7 ms·
This reminds me of an extremely eloquent comment I saw over on Reddit a while ago about how men being assholes to each other is actually a form of male bonding,
by spyhi 9y ago
This reminds me of an extremely eloquent comment I saw over on Reddit a while ago about how men being assholes to each other is actually a form of male bonding, and there is a delicate nuance to our rough-edged camaraderie. [1] I was raised in a gentle household by a nerd and a feminist, so when I joined the Army as an infantryman, I absolutely had to learn how this worked and can absolutely attest that it's a real thing. Given the later apologies, it sounds like it's possible the office was bro-ing it up with her and may have even thought they were welcoming her into the tribe, so to speak. (Of course, they could have all just been misogynist assholes, too...sad how there can be little difference)
Thing is, most women absolutely DO NOT respond well to that kind of male bonding. And, honestly, they probably shouldn't--I think this "emotional sonar" is a maladjusted response to men being told they can't express their feelings. Given this, we probably shouldn't be exposing women to that kind of environment either.
I guess this kind of underscores why you need women in the workplace. It's too easy for an all-male space to fall into this kind of emotional language and interaction framework, which is "hostile but comprehensible" to those in the culture, but completely alien to those who aren't--women and foreigners alike. At the very least, we (meaning everyone, not just men) should try to be aware that not everyone bonds the same, and bonding activities for some people and genders may be anti-bonding and hostile to others.
I want to make clear, I'm not trying to justify what happened, but I feel like often these articles are kind of one-sided, which can make it difficult to diagnose what's going on. The problem with saying "don't be misogynist" is I suspect few people identify as one but, on the other hand, we can identify our baggage and try to examine critically how it affects others.
Either way, sorry OP had to experience that, whether mismatched bonding attempts or actual hostility and misogyny.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskWomen/comments/5dpezd/girls_what_things_guys_like_to_do_to_each_other/da6fi9l/?context=3&st=ivp2r7tf&sh=16e79aa2 https://www.reddit.com/r/AskWomen/comments/5dpezd/girls_what...
- tickthokk 9y agoI think a good example is the "Our app is huge, like my dick." line. As a guy, this line was pretty funny, and I could see myself saying it (on an all male team). I might not say it in front of female coworkers though, but if I worked closely with one I may say it within earshot without thinking about it. It certainly wasn't an attack on the poster. Are we just not allowed to talk about genitalia? I guess as a baseline rule it's inappropriate, sure, but he's not being suggestive or soliciting. As described, it's obviously a joke. Not sure where the offense is here other than he said "dick" in the workplace within earshot of someone who doesn't want to hear that. I'll finish by saying that the rest of it was certainly uncalled for, but this one instance doesn't really stand on it's own as offensive.
- gorkonsine 9y agoAs a male, if you said that around me on an all-male team, my opinion of you would plummet to close to zero. Comments like that are entirely unprofessional. Are you French by chance? Because I've never heard such stupid shit here in the US in a professional workplace. Maybe I'm just lucky.
- tickthokk 9y agoUS based, not west coast though. Maybe I'm lucky to work in a place that lets me have some fun. It seems prudish to knock somebody down just because they say "dick" in public.
- gorkonsine 9y agoYou really think female coworkers want to hear about your sexual organs at work? You're exactly like the men in the article, and everything that's wrong with this industry. I guess I've somehow managed to avoid working with unprofessional sexists like you.
- qb45 9y agoThere are no female coworkers on an all-male team, you just rejected such jokes on principle. And no, I'm not from SV. I think many developers from all over the world, particularly of the sort hanging out at HN, will consider your stance somewhat crazy.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- mac01021 9y agoIt's not being prudish. It's just that to be amused by such a line seems puerile.
- gorkonsine 9y agoI guess the downvotes here show that Silicon Valley tech workers really are as sexist and misogynistic as the French jerks in the article. I guess I just never noticed because I've never worked in SV, especially not with younger Millennials.
- scrollaway 9y agoThat comment you linked is incredible. I just wanted to point it out to make sure everybody reads it, very high quality.
- spyhi 9y agoYep, it really explains the strangeness of men's interactions very cogently. It's nearly a year old, but it's stuck with me because it was so good. Also shows how repressed most of us are, that our way of figuring out how our friends are feeling is to attack them--in game design terms, our "verb" for loving is the same as the "verb" for hurting, which might explain why so many women in a male-dominated workplace feel attacked.
- doug1001 9y agoi know what you mean--100%--from having spent four years in as an enlisted grunt in a Marine infantry battalion (2/5). I remember sitting at the back of the squad bay playing poker with a group of 4-5 other jarheads, and occasionally, the OOD (duty officer) who would periodically walk through the command's barracks, would be a WM (woman marine). First time it happened, one of the corporals said in essence, to avoid saying anything related to sex, male, or female body parts, etc. It would have been simpler to just tell us to shut the hell up, because take those words away, and we had no other way to express ourselves (apparently). We all just remained completely completely silent from the moment she entered the squad bay on one end until she left out of the hatch on the other end.