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"...I don't think most men are intentionally, actively and on purpose trying to keep women out, but it's a big, big problem that they don't want to talk too muc

"...I don't think most men are intentionally, actively and on purpose trying to keep women out, but it's a big, big problem that they don't want to talk too much to a woman for fear that it might lead to an affair or a really terrible misunderstanding or gossip" It's bewildering how everybody knows there are these tremendous informal barriers, that have withstood all past attempts at equal rights, and yet everybody also knows that women have better social skills and emotional intelligence than men. One thing that jumps out at me is you seem to be saying what holds women back is that men don't trust them. This is a very interesting point. I have, and have had, a very negative reaction to anyone demanding trust beyond what feels right to me. The "golden rule" is central to most people's value systems, I think, and it is completely unimaginable to me that I could or should be able to demand trust as an entitlement. However, I think your expectation of trust from men is normal, or at least common, based on my personal relationships. I do think that you might consider that not trusting women can and does have significant negatives for men too. I don't disbelieve in your description of issues people have, but explanations I read - yours or others - tend to sound circular to me and not really explain why things are the way they are.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
I posted a link elsewhere in this discussion to a piece I wrote some years back called The Gray Zone. TLDR: Establishing trust is always a long, involved process, no matter who the parties are. But it's just much, much clearer that it's platonic and for purposes of doing business when it's two (apparently) heterosexual males. The waters get muddy really quickly when it's a heterosexual man and a heterosexual woman. Edit: One thing that jumps out at me is you seem to be saying what holds women back is that men don't trust them. I would say that women end up under pressure to meet a higher bar for trust than men typically face. If men had to meet the same bar, they would fail more consistently as well.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  That's an interesting idea, that women are required to meet a higher bar for trust than men. I've always thought trust was the most valuable currency there is. Do you think that being trusted or not trusted has a predictable effect on whether a person is trustworthy?
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Women are required to meet a higher bar in part because it's assumed that two men meeting for coffee are meeting for business, but it's less clear what is going on if a man and a woman are meeting for coffee. The relationship between trust and a character trait of trustworthiness is not necessarily straight forward. If people think you simply aren't in a strong position to hurt them, they expect less of you. Women are often in a position to inadvertently harm a man without meaning to do so. Important men often want no appearance of impropriety. This makes it unclear how a woman can even establish a trusting relationship to a man. Sometimes, husband-and-wife teams work as an effective in for the woman. Her relationship to him helps establish intent for everyone. It helps prevent muddy Waters in that regard. If a meeting over coffee reads as a date if it's mixed gender, it may not matter how trustworthy she is. It may only matter that he doesn't want there to be talk, so he won't meet with her. I attended GIS school in my late thirties. It's a two-thirds make field. I have a strong math background and argued with one of my professors that his math on the board was wrong. He said "I bet you lunch." right before realizing I was right and saying "I feel a lunch coming on." He was probably around 50 years old. He didn't really want to be seen buying lunch for a relatively pretty, young female student. After class, he quietly thanked me for standing my ground and correcting him and he slipped me a twenty dollar bill to cover lunch. If I had been male and we had actually gone to lunch together, this would have been an incredible networking opportunity. But we never did have lunch together because he didn't want any appearance of impropriety, even though he respected my mind and appreciated my class contribution. It wasn't enough to overcome the question of "What will other people think?" Of course, that story and conclusion involves a lot of inference and assumption on my part. Maybe he would have slipped a twenty to male student as well and not actually eaten lunch with them. And that's part of what makes it so intractable. If I accused him if excluding me based on my gender, it would only deepen the rift, not bridge it and I can't actually prove it's a gendered thing, which makes women look histrionic when they complain about things like that. And, yet, we continue to be subtly shut out. And I think this is a major way in which doors just never open for us. If you can't even have coffee in public with someone for fear of what others will think, how on Earth do you even begin to network and get known well enough to establish a name, get referrals for work, etc?
- bambataa 7y ago
  When I worked in government I noticed something similar. Every department had about five senior leaders. There would be one female and she would always be the hard as nails, gruff, no nonsense type. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that they had had to behave like that to be taken seriously and trusted to be competent. The men could get away with being affable and clubby but women’s range of accepted behaviours was far narrower.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Yeah, I'm pretty personable. I've found that being more standoffish is necessary to get taken at all seriously, otherwise men just interpret everything as flirting, basically. Whether they want to be flirted with or not, it does absolutely nothing for me professionally.
throwaway1726 7y ago
> One thing that jumps out at me is you seem to be saying what holds women back is that men don't trust them Throwaway for obvious reasons. As a man, I’m rather skeptical about trusting women in business. I will never have a one-on-one meeting with a woman (especially somebody under my management), and I will especially never interact with with woman I work with outside of the office. I will generally try to keep discussions with women in the office strictly about business and professional. I am incredibly cautious about mentoring a woman. The risk of being accused of something untoward is just not worth taking. There’s little risk of my male colleagues taking some extreme level of offence at banter or any of the other normal interactions of friendship. None of my male colleagues are going to file a complaint against me just to spite me, or to further their career objectives. However this is a non-trivial risk with women. I know women who openly talk about having done this, and I know men who it has happened to. I don’t like it, but that’s simply the reality of the current political climate.
- prostheticvamp 7y ago
  I’ve heard the same in a lot of places. After #metoo got rolling and “guilty until ... fuck it, accused means guilty, #believesurvivors” became the norm, I heard a lot of guys in higher positions say they wouldn’t work closely with / mentor a woman if they could in any way avoid it. If they were accused, their career and possibly marriage would just be over. As you say, just not worth it. I don’t share this feeling, but then, I may live to regret it. It only takes one bad actor.
- bambataa 7y ago
  I know some men have this attitude but I still find it astounding. Are you really so unable to determine appropriate behaviours that you think women are making extreme overreactions to normal “banter”? Or that the risk of a false/inflated accusation is so high that you think freezing out all women is a reasonable and rational approach? Women finally begin talking publicly about the endemic sexism they face, which many men just don’t see, and your conclusion from that is that women can’t be trusted. I mean, sure, some woman might maliciously make some accusation against you. That’s certainly possible. It’s also possible that a man makes a false bullying accusation. Or accuses you of sexual advances. There are malicious people everywhere and gender doesn’t really come into it.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

