Tech bros' attitude to female colleagues stuck in dark ages
Tech bros' attitude to female colleagues stuck in dark ages
Research sheds light on attitudes holding industry back
Almost one in five men in IT explain why fewer females work in the profession by arguing that "women are naturally less well suited to tech roles than men."
Feel free to check the calendar. No, we have not set the DeLorean for 1985. It is still 2023, yet anyone familiar with the industry over the last 30 years may feel a sense of déjà vu when reading the findings of a report by The Fawcett Society charity and telecoms biz Virgin Media O2.
The survey of nearly 1,500 workers in tech, those who have just left the industry, and women qualified in sciences, technology, or math, also found that a "tech bro" work culture of sexism forced more than 40 percent of women in the sector to think about leaving their role at least once a week.
Additionally, the study found 72 percent of women in tech have experienced at least one form of sexism at work. This includes being paid less than male colleagues (22 percent) and having their skills and abilities questioned (20 percent). Almost a third of women in tech highlighted a gender bias in recruitment, and 14 percent said they were made to feel uncomfortable because of their gender during the application process.
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In my experience, most discrimination is subtle. For 18 months, as the only female sysadmin on a team, I was routinely left off of important email chains, "forgotten" to be invited to critical meetings, not given access to important tools to perform my job, and asked to perform secretarial duties for my male counterparts. Any suggestions I made were met with "thanks for the input, but we are going in a different direction". Weeks later, one of the males would be praised for coming up with the same idea i had proposed earlier.
We have multiple trainings telling us how not to be overtly sexist. What they don't cover, is the common micro aggressions that are easily overlooked. Were my coworkers overworked? Yes. Do things get overlooked? Yes. Can you forget one person on a team of 5 for 18 months straight? No.
Weeks later, one of the males would be praised for coming up with the same idea i had proposed earlier.
I've even seen this happen within a single meeting, its the most common sexist behavior I notice. Newer female staff would suggest something, older male would say it later in the meeting and get the approval and action from it. We had a private channel with us younger-ish people on the team and she was very open about it there, and was comfortable with us overemphasizing when she had come up with ideas. Things like "yeah I agree with [her] idea" when it was appropriate and speaking up more in those cases. If she wouldn't have brought it up casually like that and discussed it openly we wouldn't have been as aggressive either, and this has happened with a few female colleagues.
This sounds like a very toxic environment, i'm sure it happens but i've never withnessed anything like this
I wouldn't have noticed as much if the co-workers weren't comfortable casually discussing it, cause I'd be focused on my own priorities in the meetings same as everyone else, or I might not think to attribute an idea to a specific person and just say "I like this idea" instead of "I like their idea." Most of the time I don't think people are doing this maliciously either, I think they're just absorbing the information, and people who are less outspoken or women end up not getting credited as much. Sometimes it's a matter of whoever said something the loudest gets the credit for it even if they aren't taking ownership for the idea. The things that help deal with these issues that affect women at a higher rate are just good for everyone else as well.
It sounds fairly similar to racism, tbh
In case you haven’t heard the term before, you just discovered intersectionality.
🙄
lol. Did you just accidentally do a woke?
No, that's often the label people throw on me. It's the condescension of thinking that word adds anything of value, and that it would be the first time anyone's heard it. It's the deviation of what I considered to be an authentic exchange into whatever ego-driven pointless parallel of mansplaining that was.
Excuse my ignorance but… what?
That really makes no sense at all. What word are you talking about? Intersectionality? Or woke? Because you’re wrong if you’re talking about intersectionality.
I am talking about intersectionality. It's become a buzz word. Case in point, you really thought you were doing something by its mere mentioning, and "teaching me" about its existence.
Jesus. So you have decided that because people don’t represent intersectionality well that it’s now just a dumb concept even though you, naturally, touched on it by recognizing where sexism and racism intersect….
Are you just one of those people who gets stuck on the use of a particular language and rather than address an issue you just throw the whole conversation out? Like, come on… it being used as a buzzword does not make intersectionality unimportant at all.
You see how the bridge based on authentic painful experiences I was trying to have with the original commenter has now turned into nonsense about this term?
Why would you ever think someone on Lemmy hasn't heard of this term before? Let's say someone hadn't, you really think the meaning behind it is something anyone over 10 wouldn't have thought of by themselves by now?
Do you think "teaching" someone about this container of a term was really the right timing in this scenario?
Person 1: painful experience
Person 2: sounds similar to mine
Person 3: Let me presume you haven't heard about this buzzword. You have now just discovered this great word thanks to meee. Nevermind that it's an obvious idea that should occur to anyone with basic empathy and intelligence, but especially to people that have experienced prejudice. You are welcome.
It turned into nonsense with your eye roll. You brought it here by being overtly and intentionally patronizing.
Why would I assume people on lemmy haven’t heard the term? I mean, have you seen who’s on here? There’s plenty of reason to be unsure. And I’m wildly confused about how me pointing out how you’re engaging with intersectionality is the problem.
A lot of people learn and make connections by seeing comment threads they aren’t a part of. Me pointing out that what you did was touching on intersectionality is as much for those readers as any opportunity to make the connection for you that there might have been. People seeing these things in action and real time is a huge addition to making the connections the break past biases and prejudices. It’s moments like that where they read a thread followed by your comment and they see the similarities, but without a direct pointer to intersectionality might keep the same bias against it because, even though they understand it they don’t connect it and continue to shit on the concept as a whole and refuse to engage in conversation at all. Maybe they just send an eye roll emoji when someone brings up the term. But pointing it out directly might make the difference for them to be able to actually engage in the conversation later.
I came at it with good faith and I’m sorry I said it in a way that didn’t sit right with you, but I had no way of knowing anything that you do or don’t know on the topic. Maybe I should have phrased it differently and rather than saying ‘in case you haven’t heard the term before’ I could have simply said ‘yay for intersectionality’ and it wouldn’t have been offensive to you? Idk. I said it trying to not make any assumptions and clearly that failed.
mansplaining
Uggghh.
If you weren't aware, mansplaining means a man explaining something that's common knowledge in a condescending way, implying someone is ignorant or naive about the subject.
It sounds fairly similar to racism, tbh
I think a lot of the confusion in this thread comes from you saying this in a way that sounds like you don't know more and have for the first time made this connection. Down the thread, it's clear you know exactly what you're saying, and you seem annoyed that other users didn't recognize that in the first place.
Yeah, now that you point it out, it looks like the number user baited the other into that pointless argument. Makes an obvious statement and gets offended when they get an obvious reply and accuses them of sexism.