> I don't subscribe to the idea that women are delicate flowers and need to be protected from a bit of swearing. You're right that women - like anyone - are ge

> I don't subscribe to the idea that women are delicate flowers and need to be protected from a bit of swearing. You're right that women - like anyone - are generally capable of dealing with a harsh environment, but the difference is women are penalized for doing so. The most effective way to operate in a harsh environment is to match it. If busting balls is the way your peers call attention to a technical issue, then when you want someone to pay attention, you'll bust their balls. If someone challenges you in a rude way, often a rude rebuttal is the most effective response. Women can do that just as well as anyone else, but the problem is when they do, they're judged more harshly. This isn't a question of corporate policy, but of human socialization. We all unconsciously expect women to be more mild and agreeable. So when they are rude, profane, or combative, we notice it much more readily and it provokes a stronger emotional reaction. People are much more likely to write them off as "unprofessional" or "drama". This in turn closes off one of the main options for dealing with a harsh environment. There are two possible solutions to this: fix human socialization so that people no longer have involuntary unconscious biases about combative women, or simply cultivate an environment that discourages everyone from being combative, so we can avoid the issue and get back to building stuff. The former would be ideal, but it requires broad sweeping social change (and a lot of time). Until that can happen, we unfortunately have to settle for the latter.