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I hear you, but not being sexist can be pretty hard. I always felt that obviously, I wasn't sexist: I like working with women in the workplace, I always figured
by nrodhn 13y ago
I hear you, but not being sexist can be pretty hard. I always felt that obviously, I wasn't sexist: I like working with women in the workplace, I always figured we make software for everyone so it's probably best if everyone makes software, and so on. I've been fortunate to have female co-workers who I felt made terrific colleagues, both skills-wise and socially.
And yet one day one of them pulled me aside and explained to me what exactly I was doing that was making being at her job harder. It wasn't something I did intentionally, it wasn't because I thought ill of her, it was just that I didn't think much at all. I behaved differently toward her (and, I guess, other female developers) because I had a set of assumptions I automatically brought to bear against male developers I wasn't sure applied to her, and it affected my behavior in ways that kept singling her out and making her feel uncomfortable.
One of the most embarassing, humbling and in retrospect, valuable moments in my professional life.
I'm happy it went that way instead of a complaint followed by me losing my job. I think a lot of male developers don't want to be sexist, but we need to learn what that actually means in practice, and it's not as intuitive as you make it out to be. Wasn't for me at least.
- stephp 13y agoI read a study once that said people who think they have no bias are the most behaviorally biased people of all.
- fr0sty 13y agofor the benefit of others could you outline what "set of assumptions" might get people fired? your post is incredibly vague...
- nrodhn 13y agoSorry - I wasn't saying that I'm sure I did something I would have gotten fired over, the point was more that I don't think just any instance of sexism should be treated as a fireable offense, because sexist behavior can be unintentional and due to lack of experience. "Don't be sexist and you won't have problems" as the OP put is what I thought I was doing, but wasn't. My post is vague because it's about subtle behavioral stuff. Basically, when I interacted with male developers, my behavior toward them was based on projecting myself into them automatically. Like, say, the level of expectations I leveled against them, how competitive I would be with them, how aggressive I might be toward them was based on how I myself respond to being challenged and my own career path/experiences and things like that. I unintentionally behaved differently toward female developers (not necessarily worse actually, but differently) just because that automatic projecting would not happen, and it would end up singling them out. Learning about that has improved my interaction not just with women but also men, actually. I make a much bigger effort to learn about the individual now. I'm sure all this came a lot easier to others, or maybe they just had the right sort of experiences much earlier (I wonder if it would have helped if I had any siblings, say). But for me is something I can identify as "needed to learn that".