Female Engineers: Too Fit For The Role
vagendamag.blogspot.co.ukFor non UK readers Fit = "hot"
It might not be immediately clear but the article is talking about Civil Engineering which is a little unreconstructed when compared to IT.
And to progress to Chartered status for civil engineers you must have experience working on site bossing the navvies around.
When I worked for Dar Al Hadnasha (one of the big civil consultacies) we had to send out female engineers to Italy on an exchange as in the middle east it woudl have been impossible for a woman to go on site.
Misogyny is, in my experience, a function of the power dynamic in a situation. As an engineer working on site the author is placed in a position of authority, but one with no direct power over the workers that she is encountering on site. She is at the same time both threatening, due to her high status, and powerless, because her influence over the work is indirect.
I find this behavior disgusting but it is, I feel, the answer to the question posed by the author: "But they must leave at some point and see wives/daughters/sisters/mothers/random women in the street.. Is the point less about novelty or even sex, and much more about straightforward intimidation?"
It is pretty much about intimidation and resentment by some and a group dynamic that forces others to play along or ignore the situation. I can't speak to the situation in Britain but in my part of the world I can say that things have improved substantially in the last 15 or so years but there is still a long way to go. Contrary to what anyone might tell you though, it is not a case of "boys will be boys" - the fact of the matter is that the management and foremen can change the culture if they want to, I have seen it happen, someone in charge just needs to have the resolve to say it won't be tolerated and actually act on it.
Kind of puts the "sexism in tech" discussion in perspective. These guys make the Mad Men lot sound respectful.
Here's a simple way they could deal with that - create a new company (or even just a new department within the company), hire only civilised people, fire anyone who proves to be an uncivilised jerk, and slowly grow that department/company to take over the company/industry because it's not full of retards...
> hire only civilised people, fire anyone who proves to be an uncivilised jerk ... because it's not full of retards...
Complaining about sexism then using "retards" as a pejorative is just too ironic.
That caught me off guard too. I didn't realise anyone used the term anymore.
Maybe the OP used it to make a point?
I don't call mentally handicapped people retards, I call them mentally handicapped people.
Retards, in my vocabulary, means someone who is not mentally handicapped but is a cretin. I could have used the word "cretin", in fact.
So you'd happily use the N' word, "fag," "gay," and similar since you can re-define them in your head to be just general insults, rather than associating negativity with the groups for which these words were originally used?
Sorry but we both know the reason you're using that word is because you want to paint them as being mentally handicapped which you perceive as "bad." You can pretend that isn't what you're doing but even if that is true that is how others perceive it, because when they hear the word "retard" they think mentally handicapped and you're using it as a derogative.
Retard does not have the same "inappropriate" connotations in the UK as in the US (certainly it's nothing like using nigger or fag(got) in conversation as a pejorative).
But yes, I do think being mentally handicapped is "bad". Are you arguing that it's "good"?
I live here. Yes it does.
Well, I live here too. Maybe you live in an alternate reality.
You didn't answer my question. Do you think being mentally handicapped is good?
It is neither good nor bad. Neutral.
But regardless of your opinion, using it as an insult is uncalled for. Since essentially you're lumping people who already have problems in with whatever it is you're trying to insult.
I think by now we're really arguing semantics, but I would argue that I do not lump anyone in with the people I call retards.
I would never call a mentally handicapped person a "retard". To me, that would be an incredibly insulting and inappropriate thing to do. The only people I'd call retards are people who are not mentally handicapped.
Similarly, if I call someone a dick head, I do not consider that to be insulting, or even related, to physical dick heads... it's just an insulting term. If I call someone (a guy, usually) a bitch (e.g "Yo, bitch, pass me the beer"), that does not imply any connection with female dogs.
Btw, I don't see how you can argue that being mentally handicapped (which by definition means having mental issues) can be neutral. It's clearly a net negative. It doesn't mean the person is more or less good, much like missing a leg or an arm (aka physically handicapped) doesn't make the person more or less good, but it's definitely a "bad" thing.
These guys are disrespectful, insulting and pathetic, but at least she got the job and none of the anecdotes suggest they assumed she was incapable of doing that job.
That's already two steps up from Mad Men territory.
