Accounting for gender imbalances

[Kestrel]

I worked in field science; which, for the uninitiated, is the jocks' table of the science world / academia, compared to the nerd's corner that is lab science. It was white male-dominated and physically demanding, with a strong bro-culture of whey-chugging rugged-wildman-machismo, casual sexism/homophobia, etc. The toxicity ruined what was otherwise a dream job for me.

You can't expect to change something like that overnight, but you also don't need to overthink it. The simplest tips that would have made a world of difference for me are:

• Listen to women
  &
• Read a room

Women aren't an alien species. We really don't have any kind of unique set of wants you need to be particularly attentive to. We just wanna be treated like people (i.e., not on the basis of our sex/gender) and it's really that simple.

In theory, women should let you know if something makes them uncomfortable, but the problem is that calling something out often puts us at risk of being conflated with the issue we're drawing attention to; the blame is placed on us, for complaining about it, rather than on the source of the actual problem.

e.g., Kestrel is a loud-mouthed feminist who's constantly complaining about how we do things around here.

Rather than:

Our sexist work culture is making our valued employees feel unsafe and unwelcome, and impacting their productivity/satisfaction.

Women know this. Any woman who's ever held a job, especially in a male-dominated field, is likely to at some point have been the target of inappropriate sex/gender-based harassment, and learned the hard way that attempting to resolve the issue often puts them, rather than the person they're complaining about, at risk.

@Arkandel, even if you think that's not a concern that women should have under your employ, they aren't going to intuitively know that and if they're older than say, 18, are going to err on the side of caution when it comes to protecting themselves vs. just being willing to put up with a certain amount of shit.

This is why it falls on you, as someone who cares, to listen to women and read a room.

A woman who's uncomfortable at work isn't likely to outright say it. By the time she does, you can bet it's because she's already reached her upper tolerance limit for politely ignoring the issue.

So if at some point during a meeting she says, politely, even with a smile, playing it off as humour, any statement along these lines:

• 'Don't interrupt me.'
• 'Thank you for your input. As I was saying ...'
• 'Let me finish.'
• 'That's not appropriate.'
• 'Yes, I think I suggested that earlier.' (after someone tries to play off her idea as theirs)
• 'Is that all you think about?' (in RE: sex jokes etc.)

Or if you notice she's been trying to say something for a while and keeps getting cut off, or is looking uncomfortable, leaning away from someone who's "being hilarious", frowning at their jokes while everyone else in the room is laughing ...

Don't assume it's harmless. Don't assume it's all in good fun.

If you're arbitrating a discussion, it's your job to let people know when they're taking up too much space. If you notice someone's been trying to speak for a while, cut off the person who's interrupting them and express that you'd like the other person to have the floor. I'll do this even if I'm not arbitrating; point to a person and say, 'I think x had something they wanted to say.'

If you're in doubt, you can always ask your employee/colleague to catch up with you in private later, after a meeting, to touch base. 'I notice [potential issue], is everything OK? Would you let me know if [person/issue] was making you uncomfortable?'

And if someone comes to you with a complaint without invitation, even if they do so with a smile and assure you it's no big deal — take it seriously.

That's really all you need to do to create an inclusive work environment for all genders.

[Arkandel]

I hadn't had time to sit down at my desk after the interview and I already had a Slack message waiting: "please tell me we're hiring her".

It wasn't from a team member but... sigh.

[Darinelle]

@Arkandel I'm not sure why you're sighing?

[Auspice]

@Darinelle said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@Arkandel I'm not sure why you're sighing?

I'm guessing, since it wasn't from a team member, that the person in question only saw the interviewee and didn't interact with her. So the request has the underlying tone of '.....hire her because I think she's hot'

[Alamias]

@Auspice said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@Darinelle said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

@Arkandel I'm not sure why you're sighing?

I'm guessing, since it wasn't from a team member, that the person in question only saw the interviewee and didn't interact with her. So the request has the underlying tone of '.....hire her because I think she's hot'

Sadly that was the first thing that popped into my head as well.

[Arkandel]

Well, yes, that was the case.

[Darinelle]

BLEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

I hope she was the most qualified but if she WAS the most qualified and you DO hire her I do not envy the conversation you'll have to have with whoever that idiot was.

