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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 trepidat

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]
- solidsnack9000 9y ago
  Is it? If we accept for the moment, that Lisa was just describing her sense of uneasiness -- her sense of trepidation -- that's different from "displaying my badass scars" or "telling it like it is about my actual life experiences". That does seem like a reasonable reading of the original article. I did start out by asking what dkarl thought about whether or not the original author would have thought differently, if a young man had said those things; or if his argument was that having trouble with saying those things was a problem. I'm not sure where you're going but it seems like you're saying, that I should accept your thoughts about your experiences as a conclusive answer to my question to dkarl. That seems strange.
  - DoreenMichele 9y ago
    Both of those scenarios have a safe fall-back based on gender expectations. When you mix genders, the fall-backs disappear. In tech, this is virtually always a problem faced by a woman in a male-dominated workplace. If she's ever momentarily in doubt, there's no safe direction to err. This description indicates that women have no real choice but to handle it differently from a man, which kind of makes your question moot. One of the things I frequently talk about is having been molested and raped as a child. It certainly can happen to boys, but seems much more common for girls. This often gets me comments to the effect of "I am so sorry for what you suffered" as if I am in need of a shoulder to cry on. Given that I do it often in public on an overwhelmingly male forum, I have difficulty trying to fathom why that isn't interpreted as extremely thick skinned, ballsy bitch instead. But I don't get a whole lot of "Holy cow, woman. You really hold your own!" And I think I will stop there because I don't really know how to interact with your conclusions, so I am not sure good communication can happen here.
    - solidsnack9000 9y ago
      This description indicates that women have no real choice but to handle it differently from a man, which kind of makes your question moot. This is a kind of assuming the conclusion. Maybe what dkarl is saying is right, maybe it isn’t; but my question is about investigating those ideas. Given that I do it often in public on an overwhelmingly male forum, I have difficulty trying to fathom why that isn’t interpreted as extremely thick skinned, ballsy bitch instead. Please know that I already think of you as someone who holds her own and is up to facing any challenger in this forum.

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]
solidsnack9000 9y ago
Is it? If we accept for the moment, that Lisa was just describing her sense of uneasiness -- her sense of trepidation -- that's different from "displaying my badass scars" or "telling it like it is about my actual life experiences". That does seem like a reasonable reading of the original article. I did start out by asking what dkarl thought about whether or not the original author would have thought differently, if a young man had said those things; or if his argument was that having trouble with saying those things was a problem. I'm not sure where you're going but it seems like you're saying, that I should accept your thoughts about your experiences as a conclusive answer to my question to dkarl. That seems strange.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  Both of those scenarios have a safe fall-back based on gender expectations. When you mix genders, the fall-backs disappear. In tech, this is virtually always a problem faced by a woman in a male-dominated workplace. If she's ever momentarily in doubt, there's no safe direction to err. This description indicates that women have no real choice but to handle it differently from a man, which kind of makes your question moot. One of the things I frequently talk about is having been molested and raped as a child. It certainly can happen to boys, but seems much more common for girls. This often gets me comments to the effect of "I am so sorry for what you suffered" as if I am in need of a shoulder to cry on. Given that I do it often in public on an overwhelmingly male forum, I have difficulty trying to fathom why that isn't interpreted as extremely thick skinned, ballsy bitch instead. But I don't get a whole lot of "Holy cow, woman. You really hold your own!" And I think I will stop there because I don't really know how to interact with your conclusions, so I am not sure good communication can happen here.
  - solidsnack9000 9y ago
    This description indicates that women have no real choice but to handle it differently from a man, which kind of makes your question moot. This is a kind of assuming the conclusion. Maybe what dkarl is saying is right, maybe it isn’t; but my question is about investigating those ideas. Given that I do it often in public on an overwhelmingly male forum, I have difficulty trying to fathom why that isn’t interpreted as extremely thick skinned, ballsy bitch instead. Please know that I already think of you as someone who holds her own and is up to facing any challenger in this forum.