And beside the crudeness, which is more a social class difference than anything else, I don't see how this differs from the reports of sexism in tech. At least she's got the (albeit clumsy and inadequate) support of her employer. They weren't advertising job posts for "brogrammers".
Being less crude than construction workers is not exactly a high standard for tech.
The guys (well, some of them) are discussing her treatment behind her back. One of them even apologizes every time he swears in a meeting. That means even the ones who care honestly don't know how women want to be treated in a workplace. (Of course, part of the problem is that they are constructing some kind of universal ruleset without considering her as an individual.)
It seems that no one knew which guys were the jerks before because they acted reasonably when women weren't around. I think the same thing happened in tech circles. There are some major assholes and even creepy stalkers that don't really show themselves until women show up, so they go unnoticed for years by the male majority.
I would love it if there was a way of testing these things out. I've a sneaking suspicion (based on absolutely no reason) that the company 'full or retards' would outperform the company of nice, respectful people. But the real world is a big messy place.
I will probably get shunned to death for asking this, but I must ask.
The described behaviour of men in the article is pretty damn sexist, true. But how is it any different from how men in groups behave towards one another? Just replace all the sexist jokes with gay jokes or sissy jokes or just about any other type of jokes men direct at one another to establish pecking orders within groups.
Reading this, it doesn't feel so much like the terrible sexism it's portrayed as, but more like reading about a clash of cultures. This is how groups of men organise themselves. I understand it's jarring for women and that women do it differently, but still, all I see here are men treating a woman exactly like they treat other men.
By the sound of it, she's actually being accepted into the group. Hazing is always the first step.
> Just replace all the sexist jokes with gay jokes or sissy jokes or just about any other type of jokes men direct at one another to establish pecking orders within groups.
You may want to consider hanging out with a different crowd...
Also, this is not "hanging out", this is the workplace. Different standards should apply. Bullying and intimidation in the workplace is unacceptable for any reason, and in this case it's both bullying and sexism.
Yes, I know this is how certain groups of men behave. It also happens to be the same men who's jobs are in danger of permanently disappearing, and this is exactly one of the main reasons nobody gives a shit.
By the sounds of the article this is British construction workers we are talking about. They have their own culture which is equally as strange as ours, they literally rip on each other all of the time.
They must find something to tease you about, whether it's being "gay" , your nationality or just the football team you follow.
Unfortunately in this case in the absence of anything else they chose to pick up on her being a woman.
That's not really much of a defence though, is it? British construction workers have decided for themselves which jokes are normal, which are funny, which jokes cross the line. Their tastes are biased in a very sexist way (probably more to do with subjective bias than actual misogyny, but still sexist in content).
Think about your list of things to joke about. If you're not a straight, masculine, white, English man then they joke about whatever makes you different. Which means sexist, homophobic or racist jokes. If you are a straight, masculine, white, English man, then, ha, ha, you like Manchester United. It's not ha, ha, your mum's got cancer, or ha, ha, you lost your wife in a car accident. No, hurtful jokes only get made to people who are different. People who are like the majority get made fun off for having different taste with regards being a sports fan.
Just because it's a tradition, and they don't mean it, doesn't mean it's okay.
They'd probably call you gay even if you weren't, whether or not you actually are is probably not that important to them.
You'd also probably get made fun of more for being say Irish or Scottish than for being black.
Whether or not it's "okay" it is not something you could reasonably expect to be changed for one person.
I would think that really her employer should have managed her expectations better.
Using "gay" as an insult is very problematic and homophobic.
Calling someone who is gay "gay" is generally not a problem. (Depending on context it obviously can be, but that's then more dependent on the context, not the word.)
The implication of calling someone who isn't "gay" is that being gay is somehow bad or something to be offended about. That is as clear a homophobic statement as there can be.
It is homophobic, by the way, even if the intent of the speaker isn't there.
Perhaps, but construction workers tend not to spend much time considering the implications of language in the way that people who are college educated might. So what you have is more a clash of the cultures than real homophobia.
The way I've always thought of the word "gay" being used in that way was not so much that it was bad to be gay (as in the sexuality) so much, but that you are associating the person with certain stereotypical gay traits such as effeminacy which would be somewhat insulting to a stereotypical macho construction worker.