[silverfox]

This entire thread has been utterly fascinating because it is so very different from anything I've experienced hiring for teaching positions. My profession (elementary education) has almost the exact opposite problem. It it isn't in administration it is very hard to get men into the classroom when the kiddos are young. (The worst I heard from a parent once was, "He teaches kindergarten? He must be a pedophile, I won't let my child be in that class!)

back to being a bee on the wall

[Pandora]

I work in a predominantly male office, though the majority of the admin/reception team is female. There's a guy in my department, very sweet, very friendly, we're friends on Discord, play video games together, so I just want to make it clear he's not a total shithead all the time.

But.

He's got opinions that are not workplace-friendly for discussion. He likes to argue about equal opportunity, cite fringe research that proves men are discriminated against more than women, that men are abused just as much as women but it goes unreported so no one cares, and this past Sunday was Father's Day, and he went on a riff in the office about how single mothers should not be allowed to celebrate Father's Day because that's making the holiday about themselves and renders it meaningless. He corners the few women in our department to make these arguments - it's never the other guys he's talking to, as most of them are not silly enough to engage in this type of behavior. It grates on my nerves to see women who haven't researched these topics unable to refute his 'published statistics' floundering as they make perfectly reasonable emotion-based or anecdotal arguments that he waves off, and he dismisses these arguments with statements like 'I don't need to be married or a father to have an opinion on these topics' despite being a 30 year old virgin with a deep-seated seeming vendetta against the secretly abusive girlfriends and wives and celebratory single moms of the world. When I swoop in to rescue them from this bullshit is when our (male) team lead will finally break it up, because this colleague haranguing the women in the office is one-sided 'conversation' but when I refute his points it's now an 'argument' that needs to be broken up.

I'm kind of at the point of considering physical bodily harm the next time he starts speaking at work, but at the same time I'm hesitant to go to HR to file a grievance against someone I consider a friend.

[silverfox]

@Pandora said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

I'm hesitant to go to HR to file a grievance against someone I consider a friend.

Friends don't let friends make a toxic work enjoyment.

But more seriously- you are in a professional environment and so is he. Quirky viewpoints are fine, but they need to be taken up outside of a work environment. It doesn't sound like people are able to work when he goes on these rants. Thay is what I would report to HR.

[Coin]

@Pandora said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

I work in a predominantly male office, though the majority of the admin/reception team is female. There's a guy in my department, very sweet, very friendly, we're friends on Discord, play video games together, so I just want to make it clear he's not a total shithead all the time.

But.

He's got opinions that are not workplace-friendly for discussion. He likes to argue about equal opportunity, cite fringe research that proves men are discriminated against more than women, that men are abused just as much as women but it goes unreported so no one cares, and this past Sunday was Father's Day, and he went on a riff in the office about how single mothers should not be allowed to celebrate Father's Day because that's making the holiday about themselves and renders it meaningless. He corners the few women in our department to make these arguments - it's never the other guys he's talking to, as most of them are not silly enough to engage in this type of behavior. It grates on my nerves to see women who haven't researched these topics unable to refute his 'published statistics' floundering as they make perfectly reasonable emotion-based or anecdotal arguments that he waves off, and he dismisses these arguments with statements like 'I don't need to be married or a father to have an opinion on these topics' despite being a 30 year old virgin with a deep-seated seeming vendetta against the secretly abusive girlfriends and wives and celebratory single moms of the world. When I swoop in to rescue them from this bullshit is when our (male) team lead will finally break it up, because this colleague haranguing the women in the office is one-sided 'conversation' but when I refute his points it's now an 'argument' that needs to be broken up.

I'm kind of at the point of considering physical bodily harm the next time he starts speaking at work, but at the same time I'm hesitant to go to HR to file a grievance against someone I consider a friend.

Sounds like he's a shithead.

If he doesn't behave like a shithead outside of work where your replies won't be curtailed by your (male) team lead, that means he knows exactly when to do it (and to whom) so that he's operating within a bubble of safety while he compromises the safety and comfort of others.

Ergo, shithead.

Doesn't matter how much fun he is at video games, IMO.

This is not to say that I think you should change your behavior, but I do challenge the idea that he's not a shithead outside of the moments and places where he chooses to behave that way, because if he doesn't behave that way outside of those places and moments, he's doing so consciously. he's either cherry picking when he espouses the views, or cherry picking when he shuts up, but either way, it shows a deliberate discrimination between when he feels he can get away with it, and when he can't.

Or maybe he goes on those rants on Discord and you don't care. I don't know.

[Kestrel]

One alternative I would suggest, if you don't want to go to HR, @Pandora, but are on good terms with him outside of work — privately confront him about his behaviour?

