5 ms·

I get this so much, although I've had the opposite experience, where when people notice that I'm female, certain companies get excited for the chance to have a

I get this so much, although I've had the opposite experience, where when people notice that I'm female, certain companies get excited for the chance to have a "token woman" on their team. Isn't necessarily a bad thing. Anyway, it made me think of all the LinkedIn spam I get addressing me as sir, Mr., "we're looking for some cool dudes like yourself", etc. Sadly it's not just the gender thing that's going on here as well, I'm thinking of some study they did where they attached photos with the resumes - the "attractive" people (both men and women) were rated as better skilled than the "normal" and "ugly" people that had the same resume. Although, I think that if I took some fancy photos of myself and primped myself up, I don't think it would do me any favors and I'd get some unwanted attention! My name isn't even gender neutral, very feminine...I think I once was on some board online using my real name and people were still assuming I was a guy. When I asked how they could possibly think it was a male name, they replied, "I dunno, I was thinking it was like one of those fancy Italian names, like Fabio or whatever..Fabia..yeah, same thing...they always sound like girls names." I've now started picking the most ridiculously cutsie usernames possible, like this one, to keep people guessing. Sometimes it backfires still and people just get homophobic, but I generally stick with it anyway for fun :)

nawitus 13y ago
>Isn't necessarily a bad thing. I would personally find it offending that someone would hire me on the basis of my gender to become a "token" person.
- cupcake-unicorn 13y ago
  Well, that's why I said "isn't necessarily" - some people may not mind and be happy to reap the benefits, and others (like you) would (justifiably) feel offended. In my experience it hasn't really been 100% about "just being the token woman" but I feel like I have gotten interviews and jobs that I wouldn't have otherwise.
- lmm 13y ago
  I'd rather be offended and have money in the bank than the other way around.
larrys 13y ago
"Although, I think that if I took some fancy photos of myself and primped myself up, I don't think it would do me any favors and I'd get some unwanted attention!" My brain lit up on that sentence and I clicked on your profile to see what you looked like. (Happily married and all of that but men are visual)
- zmj 13y ago
  Why did you post this?
  - alan_cx 13y ago
    Seriously, have a think about it. That comment might be smarter than it first appears.
    - EvanKelly 13y ago
      Could you elaborate, I'm failing to read between the lines.
      - Tichy 13y ago
        Perhaps the idea is that OP was actually fishing for compliments. She said she doesn't want to evoke unwanted attention because she is too good looking, but by writing that she notified the internet of being very good looking.
    - alanctgardner2 13y ago
      The first part is weird and a little creepy. Really, he should listen to what she has to say, not look at a picture and say 'Yeah, I'd objectify her, she has a point'. Plus he had to click a few links deep to find a picture, so he went out of his way to see what some other commenter looks like, solely on the basis of gender. That's at least sexist, maybe you could really stretch and say it's salient to the conversation. The second, parenthetical statement is what tips it way over the edge. It's like making a comment about 'culturalism' and then adding a footnote saying 'BTW, I'm totally not racist'. He obviously realizes that absent any context, saying "I spent at least 30 seconds hunting for a picture of you on the internet, person I've never met" is not socially appropriate. So he tries to shore it up with the fact that he's married, so obviously he has no interest in any other women outside of clinically judging their suitability for objectification. This is further supported by the incredible, scientific claim that men's ability to process someone's comments on a message board is directly impacted by their ability to first judge that person's attractiveness - in a purely objective way, remember, he's married. No doubt this gentleman has a Firefox extension dedicated to finding all HN commenter's faces so he can better understand the cryptic squiggles they produce on his screen.
zanny 13y ago
Well, you might just be a male fan of MLP. It happens a lot nowadays! I think it is a good thing it is harder to discriminate people on names, colors, etc. They are all superficial and have nothing to do with sexuality anyway. I think in the end just too many people care what chemical is more prominent in your body between testosterone and estrogen.
- babby 13y ago
  >MLP >on my hacker news I feel a little sick.
  - GhotiFish 13y ago
    ho ho, next someone will accuse you of using meme arrows.
papsosouid 13y ago
>I've had the opposite experience, where when people notice that I'm female, certain companies get excited for the chance to have a "token woman" on their team My wife noticed that too. She has basically the exact opposite experience as the author. Her name is also gender neutral, but more commonly male. As soon as she added "Ms." she started getting interviews. Comments like "it will be so nice having another woman around here", and "we have too many men in the IT department and 99% of the applicants are just more men" are apparently normal, even from men.
- Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago
  Summing up your wife's experience with the one in the article, perhaps what employers like the least is the ambiguity of getting a CV where they don't know if the applicant is male or female? I do know I have felt somewhat embarrassed when I had to reply an email to people with a gender-neutral name. Although maybe that's because there are no such names in my country, so I find the situation odder than most people. But I can picture a HR person wondering about the gender of the applicant and just skipping to the next CV to avoid the uncomfortable moment, especially if there are many similar CVs to choose from.
  - pbiggar 13y ago
    Interesting about there being no gender-neutral names. How does naming work where you're from (and where is that)?
Aloisius 13y ago
certain companies get excited for the chance to have a "token woman" on their team I've certainly been someone who has looked to hire more women in my engineering departments over the years, but I can't imagine why someone would do it for token reasons. For me it was about increasing diversity of opinion and balancing out the culture so we didn't hire misogynist assholes in the future.