As I already said, that's also sexist. Gender policing is not ok. (And you cannot ignore what gay usually means.)
That depends, if you are in an environment the person on the receiving end doesn't take offence and will happily give insults back then it doesn't really matter.
The difficulty is when you put people not used to that environment into it, the real issue is a conflict in expectations rather than the exact language used.
>You may want to consider hanging out with a different crowd...
And you may want to consider actually being more truthful about what you and your pals do do when you hang around.
(Not to mention the irony of 5 lines below, in your same comment, using language like "gives a shit").
>Also, this is not "hanging out", this is the workplace. Different standards should apply.
Only for puritan cultures, that hold a clear distinction between work and normal life/play.
>Yes, I know this is how certain groups of men behave. It also happens to be the same men who's jobs are in danger of permanently disappearing, and this is exactly one of the main reasons nobody gives a shit.
This sounds like a reason to actually "give a shit".
Not sure how you justify yourself, morally, to care (or pretend to care) about "sexism" and "male jokes" while at the same time "not giving a shit" about people being forced into unemployment.
I don't give a shit about sexist and homophobic neanderthals who need to put down, intimidate and bully other people to make themselves feel better.
And no, I truthfully don't hang out with such scum.
You seem to have a very twisted idea of what normal, civilized male behavior is.
>You seem to have a very twisted idea of what normal, civilized male behavior is.
Yes, it's "not giving a shit" about people forced into unemployment, and calling other people "scum" and "neanderthals" (after an extinct race of people -- might as well go full on and use the other n... word).
Swearing, holier-than-thou, casually racist remarks for whole classes of people (as if construction workers described in the article are "sexist and homophobic neanderthals" for making some comments between them in jest as 99.9% of the male population does, and one should "not give a shit" about them).
Way to prove your superior, non-sexist, caring and sensitive "civilized male behavior".
Well, it's not exactly the same, is it? Firstly, when straight men make gay jokes at each other, everyone knows it isn't true, it's just a joke. Straight sexual jokes are more likely to have a component of truth to them, which makes them must less pleasant to receive. Jokes between men are part of how men establish pecking orders, but sexual jokes are part of how men signal their attraction to women. Unwanted sexual advances feel unpleasantly intrusive. They're supposed to feel that way. It's a part of human sexuality - we're all strongly motivated to push for our own sexual autonomy.
Secondly, there's the fact that these jokes single her out. She's the only one getting sexual and sexist jokes, so that makes her a special target. If it were all those men making constant gay and sissy jokes to a gay man, you wouldn't think twice about calling it bullying. Hazing becomes bullying if one person gets singled out.
Bullying with a sexual component is straight up sexual harassment. Maybe it isn't meant that way, but that's exactly what it is. A lot of bullying exists because dumb people don't think about what they are doing. "It's just a joke," they say. But it's not. It's the same joke, every day, from everyone. This is exactly the kind of situation where an employer has to step in and tell everyone to grow up and leave it at home. And when I say they have to, I mean it's the law, and they're going to get sued.
Also, the less direct sexism the writer faces show that she is not being treated like the men. The assumption that she is lost or trespassing because she is a lone woman on a building site is pretty sexist. Sure, women working on building sites are rare, but so are women getting lost on building sites. The whole asking if she was "fit" e-mail conversation was cringe inducing - and completely not how a man would be treated.
>But how is it any different than how men in groups behave towards one another?
Men do not typically fear sexual violence from each other.
Not that the men on that site were necessarily going to rape the engineer, but it was certainly orders of magnitude more likely than them raping each other.
For the record I understand your point and you might be right, she may well be being accepted, but I don't think it's really reasonable that she should just feel OK with it.
EDIT: and tbh in an ideal world men wouldn't have to face "hazing" (bullying) either. It's a pretty poor justification for women having to cope with a worse variant.
> Men do not typically fear sexual violence from each other.
Women do not typically fear sexual violence from men either. Any woman I've ever asked "Do you really live in constant fear from rape as the internet activists suggest" has answered with "Not really, unless I'm going down a dark alley alone at night it doesn't really cross my mind"
But y'know, going down a dark alley alone at night, I'm pretty damn on guard myself and I'm a guy.
