somewhat unfair to blame it on dated stereotypes of men.
- mpweiher 10y ago
  Very well put! I see a lot of situations like these that certainly have multiple and nuanced interpretations being consistently interpreted (and vastly overinterpreted) in one direction.

by hashkb 10y ago

parennoob 10y ago

Note that this is a self-report. Without actual data, it loses a large part of its significance. Here is my self-report (also admittedly insignificant) -- when I was at college doing machine shop projects, there would be few girls who would enthusiastically volunteer for the machine shop. So the guys would have some misguided chivalrous instinct to say "Okay, I'll do the machine shop work", because they thought they were expected to. Even most American men I know today would be diffident about saying something like, "Hey Jessica, I notice you've been signing up for doing reports for the last two projects; do you want to work in the machine shop for this one instead while I do the reports?" The outcome of this is the exact same as your reported incident, but the motivations are different. My solution would be to make sure women know that they are expected and encouraged to sign up for tasks involving a lot of physical labor and possibly danger (a machine shop isn't the safest of places, even with all the precautions). Social attitudes can make a lot of difference, and the traditional social attitude in the US heavily favors males doing physically demanding and "dirty" tasks more than women. This affects both men and women when splitting up tasks, but it is somewhat unfair to blame it on dated stereotypes of men.

mpweiher 10y ago
Very well put! I see a lot of situations like these that certainly have multiple and nuanced interpretations being consistently interpreted (and vastly overinterpreted) in one direction.