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A few random thoughts... "Who are you here with?" might be indicating... what company are you here with? Are you with Google, or MS, or... whatever. "Who do

A few random thoughts... "Who are you here with?" might be indicating... what company are you here with? Are you with Google, or MS, or... whatever. "Who do you work for?" might be more appropriately direct. I have a pink macbook. I wear pink headphones. You wouldn't believe the number of weird/sexist comments I get from time to time. Or maybe you would. There was a piece floating around a couple weeks ago about women in tech leaving because they felt bullied out because they were women. While I don't doubt that can happen, the 'bullying' that was described in that article has happened to me - a male - at companies as well. It's more cliquish asshole group/hivemind behavior than it is sexist. I had multiple people chastise me that I was part of the problem because I was too blind to see it as sexism, and of course a male would simply ascribe this to asshole/politics in a company, vs sexism. Even though the exact same behavior (and outcomes) had been leveled at me, a male, apparently if the same behavior happens to a female, the motivation/intention must be sexism and dealt with through that filter.

rfrey 12y ago
I'm sure the asshat behaviour you describe affected you as much as any individual woman is affected by similar behaviour. I know (in the abstract sense) the people you're describing and they make me mad. That said, if the kind of behaviour you're describing affects women much more than men, can we still say there's sexism at work? Say I pull some statistics out of thin air: say 1 of 20 men get harassed like you describe, but 1 of 3 women experience it. Can we say there's sexism? If there is, can we address it or try? You can say that women don't experience it more than men (that would be a surprising claim that would contradict a lot of evidence to the contrary, but it would be a valid criticism). Or you could say that they don't experience it to such a greater degree that justifies special attention. But I don't think it's a strong argument to say that men experience ass-hattery, therefore none of the ass-hattery directed at women is based on sexism. (Edit: I don't mean to say the above arguments are your arguments - just that they would be legitimate arguments.)
- mgkimsal 12y ago
  How do you define "affects women more than men"? More women are affected by it? Women are affected by is disproportionately, as a percentage of their office population? Some other measure? Ahhh - you're talking about proportionality. I'm still not sure, but would need to see concrete examples. The particular article I'd read, the 'examples' were "I wasn't promoted", "I felt bullied" and "my ideas weren't taken seriously". How about we just root out that sort of workplace psychopathy altogether, vs trying to have it affect fewer women? FWIW, when I've seen that sort of psychopathy in person, it's been rather indiscriminate. The only reason it might have affected more women disproportionately is that there were fewer women to affect in the first place. 50% of women being affected vs 10% of men affected is somewhat leading statistic, when you realize that there are only 8 women but 40 men - same number of people are affected.
  - xorcist 12y ago
    The difference is between "what an asshat" and "I don't seem to belong".

rfrey 12y ago

I'm sure the asshat behaviour you describe affected you as much as any individual woman is affected by similar behaviour. I know (in the abstract sense) the people you're describing and they make me mad. That said, if the kind of behaviour you're describing affects women much more than men, can we still say there's sexism at work? Say I pull some statistics out of thin air: say 1 of 20 men get harassed like you describe, but 1 of 3 women experience it. Can we say there's sexism? If there is, can we address it or try? You can say that women don't experience it more than men (that would be a surprising claim that would contradict a lot of evidence to the contrary, but it would be a valid criticism). Or you could say that they don't experience it to such a greater degree that justifies special attention. But I don't think it's a strong argument to say that men experience ass-hattery, therefore none of the ass-hattery directed at women is based on sexism. (Edit: I don't mean to say the above arguments are your arguments - just that they would be legitimate arguments.)

mgkimsal 12y ago
How do you define "affects women more than men"? More women are affected by it? Women are affected by is disproportionately, as a percentage of their office population? Some other measure? Ahhh - you're talking about proportionality. I'm still not sure, but would need to see concrete examples. The particular article I'd read, the 'examples' were "I wasn't promoted", "I felt bullied" and "my ideas weren't taken seriously". How about we just root out that sort of workplace psychopathy altogether, vs trying to have it affect fewer women? FWIW, when I've seen that sort of psychopathy in person, it's been rather indiscriminate. The only reason it might have affected more women disproportionately is that there were fewer women to affect in the first place. 50% of women being affected vs 10% of men affected is somewhat leading statistic, when you realize that there are only 8 women but 40 men - same number of people are affected.
- xorcist 12y ago
  The difference is between "what an asshat" and "I don't seem to belong".