For the record: I have always felt americans (and anglosaxons in general) are orders of magnitude more afraid of the world than any other people I've ever spoken to. Men and women alike.
EDIT TO YOUR EDIT: > EDIT: and tbh in an ideal world men wouldn't have to face "hazing" (bullying) either. It's a pretty poor justification for women having to cope with a worse variant.
Ideal or not, hazing and bullying has worked for countless millennia to distinguish those you can rely on in a tight spot from those you cannot. The more dangerous the circumstances, the harder becoming accepted by a group seems to be. It's just how humans are.
> For the record: I have always felt americans (and anglosaxons in general) are orders of magnitude more afraid of the world than any other people I've ever spoken to. Men and women alike.
You should qualify that by where you live. There are dangerous places and there are safer places. America is a bit more dangerous in many places than Europe.
I wouldn't let my wife walk alone at any time in India these days but I have no problem with her walking alone in Beijing in the middle of the night.
The world is vast.
"America is a bit more dangerous in many places than Europe."
I'd be surprised if the most violent places and times in the US were really that different to the most violent places and times in Europe. However, what I suspect is different is where and when violence is likely to occur.
>Ideal or not, hazing and bullying has worked for countless millennia to distinguish those you can rely on in a tight spot from those you cannot. The more dangerous the circumstances, the harder becoming accepted by a group seems to be. It's just how humans are.
You're an intelligent guy, surely you realise that this can be used to justify any number of barbaric, animalistic behaviours. I could make up a list of lurid things society should let me do to you and your family by this logic, but like I said, you seem clever enough to imagine them yourself.
As far as I'm concerned this kind of dawkins-style biological reductionism represents the abandonment of enlightenment thinking and I will not stand for it. I am not an ape, and neither are you.
The Enlightenment era was arguably a high point of group-joining rituals.
I know I know, bullying is not okay and I agree. But the fact of the matter is we as humans want people to "pay their dues". We are always going to find a way of ensuring that happens.
One thing I do notice is that the sort of places that participate in more "Hazing" type behavior do often have a keener sense of loyalty and justice, perhaps because there is a stronger bond between people.
Rather than the typical corporate america style "rat race" where everyone is very polite but happy to stab each other in the back for their own aims.
Having been in a fraternity, I have unfortunately been through hazing processes on both sides. Although it was very light hazing, I'm still ashamed both of having allowed myself to be put through it as well as to have put others through it.
The people who are responsible for hazing? --The ones that go at it with the most gusto? I've learned that those are the ones you should trust the least.
There is absolutely nothing respectable about hazing.
"For the record: I have always felt americans (and anglosaxons in general) are orders of magnitude more afraid of the world than any other people I've ever spoken to. Men and women alike."
Would it be fair to rephrase this as "Americans and citizens of the UK and its former dominions have an expectation of public order that many other people do not, and are troubled when the expectation is not met."?
For the record, I (an American) have been held up at gunpoint. It did not keep me from being out and about late at night, though it made me more aware of what was around me. What should I have done to reduce my fear by an order of magnitude?
> Ideal or not, hazing and bullying has worked for countless millennia to distinguish those you can rely on in a tight spot from those you cannot.
So has being in constant danger of being eaten by a large carnivore, why don't you submit yourself to that then?
I don't know what sort of places you've worked, but I've never experienced "hazing" at any of my jobs.
And how many blue collar jobs is that?
"Just replace the sexism with homophobia! Boys will be boys!"Just replace all the sexist jokes with gay jokes or sissy jokesWhat kind of fucking zoo do you work at?
One populated by normal, functioning human beings, I wager?
In blue-collar workplaces constant ribbing and bullshitting is usually a way of keeping low stress and friendly.
To the rest of us, consider it a form of play.
Sissy jokes are also sexist, by the way. It's a great example of how sexism can affect both men and women equally. Sissy jokes are gender policing. The implication is that being a man and being feminine is incompatible. They exclude feminine men.
All the jokes and insults you listed are extremely problematic and most certainly also deserve our attention (though that is most certainly not a valid criticism of this article, no single article has the obligation to mention every problem).
