

Things My Male Tech Colleagues Have Actually Said to Me, Annotated - anigbrowl
http://the-toast.net/2015/04/01/things-male-tech-colleagues-have-actually-said-annotated/#wvbI1cCIOePRt5gM.01

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gutnor
I'm often wondering how common that kind of talk really is nowadays ?
Especially in the 30 something generation.

I mean I have known some dicks here and there that would really think the
annotated version, but I have never met one that would say it out loud. They
would just do the usual unprovable discrimination: lack of advancement, being
a dick in the evaluation, failing interviews, lack of raise ... the usual
silent career killers that women ( and foreigners, ... ) face. I have heard of
some bosses being afraid that a women would go on maternity leave, but they
would not ask - they would just assume there is a risk and find whatever other
excuse ( and there are so many in our fields )

We have been planning interview strategies with my wife, so that she would
subtly let it known that she is happy with the number of kid we have and that
she is 100% in the job without being prompted - because she won't be.

Personally those are the kind of stuff I would like not to have to do. I'm
more in favour of controversial stuff like quota of women in tech, than
focusing on PC like "dongle" drama. If a big chunk of your bosses and
colleague are women, I can't of somebody stupid enough to say shit like in the
article.

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malpiatko
I am a female programmer and I would like to add a different view on this. I
am reading quite a bit of these kind of blogs these days. I have never
encountered this kind of behaviour, I am usually treated nicer because I am a
female. It is easier for me to find a job, which pisses of my computing
friends. Basically, I have only ever took advantage of my gender. I am showing
my opinion about few of those comments.

“Most girls aren’t into this kind of stuff.” - if you are a programmer you
should know that statistically, yes, most girls are not into "this kind of
stuff". Nothing offensive.

“You got it! Clever girl!” - I could see myself going to a colleague tapping
him on his head and saying "Clever boy."

“You don’t mind if we call you a ‘chick,’ do you?” - I don't imagine anyone
asking. That's quite over-polite. Male equivalent - "dude".

“How did you learn to do all this?!” - don't see any gender bias whatsoever.
Pretty impressive. Compliment.

“Wow, you’re pretty strong!” - again, compliment. Guys talk about their
muscles all time, this only shows gender equality!

“No, when I complain about ‘geek girls,’ I don’t mean you. You’re a real
geek.” - ok, this one, he's just trying not to offend you.

“He told me it sounds like we’ve got a new hot chick working here. I was like
‘yeah, man.’” - hot = good!

“But—you’re way too nice to be a lesbian!” - probably haven't met any
lesbians. You're first and creating the image, you should be proud of
yourself. Next time he meets one he won't say that.

“You know about making coffee, right?” - I have no idea how to make coffee, I
make men always do it for me.

“Let me know when you want to do that so I can help you. No offense, but you
just don’t know enough about it to try it on your own.” - why would you assume
he is saying that because you are a women. It only means you are insecure
about that fact.

“I had this female boss once, and I know I’m not supposed to say this, but I
could totally tell when it was her time of the month.” - I am sorry, but I am
really fucking annoying when on period and I do go around telling people:
"Sorry if I'm pissed off, it's the time."

“See, that’s the great thing about you, I know I can tell ‘offensive’ jokes
around you and you won’t care.” - why are you smiling then, if you are
offended? I'm sure they'd stop if you told them.

“You and my wife could mud-wrestle naked.” - I am bi and I'd take that as a
compliment.

“You’re a girl, but you’re not, like, a girl-girl, y’know?” - the fact that
someone is not attracted to you is not the end of the world.

~~~
anigbrowl
Sorry I didn't reply to this earlier, as at one point the thread was flagged
and new replies were disabled.

These interpretations are really valuable in identifying how a lot of these
original comments may well be clumsy attempts at delivering a compliment,
often from men who might feel as if they're walking on eggshells. On the other
hand, the reason I posted is that even where such comments are well-
intentioned, they can often signal a discounting of the female colleague's
other abilities.

I've become more sensitive to this since an experience a couple of years on a
film I was working on. Film sets are broadly gender-neutral. sure, there are
more female make-up artists and male grips and camera operators, but those
tend to be reflective of cultural and physical differences rather than
institutionalized (more women have experience of dealing with makeup from an
early age, it's easier for men to wrangle heavy lighting equipment or weighty
35mm cameras). I've met many people of the opposite gender to the one that
might be expected, and the general attitude is 'if you know what you're doing
it doesn't matter who you are.' I've never heard anyone express the idea that
women can't be cinematographers, or this or that.

However, on this project, we had an actress who was cast in a sort of _femme
fatale_ role, and her best known credit was an appearance in a highly
sexualized context on a cable TV series. And she was very, very hot - she's
appeared as a model in a variety of men's magazines (the sort where they show
hot women in expensive bikinis or underwear rather than actual nudity). To my
surprise, a ton of people, including some other women, projected all their
stereotypes of the 'bimbo' image on this actress and though everyone was
formally polite (as far as I could tell) She was discussed int he abstract as
nothing more than a hot body, along with general critiques of her intellect,
acting ability and so on.

I had little contact with her during the shoot (short schedule + working as a
department head = constantly busy), and my impression at the time was that she
was perfectly smart but very stressed, which I put down to the working
atmosphere that was created around her (and which was different on days when
she wasn't on set - you get a feel for these things). The final straw was on
the last evening, when there was a fight/action scene in which she was
involved. As soon as she showed up, the lead actor just stood up and explained
how it should all go down and how he would do all the work etc.

I didn't blow a gasket about it because we had a limited amount of time,
although I remonstrated with the producers and director about it, but they
didn't want to slow things down. I wasn't remonstrating to be noble, but
because the actress had black belts in more than one martial art, had studied
in China, and had numerous credits as a fight coordinator, far more experience
in this specialization than anyone else on the set. She also had a degree _cum
laude_ from a prestigious university in a challenging subject and a bunch of
other accomplishments, and yet most of the cast and crew were treating her as
little better than a mannequin.

tl;dr many of the original comments might have a positive intent, but
unfortunately it's all to easy to be positively dismissive of someone's actual
abilities without really intending to.

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scottkduncan
Fascinating to just watch this drop down and off the front page of HN despite
all the upvotes...

~~~
dang
When users flag posts, the posts fall in rank.

This one is a repost, by the way.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9307904](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9307904)

~~~
anigbrowl
Thanks for the FYI Dan. I didn't have the original come up when I posted it or
I would have just left it and let the other poster accrue a karma point.

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zarify
I am curious as to whether this is just supposed to be sarcastic humor or
whether it's thought that the snarky list is actually supposed to be helpful
in some way. It reads very much as "something I think without saying anything
about".

------
ja27
I had one male coworker ask a female coworker what size her breasts were. He
explained that his wife was getting implants and he was trying to decide on
the size. I'm so glad she didn't tell me until after he left. I saw him once
in a store over a year later and I still wanted to punch him in the nose over
that.

