7 ms·

If you are a woman you can easily counter this behavior by labelling it and saying that you don't have a porcelain skin. Bonuspoints if you laugh about a guy gi

by cynusx 6y ago

If you are a woman you can easily counter this behavior by labelling it and saying that you don't have a porcelain skin. Bonuspoints if you laugh about a guy giving you super bad feedback and how this did not bother you. Putting people at ease around you (especially customers) is a critical entrepreneurial skill. You can't blame people for being cautious when a lot of people are buying into victim-narratives and convinced to act against their "oppressors".

julianmarq 6y ago
The problem with this "solution" is that the risk is still too high to bother risking it. Even if the woman is unlikely to assume bad faith (and the likelihood is such, outrage mobs are a minority, even if one with too much weight for its size), nothing guarantees she won't change her mind later and assume that the criticism was because of sexism after all. And even if one were to believe that that is unlikely too, nothing guarantees that someone else won't think it sexist. For example, I remember some panel with four scientists (three men and one woman) that was discussed in HN a while ago; at some point, someone in the audience (I think she was a journalist) yelled at the moderator to "let her speak"... Even though the scientist herself didn't think the moderator was doing anything wrong.
jberryman 6y ago
Or maybe these fragile adult millionaire men could just... try harder? have more tact? Maybe we should have higher expectations of these men to have a little more awareness? All that's assuming this phenomenon is even real, and not just an excuse for the author to grind her PeE cEe cUlTuRe axe; the whole thing is conveniently framed with "oh, but of course none of these people I'm not naming could ever admit that what I'm saying is true..."
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- julianmarq 6y ago
  > try harder? have more tact? [...] have a little more awareness? But isn't the cautious behavior mentioned already an example of this?
  - jberryman 6y ago
    The article describes men who feel so incapable of expressing themselves in a way that can't be reasonably construed as sexist that they don't say anything. I think this is irrational, demeaning to women, and frankly pathetic.
    - julianmarq 6y ago
      > in a way that can't be reasonably construed as sexist "Reasonable" is the key word there. I think that one of the points in TFA is that the misconstruction doesn't need to reasonable to kill someone's career.
      - rafale 6y ago
        Also, in the public opinion court, it's no longer innocent until proven guilty, it's #believeallwomen. The pendulum has swung too far and it's time we center and de-radicalize the messages we carry around.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - bufferoverflow 6y ago
      No, you must have missed the last 2 decades of "everything is sexist" narrative [1]. You can't expect for this to go on and have no counter-reaction. Men simply remove themselves from the conversations to not be labeled as sexists. Not because they are, but because there are so many women who interpret everything men do as sexist. [1]: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anita_Sarkeesian https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anita_Sarkeesian
- dang 6y ago
  Could you please make your substantive points without snark and name-calling? Your comments in this thread are a noticeable step further into flamewar and break quite a few of the site guidelines. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.
paperwasp42 6y ago
As a woman, I adopted this solution about a year ago. I will literally tell new teammates, "Look, I'm new to this career, I have a TON to learn, and I would love to be critiqued and given advice on how I can improve. I operate under a good-faith policy, so I will always assume you're being helpful and not condescending, unless you're overwhelmingly insulting (ie: telling me women aren't made for leadership roles.)" I do not exaggerate when I say that the amount of meaningful advice I've been given since I adopted this technique has increased 5x. Another perk--due to my vocal policy on this, I had an autistic colleague tell me that I'm the only woman he feels comfortable working with. He struggles to read social situations, and he frets that women will interpret his bluntness as him being dismissive or "mansplaining." It made me very sad to think he's missing out on good relationships with so many talented women in our office, just because of this environment of fear. But he's a wonderful friend and colleague, and I am so happy to have his advice and support.
- qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
  At a previous job, I worked under a woman who managed a practically-all-male engineering team. I think part of what made her successful at this was that people in our company had a great sense of humor, and she was an enthusiastic participant in our lunchtime bull sessions, ribbing each other and whatnot. >Becca: What are you doing here? I figured they’d have locked you away in the psych ward for good by now. >Scott: Nope. And what are you doing here? You haven’t killed off all your patients yet? >Becca: Only person in this hospital I might kill is standing right in front of me. >Scott: Be careful, I’m armed and dangerous picks up a central line placement practice set menacingly https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/23/friendship-is-countersignaling/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/23/friendship-is-counters... Not only did these kind of conversations make the company a more fun place to work, they also made it easier to speak critically to each other, because our critical feedback didn't seem like a big deal in light of the daily ribbing. There wasn't a lot of corporate BS at that company either--maybe not a coincidence. I imagine there are other things you could do, like curse frequently, if you wanted to broadcast that words don't easily upset you. But telling jokes seems best if you think of one.
  - 6y ago
CivBase 6y ago
As a guy this would only put me at ease in a one-on-one conversation with the woman in question. I am just as wary of others' opinions as hers.
smilekzs 6y ago
Good call! Candid and up-front declaration of openness, basically. The status quo is unfortunate but at least on the individual level it sounds like a viable approach.
ipnon 6y ago
We need a pink samizdat just like this blog post. Wink twice after your turn at stand up to let us know we can safely roast your pull requests.