I don't know of any group of men in a workplace that would sing songs at random men passing by, or see a man dressed for a particular job role and ask them what they are doing there all by themselves. She was obviously treated differently than they would treat each other.
all I see here are men treating a woman exactly like they treat other men.
I think you mean "men physically smaller than themselves". This is how morons, not men, organise themselves.
I doubt he does mean that. It's not related to the size at all.
I know this is a little off-topic but I spent a while wondering why the article ("I'm not scared of you any more") bore no resemblance to the title ("Too fit for the role").
Turns out I dismissed the popup window automatically because 100% of popup windows are trying to sell social media experience extravaganzas and must be removed to see the actual content.
Turns out this blogging software shows its main content as a superimposed popup/lightbox thing.
So, if you end up reading the wrong article, perhaps you clicked close on the popup before it loaded.
Anyone else notice that 'The Vagenda' has a lot of articles that are aimed at men being jerks? I think any man reading this site will not have an accurate understanding as to what any writer is trying to convey. - My opinion on this article: If you don't like it leave; there are plenty of establishments that'll treat you the way you want to be treated. You just have to go through all the BS to figure out what you like and it obviously isn't this.
> Anyone else notice that 'The Vagenda' has a lot of articles that are aimed at men being jerks?
I knew immediately by reading the domain that it was going to be a feminist leaning blog, and that's totally fine. Perhaps that's what their content is based on. Unfortunately there's lots of examples of men being jerks, so they have a massive grab bag to pull content from.
> If you don't like it leave
That's always the easy answer, and it's unrealistic and unfair. You don't know the conditions of the author. Maybe they have a boatload of debt or are in a situation where they need stability. Moving jobs is always a risk because there are things like probation periods. Even if you are good at what you do, a probation period is still scary, even more so if you have dependents.
Sexism, bad. But let's keep our heads on straight here.
Just because someone treats you like shit, and you're a woman, doesn't mean it's sexism.
1. Maybe they treat her like shit because she's new, and the feminine stuff is just one reason to rag on her. If she was a tall guy, they'd probably make fun of that too.
2. Maybe they treat her like shit because, for some reason, despite all this, she hasn't actually asked them to stop -- just complained about it on the Internet
A lot of people will get angry at me for this, because sexism is a very real problem.
But not everything is fucking sexism.
Damn, I was just wondering about this the other day. I.e., how the software world compares to the engineering world. Seems my guesses were right in this case.
"Get your rat out"? Seriously? That's got to be one of the most foul things I've ever heard. Real life is so much more disgusting than fiction.
Yep. Sounds like shop talk--amazing how things at machine shops, oil rigs, and construction sites can be very similar at times. The women I know that work in any of those fields tend to either ignore it or join in--depending on their mood.
One wonders how things would be different were roles reversed--indeed, what sort of talk was common on factory floors during the world wars?
I did once in my youth avoid one end of the office were I briefly worked, for there was a mouthy, and by her own account sexually adventurous young woman--who was free in voicing her opinion of my looks. I used to run home from that office a couple of days a week, but made damn sure never to exit past her work area. That was a third of a century ago, and stands out in my mind, so the reverse case is apparently not that common.
Do women freely express their opinions of men among themselves? Certainly. But it is my desire and care to avoid overhearing them.
I imagine it was pretty bad. I recall my grandma telling me that the talk on the shop floor during the war was... not polite.
Here is one example.
"A female council boss has been suspended for biting a 24-year-old junior employee so hard that she drew blood through his underwear.
"The worker was taken to hospital, after the incident, for a tetanus injection.
"A colleague called the bite a horseplay that got out of hand."
http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/boss-bites...
When a man walks into a predominantly female group, the behaviour is exactly the same, just the words are different.
At least in my experience.
I would be interested in hearing about your experience.
Well there are two.
1. I was out with a group of female friends. Them being 3 to 4 females who have known each other for ages, me being the newcomer. I got the distinct feeling that men are walking penises. (granted they were all in their early twenties)
2. Living with my mum and sister (and female cat). Every day I am reminded that a man is incapable of tying his own shoes without a woman's help. We are these helpless sort of creatures you know, women only put up with us out of the kindness of their hearts and because we're good for a lay now and then.
