It's really encouraging to see this comment. I wonder about this, not being a woman myself. In my workplace (east coast USA) there are plenty of women in techni

It's really encouraging to see this comment. I wonder about this, not being a woman myself. In my workplace (east coast USA) there are plenty of women in technical roles, definitely a minority but still significant. I don't think it was done on purpose, it just happened as far as I can tell. And I would like to think their experiences haven't been like the author's, where it seems many coworkers are basically enemies to be overcome. But I've definitely seen a coworker or two do some stupid things. No, you are not respecting your female coworker by hitting on her and telling her how good she looks today (that guy got fired, but unfortunately for different reasons). There might be a lot more subtle things going on that I am not sensitive to, but I can't imagine porn actually being up in the office, that's just unprofessional even with all guys, and I would be asking those awkward questions about it myself (not that I am doubting that it happened to the author). It was very difficult for me to adjust as a new engineer, including with code reviews and all that, and I wonder if I had an outsider identity how tempting it would be to blame my problems on that. Never being sure if the difficulty was because of prejudice or not. Probably one of the worst effects of discrimination, causing you to have suspicion and doubt all the time because it might really be warranted. Anyway, a lot of these tips are just in general pretty good advice, even for a guy. And an environment that is friendly to women and that makes her advice unnecessary is better environment for everyone to work in.