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It makes a person feel threatened because it implies that your co-workers think of /you/ as eye candy too. And if that's all you are, then you can't trust other
by mareofnight 13y ago
It makes a person feel threatened because it implies that your co-workers think of /you/ as eye candy too. And if that's all you are, then you can't trust others to take you and your needs seriously. You can't deal with it by ignoring it, because it's not the staring that's the problem, it's what it indicates about how the gawkers view their female coworkers. (How you're viewed matters because that affects whether anyone will listen and help you when you have a problem, and if they'll expect unreasonable things from you - like the coworker who removed a bunch of Julia's code after she turned him down for a date.)
Or at least, that's how I feel about it, when I try to put myself in the place of someone who saw this happening, and took it as a sexual sort of staring rather than a "what the heck are my silly coworkers doing" kind of staring. It's also possible that Julia misunderstood what was going on, or exaggerated - we don't have enough information to know.
- BSousa 13y agoBut wasn't she dating someone that worked there? (was she already dating before joining GitHub or did they meet there?) This for me says that she think it is ok for there to be some kind of attraction between co-workers, so I don't see how men gawking to two women hula hooping is the last straw for her. Of course, if they were screaming 'take it off' or similar, I would agree, but supposedly attractive women doing activities that make their bodies 'jiggle' in a public setting and expect men not to look or stare is ridiculous, and going from that to 'not feeling safe' is too much of a stretch. I understand maybe the previous issues colored her understanding of the situation, but it does leave a bad feeling in my gut that she may just be a drama queen which makes me question her reports on the other issues.