I posted a link elsewhere in this discussion to a piece I wrote some years back called The Gray Zone. TLDR: Establishing trust is always a long, involved process, no matter who the parties are. But it's just much, much clearer that it's platonic and for purposes of doing business when it's two (apparently) heterosexual males. The waters get muddy really quickly when it's a heterosexual man and a heterosexual woman. Edit: One thing that jumps out at me is you seem to be saying what holds women back is that men don't trust them. I would say that women end up under pressure to meet a higher bar for trust than men typically face. If men had to meet the same bar, they would fail more consistently as well.

perl4ever 7y ago
That's an interesting idea, that women are required to meet a higher bar for trust than men. I've always thought trust was the most valuable currency there is. Do you think that being trusted or not trusted has a predictable effect on whether a person is trustworthy?
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Women are required to meet a higher bar in part because it's assumed that two men meeting for coffee are meeting for business, but it's less clear what is going on if a man and a woman are meeting for coffee. The relationship between trust and a character trait of trustworthiness is not necessarily straight forward. If people think you simply aren't in a strong position to hurt them, they expect less of you. Women are often in a position to inadvertently harm a man without meaning to do so. Important men often want no appearance of impropriety. This makes it unclear how a woman can even establish a trusting relationship to a man. Sometimes, husband-and-wife teams work as an effective in for the woman. Her relationship to him helps establish intent for everyone. It helps prevent muddy Waters in that regard. If a meeting over coffee reads as a date if it's mixed gender, it may not matter how trustworthy she is. It may only matter that he doesn't want there to be talk, so he won't meet with her. I attended GIS school in my late thirties. It's a two-thirds make field. I have a strong math background and argued with one of my professors that his math on the board was wrong. He said "I bet you lunch." right before realizing I was right and saying "I feel a lunch coming on." He was probably around 50 years old. He didn't really want to be seen buying lunch for a relatively pretty, young female student. After class, he quietly thanked me for standing my ground and correcting him and he slipped me a twenty dollar bill to cover lunch. If I had been male and we had actually gone to lunch together, this would have been an incredible networking opportunity. But we never did have lunch together because he didn't want any appearance of impropriety, even though he respected my mind and appreciated my class contribution. It wasn't enough to overcome the question of "What will other people think?" Of course, that story and conclusion involves a lot of inference and assumption on my part. Maybe he would have slipped a twenty to male student as well and not actually eaten lunch with them. And that's part of what makes it so intractable. If I accused him if excluding me based on my gender, it would only deepen the rift, not bridge it and I can't actually prove it's a gendered thing, which makes women look histrionic when they complain about things like that. And, yet, we continue to be subtly shut out. And I think this is a major way in which doors just never open for us. If you can't even have coffee in public with someone for fear of what others will think, how on Earth do you even begin to network and get known well enough to establish a name, get referrals for work, etc?
bambataa 7y ago
When I worked in government I noticed something similar. Every department had about five senior leaders. There would be one female and she would always be the hard as nails, gruff, no nonsense type. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise that they had had to behave like that to be taken seriously and trusted to be competent. The men could get away with being affable and clubby but women’s range of accepted behaviours was far narrower.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Yeah, I'm pretty personable. I've found that being more standoffish is necessary to get taken at all seriously, otherwise men just interpret everything as flirting, basically. Whether they want to be flirted with or not, it does absolutely nothing for me professionally.

throwaway1726 7y ago

> One thing that jumps out at me is you seem to be saying what holds women back is that men don't trust them Throwaway for obvious reasons. As a man, I’m rather skeptical about trusting women in business. I will never have a one-on-one meeting with a woman (especially somebody under my management), and I will especially never interact with with woman I work with outside of the office. I will generally try to keep discussions with women in the office strictly about business and professional. I am incredibly cautious about mentoring a woman. The risk of being accused of something untoward is just not worth taking. There’s little risk of my male colleagues taking some extreme level of offence at banter or any of the other normal interactions of friendship. None of my male colleagues are going to file a complaint against me just to spite me, or to further their career objectives. However this is a non-trivial risk with women. I know women who openly talk about having done this, and I know men who it has happened to. I don’t like it, but that’s simply the reality of the current political climate.

prostheticvamp 7y ago
I’ve heard the same in a lot of places. After #metoo got rolling and “guilty until ... fuck it, accused means guilty, #believesurvivors” became the norm, I heard a lot of guys in higher positions say they wouldn’t work closely with / mentor a woman if they could in any way avoid it. If they were accused, their career and possibly marriage would just be over. As you say, just not worth it. I don’t share this feeling, but then, I may live to regret it. It only takes one bad actor.
bambataa 7y ago
I know some men have this attitude but I still find it astounding. Are you really so unable to determine appropriate behaviours that you think women are making extreme overreactions to normal “banter”? Or that the risk of a false/inflated accusation is so high that you think freezing out all women is a reasonable and rational approach? Women finally begin talking publicly about the endemic sexism they face, which many men just don’t see, and your conclusion from that is that women can’t be trusted. I mean, sure, some woman might maliciously make some accusation against you. That’s certainly possible. It’s also possible that a man makes a false bullying accusation. Or accuses you of sexual advances. There are malicious people everywhere and gender doesn’t really come into it.