4 ms·

Anyway, it's pretty disheartening to see an incident that is heavily colored by gender expectations related and acknowledged as such but then interpreted as a s

Anyway, it's pretty disheartening to see an incident that is heavily colored by gender expectations related and acknowledged as such but then interpreted as a story about a one-dimensional spectrum from expressiveness to guardedness. Maybe you have said it already in the above but to ask directly: do you think the author or their colleague would have treated Lisa’s remarks differently if she were a man?

DoreenMichele 9y ago
FWIW: Male characters in movies who show you their scars are seen correctly as bragging about what badasses they are. I am a woman inclined to do that and I have had to learn to stop it. It is consistently interpreted as "Oh, you poor, pathetic thing, so victimized by life! Clearly, you need to be rescued! (by which I mean treated like a doormat and taken advantage of)" Outright bragging goes worse places. So the GP is correct that women have no good options for owning their competence or admitting that you build your chops by biting off more than you can chew and this project is an opportunity to grow, because it won't come easy. We really don't have good paradigms for women to do that sort of thing. There are no standard ways to do it. Having to try to make up such paradigms as you go on top of handling a challenging job is a serious handicap.
- solidsnack9000 9y ago
  That is different from what is described in the original article, though, where “Lisa” really does speak in a way that communicates fear and a sense of trepidation.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    Is it? If it is, why am I so frequently interpreted as playing the victim card when I am displaying my badass scars? Or even simply telling it like it is about my actual life experiences?
    - greenrd 9y ago
      Maybe it's the way you tell them. With engineers, a little explicitness goes a long way, and will generally be accepted - unless you're being patronising and telling them something they already know. So try saying "I'm not saying this to gain any sympathy or anything like that, but I had a similar experience, which was... and what it taught me / how it made me stronger was..." I mean that's kind of a stilted template, but you get the general idea. Now, this might lead to a bunfight about whether those situations were similar, in your colleagues' opinions - but then at least you'd have brought out into the open where your colleagues weren't thinking along the same lines as you - which might not always be what you expected!
      - DoreenMichele 9y ago
        Well, to be fair, I never really stopped doing it. But I do handle things differently. I still don't think that makes it fair to assume the woman in the article wasn't doing something similar. We don't have her side of the story. We have someone else's version of events. Also: A man telling a woman that her observations about her own experiences aren't valid and she just must be doing it wrong has a not nice name because it is not nice behavior. Which may be apropos of nothing if you happen to be female and just failed to say that. Either way, I wasn't asking for advice, I was giving testimony, so your comment is guilty of treating me like a victim when I wasn't playing the victim card at all, just testifying from firsthand experience.
        greenrd 9y ago
        If you read my comment carefully, I didn't say you "must" be doing it wrong. I said "maybe". Statistically, men are more likely to react to tales of woe by trying to solve the actual problem, whereas women are likely to react by (first) offering sympathy, so I was just being a typical man, not doing anything wrong.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
    - 9y ago
greenrd 9y ago
Reality check here: I think if she were a man - and not a boy fresh out of school, mind - she wouldn't have been hired in the first place. And yet here we are, seriously arguing about whether her naivety and immaturity should have been enabled and encouraged. There's no question: it shouldn't. That is not how you talk in an interview. Not even if your interviewer is a woman.

DoreenMichele 9y ago

FWIW: Male characters in movies who show you their scars are seen correctly as bragging about what badasses they are. I am a woman inclined to do that and I have had to learn to stop it. It is consistently interpreted as "Oh, you poor, pathetic thing, so victimized by life! Clearly, you need to be rescued! (by which I mean treated like a doormat and taken advantage of)" Outright bragging goes worse places. So the GP is correct that women have no good options for owning their competence or admitting that you build your chops by biting off more than you can chew and this project is an opportunity to grow, because it won't come easy. We really don't have good paradigms for women to do that sort of thing. There are no standard ways to do it. Having to try to make up such paradigms as you go on top of handling a challenging job is a serious handicap.

solidsnack9000 9y ago
That is different from what is described in the original article, though, where “Lisa” really does speak in a way that communicates fear and a sense of trepidation.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  Is it? If it is, why am I so frequently interpreted as playing the victim card when I am displaying my badass scars? Or even simply telling it like it is about my actual life experiences?
  - greenrd 9y ago
    Maybe it's the way you tell them. With engineers, a little explicitness goes a long way, and will generally be accepted - unless you're being patronising and telling them something they already know. So try saying "I'm not saying this to gain any sympathy or anything like that, but I had a similar experience, which was... and what it taught me / how it made me stronger was..." I mean that's kind of a stilted template, but you get the general idea. Now, this might lead to a bunfight about whether those situations were similar, in your colleagues' opinions - but then at least you'd have brought out into the open where your colleagues weren't thinking along the same lines as you - which might not always be what you expected!
    - DoreenMichele 9y ago
      Well, to be fair, I never really stopped doing it. But I do handle things differently. I still don't think that makes it fair to assume the woman in the article wasn't doing something similar. We don't have her side of the story. We have someone else's version of events. Also: A man telling a woman that her observations about her own experiences aren't valid and she just must be doing it wrong has a not nice name because it is not nice behavior. Which may be apropos of nothing if you happen to be female and just failed to say that. Either way, I wasn't asking for advice, I was giving testimony, so your comment is guilty of treating me like a victim when I wasn't playing the victim card at all, just testifying from firsthand experience.
      - greenrd 9y ago
        If you read my comment carefully, I didn't say you "must" be doing it wrong. I said "maybe". Statistically, men are more likely to react to tales of woe by trying to solve the actual problem, whereas women are likely to react by (first) offering sympathy, so I was just being a typical man, not doing anything wrong.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - 9y ago

greenrd 9y ago

Reality check here: I think if she were a man - and not a boy fresh out of school, mind - she wouldn't have been hired in the first place. And yet here we are, seriously arguing about whether her naivety and immaturity should have been enabled and encouraged. There's no question: it shouldn't. That is not how you talk in an interview. Not even if your interviewer is a woman.