Another thing to bear in mind is that facts don't actually win arguments. A phrase I learned in outreach training is people will forget the things you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.

I assume you have already soundly bested him on every front when it comes to bogus statistics etc. And I'm sure you could link him a bunch of studies that disprove him. But a better question to ask isn't why he's misinformed, honestly, it's who hurt him and how. I'm willing to bet he has some deep-seated issues with women that inform his beliefs, rather than the other way around.

So if you want to have any hope of changing his mind (rather than just his behaviour, in which case HR is your best bet), I'd say forget the facts and figures and try and connect with him on an emotional level to understand where his agenda comes from.

That said considering he's 30 years old, there's a slim chance of that to begin with and I'd be more likely to just cut my losses and walk away, because I agree with @Coin that it doesn't really matter how fun he is at videogames.

I don't take a middle-ground when it comes to people who hold sexist beliefs (with the minor caveat that that there is a difference between ignorance and wilful ignorance). You either think women are people or you don't. It's that simple.

I don't want to be friends with anyone who doesn't think of, or treat me, as people.

[Ghost]

@Pandora My advice? Worry less about the validity of his opinions and more about that they're inappropriate.

There's a reason why HR always tells you to make it clear when you don't think that behavior is work appropriate. Part of that reason is because engaging the person about whether or not their views are correct or factual is partaking in the topic.

I would directly tell this person: "This topic isn't work appropriate. I don't want to discuss it at work. I'm hearing rumblings that other people may not like it or want to discuss it with you, too. As your friend, I don't want to see an HR thing happen. So, please, keep the politics to a minimum and if you want to hash this out away from work? Fine. At work? No mas."

[Lemon Fox]

@Coin said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

Sounds like he's a shithead.

Kinda does.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Pandora said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

I work in a predominantly male office, though the majority of the admin/reception team is female. There's a guy in my department, very sweet, very friendly, we're friends on Discord, play video games together, so I just want to make it clear he's not a total shithead all the time.

But.

He's got opinions that are not workplace-friendly for discussion. He likes to argue about equal opportunity, cite fringe research that proves men are discriminated against more than women, that men are abused just as much as women but it goes unreported so no one cares, and this past Sunday was Father's Day, and he went on a riff in the office about how single mothers should not be allowed to celebrate Father's Day because that's making the holiday about themselves and renders it meaningless. He corners the few women in our department to make these arguments - it's never the other guys he's talking to, as most of them are not silly enough to engage in this type of behavior. It grates on my nerves to see women who haven't researched these topics unable to refute his 'published statistics' floundering as they make perfectly reasonable emotion-based or anecdotal arguments that he waves off, and he dismisses these arguments with statements like 'I don't need to be married or a father to have an opinion on these topics' despite being a 30 year old virgin with a deep-seated seeming vendetta against the secretly abusive girlfriends and wives and celebratory single moms of the world. When I swoop in to rescue them from this bullshit is when our (male) team lead will finally break it up, because this colleague haranguing the women in the office is one-sided 'conversation' but when I refute his points it's now an 'argument' that needs to be broken up.

I'm kind of at the point of considering physical bodily harm the next time he starts speaking at work, but at the same time I'm hesitant to go to HR to file a grievance against someone I consider a friend.

I mean, is he really a friend? Legit question, I see a vast difference between friendly acquaintances you hang out with and friends. If you ended up the victim of sex discrimination, would he have your back? If not, he's not a friend and if a grievance isn't filed, someone needs to at least let it 'slip' to on eof the scarier men in the office that he needs a refresher course on what is and isn't appropriate to discuss at work.

[Ganymede]

@Pandora said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

I'm kind of at the point of considering physical bodily harm the next time he starts speaking at work, but at the same time I'm hesitant to go to HR to file a grievance against someone I consider a friend.

If your other recourse is physically harming him, it sounds like you should not hesitate to file a grievance, which may be considered more appropriate and less painful to him.

[Pandora]

@silverfox said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

It doesn't sound like people are able to work when he goes on these rants. Thay is what I would report to HR.

No, he's not usually keeping anyone from doing anything, if anything these topics come up when there are lulls in things to do.

@Coin said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

This is not to say that I think you should change your behavior, but I do challenge the idea that he's not a shithead outside of the moments and places where he chooses to behave that way, because if he doesn't behave that way outside of those places and moments, he's doing so consciously. he's either cherry picking when he espouses the views, or cherry picking when he shuts up, but either way, it shows a deliberate discrimination between when he feels he can get away with it, and when he can't.