nawitus 13y ago

>Isn't necessarily a bad thing. I would personally find it offending that someone would hire me on the basis of my gender to become a "token" person.

cupcake-unicorn 13y ago
Well, that's why I said "isn't necessarily" - some people may not mind and be happy to reap the benefits, and others (like you) would (justifiably) feel offended. In my experience it hasn't really been 100% about "just being the token woman" but I feel like I have gotten interviews and jobs that I wouldn't have otherwise.
lmm 13y ago
I'd rather be offended and have money in the bank than the other way around.

larrys 13y ago

"Although, I think that if I took some fancy photos of myself and primped myself up, I don't think it would do me any favors and I'd get some unwanted attention!" My brain lit up on that sentence and I clicked on your profile to see what you looked like. (Happily married and all of that but men are visual)

zmj 13y ago
Why did you post this?
- alan_cx 13y ago
  Seriously, have a think about it. That comment might be smarter than it first appears.
  - EvanKelly 13y ago
    Could you elaborate, I'm failing to read between the lines.
    - Tichy 13y ago
      Perhaps the idea is that OP was actually fishing for compliments. She said she doesn't want to evoke unwanted attention because she is too good looking, but by writing that she notified the internet of being very good looking.
  - alanctgardner2 13y ago
    The first part is weird and a little creepy. Really, he should listen to what she has to say, not look at a picture and say 'Yeah, I'd objectify her, she has a point'. Plus he had to click a few links deep to find a picture, so he went out of his way to see what some other commenter looks like, solely on the basis of gender. That's at least sexist, maybe you could really stretch and say it's salient to the conversation. The second, parenthetical statement is what tips it way over the edge. It's like making a comment about 'culturalism' and then adding a footnote saying 'BTW, I'm totally not racist'. He obviously realizes that absent any context, saying "I spent at least 30 seconds hunting for a picture of you on the internet, person I've never met" is not socially appropriate. So he tries to shore it up with the fact that he's married, so obviously he has no interest in any other women outside of clinically judging their suitability for objectification. This is further supported by the incredible, scientific claim that men's ability to process someone's comments on a message board is directly impacted by their ability to first judge that person's attractiveness - in a purely objective way, remember, he's married. No doubt this gentleman has a Firefox extension dedicated to finding all HN commenter's faces so he can better understand the cryptic squiggles they produce on his screen.

zanny 13y ago

Well, you might just be a male fan of MLP. It happens a lot nowadays! I think it is a good thing it is harder to discriminate people on names, colors, etc. They are all superficial and have nothing to do with sexuality anyway. I think in the end just too many people care what chemical is more prominent in your body between testosterone and estrogen.

babby 13y ago
>MLP >on my hacker news I feel a little sick.
- GhotiFish 13y ago
  ho ho, next someone will accuse you of using meme arrows.

papsosouid 13y ago

>I've had the opposite experience, where when people notice that I'm female, certain companies get excited for the chance to have a "token woman" on their team My wife noticed that too. She has basically the exact opposite experience as the author. Her name is also gender neutral, but more commonly male. As soon as she added "Ms." she started getting interviews. Comments like "it will be so nice having another woman around here", and "we have too many men in the IT department and 99% of the applicants are just more men" are apparently normal, even from men.

Al-Khwarizmi 13y ago
Summing up your wife's experience with the one in the article, perhaps what employers like the least is the ambiguity of getting a CV where they don't know if the applicant is male or female? I do know I have felt somewhat embarrassed when I had to reply an email to people with a gender-neutral name. Although maybe that's because there are no such names in my country, so I find the situation odder than most people. But I can picture a HR person wondering about the gender of the applicant and just skipping to the next CV to avoid the uncomfortable moment, especially if there are many similar CVs to choose from.
- pbiggar 13y ago
  Interesting about there being no gender-neutral names. How does naming work where you're from (and where is that)?

Aloisius 13y ago

certain companies get excited for the chance to have a "token woman" on their team I've certainly been someone who has looked to hire more women in my engineering departments over the years, but I can't imagine why someone would do it for token reasons. For me it was about increasing diversity of opinion and balancing out the culture so we didn't hire misogynist assholes in the future.