by cynusx 6y ago

julianmarq 6y ago

The problem with this "solution" is that the risk is still too high to bother risking it. Even if the woman is unlikely to assume bad faith (and the likelihood is such, outrage mobs are a minority, even if one with too much weight for its size), nothing guarantees she won't change her mind later and assume that the criticism was because of sexism after all. And even if one were to believe that that is unlikely too, nothing guarantees that someone else won't think it sexist. For example, I remember some panel with four scientists (three men and one woman) that was discussed in HN a while ago; at some point, someone in the audience (I think she was a journalist) yelled at the moderator to "let her speak"... Even though the scientist herself didn't think the moderator was doing anything wrong.

jberryman 6y ago

Or maybe these fragile adult millionaire men could just... try harder? have more tact? Maybe we should have higher expectations of these men to have a little more awareness? All that's assuming this phenomenon is even real, and not just an excuse for the author to grind her PeE cEe cUlTuRe axe; the whole thing is conveniently framed with "oh, but of course none of these people I'm not naming could ever admit that what I'm saying is true..."

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
julianmarq 6y ago
> try harder? have more tact? [...] have a little more awareness? But isn't the cautious behavior mentioned already an example of this?
- jberryman 6y ago
  The article describes men who feel so incapable of expressing themselves in a way that can't be reasonably construed as sexist that they don't say anything. I think this is irrational, demeaning to women, and frankly pathetic.
  - julianmarq 6y ago
    > in a way that can't be reasonably construed as sexist "Reasonable" is the key word there. I think that one of the points in TFA is that the misconstruction doesn't need to reasonable to kill someone's career.
    - rafale 6y ago
      Also, in the public opinion court, it's no longer innocent until proven guilty, it's #believeallwomen. The pendulum has swung too far and it's time we center and de-radicalize the messages we carry around.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - bufferoverflow 6y ago
    No, you must have missed the last 2 decades of "everything is sexist" narrative [1]. You can't expect for this to go on and have no counter-reaction. Men simply remove themselves from the conversations to not be labeled as sexists. Not because they are, but because there are so many women who interpret everything men do as sexist. [1]: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anita_Sarkeesian https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Anita_Sarkeesian
dang 6y ago
Could you please make your substantive points without snark and name-calling? Your comments in this thread are a noticeable step further into flamewar and break quite a few of the site guidelines. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.

paperwasp42 6y ago

As a woman, I adopted this solution about a year ago. I will literally tell new teammates, "Look, I'm new to this career, I have a TON to learn, and I would love to be critiqued and given advice on how I can improve. I operate under a good-faith policy, so I will always assume you're being helpful and not condescending, unless you're overwhelmingly insulting (ie: telling me women aren't made for leadership roles.)" I do not exaggerate when I say that the amount of meaningful advice I've been given since I adopted this technique has increased 5x. Another perk--due to my vocal policy on this, I had an autistic colleague tell me that I'm the only woman he feels comfortable working with. He struggles to read social situations, and he frets that women will interpret his bluntness as him being dismissive or "mansplaining." It made me very sad to think he's missing out on good relationships with so many talented women in our office, just because of this environment of fear. But he's a wonderful friend and colleague, and I am so happy to have his advice and support.

qPM9l3XJrF 6y ago
At a previous job, I worked under a woman who managed a practically-all-male engineering team. I think part of what made her successful at this was that people in our company had a great sense of humor, and she was an enthusiastic participant in our lunchtime bull sessions, ribbing each other and whatnot. >Becca: What are you doing here? I figured they’d have locked you away in the psych ward for good by now. >Scott: Nope. And what are you doing here? You haven’t killed off all your patients yet? >Becca: Only person in this hospital I might kill is standing right in front of me. >Scott: Be careful, I’m armed and dangerous picks up a central line placement practice set menacingly https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/23/friendship-is-countersignaling/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/23/friendship-is-counters... Not only did these kind of conversations make the company a more fun place to work, they also made it easier to speak critically to each other, because our critical feedback didn't seem like a big deal in light of the daily ribbing. There wasn't a lot of corporate BS at that company either--maybe not a coincidence. I imagine there are other things you could do, like curse frequently, if you wanted to broadcast that words don't easily upset you. But telling jokes seems best if you think of one.
- 6y ago

CivBase 6y ago

As a guy this would only put me at ease in a one-on-one conversation with the woman in question. I am just as wary of others' opinions as hers.

smilekzs 6y ago

Good call! Candid and up-front declaration of openness, basically. The status quo is unfortunate but at least on the individual level it sounds like a viable approach.

ipnon 6y ago

We need a pink samizdat just like this blog post. Wink twice after your turn at stand up to let us know we can safely roast your pull requests.