Or maybe he goes on those rants on Discord and you don't care. I don't know.

I don't know what he does when I'm not around, but he never starts these conversations with myself because I've made it pretty clear I don't agree in the past. He has these one-sided conversations with colleagues who are open to discussion but aren't armed with statistics or the level of bullishness required to uphold their end of the conversation, which turns it into a very one-sided lecture of sorts.

@Kestrel He doesn't believe women aren't people, I mean it sincerely when I say he is sweet and friendly, he'll walk you home drunk in the rain without a second thought and he's never what I would consider overtly or willfully disrespectful, he doesn't even talk about people who don't like him behind their back. But yes, there's some deep-seated misogyny that he doesn't cop to, and while he's no incel blaming women for his lack of a love life, he's definitely got issues I have no real interest in probing due to a lack of general empathy. I don't care if he ever gets laid, I just want him to lay off, you know?

@Ghost 'You're being inappropriate' gets me a solid 'If they don't want to talk about it they can say so, we're all adults here' or a 'We're just talking about a holiday, it's not that big a deal'.

Keeping in mind, this is happening in jolly old England, where political correctness isn't the wave that it is in America, and many attempts at curbing things I find inappropriate, like mocking foreign accents, calling every brownish-skinned person a 'Paki', or referring to soccer as football, are met with snickers, eyerolls, and 'Go back to America with that shit', as I've mentioned here a time or two before.

@Kanye-Qwest said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

I mean, is he really a friend? Legit question, I see a vast difference between friendly acquaintances you hang out with and friends. If you ended up the victim of sex discrimination, would he have your back? If not, he's not a friend and if a grievance isn't filed, someone needs to at least let it 'slip' to on eof the scarier men in the office that he needs a refresher course on what is and isn't appropriate to discuss at work.

Yeah, he's one of my closest friends on this bloody isle. This, and his preference for Xbone over PS4, are my only complaints, and it just fucking sucks that this is big enough to cut him loose over if it doesn't stop pretty much immediately - father's day was the last straw for me, as someone that celebrated father's day with my daughter because dad was in another country for years and years. Again, he's not a He Man Woman Hater at least openly, if I was discriminated against for any of the several minority tick-boxes I can check off he'd be in my corner and he has been, another colleague was drunk/high and initiated a homophobic attack during a night out back when I was in my probation period & he was instrumental in getting him moved out of my area of the office and then removed from the business entirely - and this attack (verbal, but encroaching on my personal space like whoa) happened outside of work.

This isn't me defending his behavior, for the record. I am fed up and sickened by this particular habit of his. It's more my trying to paint the picture that it's not as clear cut as 'He's trash, cancel him.' and a frustration that misogyny isn't solely the purview of knuckle-dragging woman beaters, but sometimes the world-view of men who, wanting to believe men aren't as bad as they're made out to be, look to sources that pander to that outlook and wind up brainwashed by statistics that make it look like women are out to get them.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Pandora ugh that sucks. I am sure it's occurred to you, for you are not a dumb, but what about taking him aside and being like 'yo this bothers me becuase i celebrated with my daughter and it was about US, not about anyone else. You never know who you might be hurting when you are inflexible and rude/emphatic about your opinions, and this time you were hurting me, so be more thoughtful or at LEAST keep it out of your job"?

It sucks to be vulnerable, but it sounds like you care about him. Might be worth a try before you have to burn the bridge thorugh either a report or losing your whole damn temper.

[Kanye Qwest]

@Pandora said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

but sometimes the world-view of men who, wanting to believe men aren't as bad as they're made out to be, look to sources that pander to that outlook and wind up brainwashed by statistics that make it look like women are out to get them.

ALSO qft. It's hard because I get it, it SUCKS to admit you are/have been/benefit from The Asshole. And it falls to people who care about these otherwise decent humans to be like hey. YO. It's ok, but you're wrong.

[Ganymede]

@Pandora said in Accounting for gender imbalances:

'If they don't want to talk about it they can say so, we're all adults here'

I'd like to interject here to point out how much I hate this.

Adults don't go up to other adults and criticize a belief in the workplace. Do it in a bar, or at a party or something. Don't do it in a place where part of the audience is compelled to be polite to you out of professional courtesy..

'We're just talking about a holiday, it's not that big a deal'.

If it's not a big deal, then there's no need to bring it up in the workplace.

Seriously, I get irritated when people just plop into my office and talk politics. Bitch, I've got work to do. Get out of my face with your personal opinion; I'm nacho friend.