You seem to be all over this thread saying "oh well this is bad but men also have it equally bad sexism is exaggerated etc etc".
I agree that women can be shitty to men. But men, in general, can be far shittier to women. Being patronised by your female relatives is a completely different league to having sexual abuse shouted at you by strangers (strangers who should be subordinate to your professional expertise).
And yes, I've worked in blue collar jobs (factories, as a cleaner, as a binman), and I too found it hard to fit in with that culture. But I had it nowhere near as bad as this woman did.
I'm saying this isn't a gender issue. This is a basic human psychology issue. This is the way humans behave, regardless of gender. Gender doesn't even have anything to do with it, gender just defines the specific words used in the overall pattern.
In the article men are making fun of a woman. Here on HN startups are making fun of lifestyle businesses. On r/programming Scala developers are making fun of Java developers. On imgur people are making fun of 9gag. The internet is making fun of Bieber fans. Bieber fans are making fun of old people. Old people make fun of young people. Young people make fun of old people.
People poke fun at each other. It's how we establish groups. It's how we operate. We pick a trait and converge around it, as soon as we see a member of the species who does not have that trait, we make fun of them and maybe, just maybe, we eventually let them join the group.
If you want to fight sexism, go to a country that hasn't given women the vote, or women are still treated as property. that's sexism.
"People poke fun at each other. It's how we establish groups. It's how we operate. We pick a trait and converge around it, as soon as we see a member of the species who does not have that trait, we make fun of them and maybe, just maybe, we eventually let them join the group."
That's true. But the traits chosen are not arbitrary. There are some traits which are consistently used to exclude people from certain groups. As a lifestyle entrepreneur, people on HN look down on me. 99% of the population don't care. Whereas if I was female, or black, or whatever, suddenly I find myself excluded from a lot more groups.
Yes, there is much worse sexism in the world, but I can't think of many people who would think shouting sexual abuse at your manager as anything other than sexism. You seem like an intelligent guy, but you seem to have already reached the conclusion that this isn't sexism and are now trying to justify that conclusion.
I have reached the conclusion that this is a deeper issue that in this particular instance manifests itself as sexism.
Why treat the symptoms, let's fix the problem eh?
I don't think going out to a bar with a group of women or your home situation can really approximate a hypothetical workforce of women.
When in my early 20's I once walked into a factory floor full of women in their 30's and 40's
Boy did their looks and remarks make me feel uncomfortable.
I also got groped and really unpleasantly advanced by a drunk older woman once.
Shit like this really does happen, and women are no better than men.
yes I recall a case in the uk where a young lad was bullied by the mostly female workforce on the shop floor of a factory.
In the mid-eighties I was a process engineer for a printed-circuit-board company whose production staff was predominantly female and with an education level of 10th to 12th grade. I decided I'd be part of the company if I ate my lunch with the rest of the crew, and on the second or third day, one of the "ladies" asked if I was going to eat my banana.
When I responded with "I don't have a banana", she said that sounded like a personal problem and I was asked if I had one every day for months. What I can tell you from that experience is that women can be far raunchier than men - and in this case, I think they had a contest running to see who could make me blush or fluster me the most.
I've been part of the minority in other cases (race, country of origin, gender) and I think that much of this behavior is really related to crowd dynamics. Would the men described in the article behave that way if their SO was present? In any case, this female engineer shouldn't be hazed in this way and while it probably doesn't count for much, I'll still say "I'm sorry" for the behavior of my fellow men.
Let's all try to be a bit more civilized ... and especially here on the Internet!
Sounds like a company of bellends.
I'm trying to understand the "anthropomorphic chin" reference.
I think she means "shaven" as there is a reference to him having a badger on his chin a few lines up.
You are a sexually attractive woman in a place where sexually attractive women are scarce. In almost any other context you would get substancial benefits for that like more promotions, job opportunities and more invitations to events than the average woman. But we will not see you complaining about that when it happens, don't we?
You are rude, offensive, and delusional. Please try to sort out these problems before attempting to contribute to HN.
Oh god, another article about gender equality on HN. You would have better luck selling Bieber tickets on a death metal forum.