women

[spacefem]

there's a thread in a women in engineering forum where a young woman had to deal with some creepy bs, and now she's asking where do you draw the line and talk to HR or supervisors about it.

a lot of women are telling her to just deal. don't report it, keep your head down.

I'll admit that I never reported anything to HR. And maybe that's okay, because I never dealt with anything serious or unsafe. I put it this way: There were just comments from guys that I wish they hadn't said. They made me feel isolated, or made me question whether I deserved to be there, and probably affected my ability to do my best work.

I kept my head down and never said anything. It took me years before I'd even confront the person SAYING it. After 5-10 years, I finally had my talking points and could call them out. Until then I just laughed along or go along because I wanted to be the team player who just got along. Or maybe I didn't know what to say. And I definitely never went to a supervisor or got help dealing with the issues.

Here's the problem: I'm in a much more successful place. I got the big jobs. I got the promotions.

And now those 20-something engineers are all working for me, and they're working in that same environment that I "survived".

I'm now looking every young woman in the eye.

I hope they're not dealing with the crap that I let slide.

But I also know that I let it slide. I didn't do anything.

When you're 23, you're not imagining yourself at 43. You're not thinking of the next woman or what she'd say if you had to break the news... "I could have spoken up but I didn't and now you're in this same position."

I wouldn't have stopped EVERYTHING. I wouldn't have changed the whole world. I might have made a tiny improvement.

But tiny improvements add up.

I'm now in a position where I know my talking points, I have my title, and nobody gives me any shit.

But I spent years without all that. Did I do enough with that time? When I saw and heard EVERYTHING?

It's in the past.

Comments

[kazzy_cee]

I'm older than you and I remember very well the kind of crap I took from male colleagues when I was in my 20s and I wish I'd said more at the time. I would say a LOT now! However - I would never put up with creepy and I ALWAYS said something to someone about it.

[fbhjr]

Being in a position now where you can have more leverage to stop things vs fighting fights you couldn’t have won then? Hard to say which is more impactful.

[kaishin108]

It is shocking what men used to get away with in the workplace. And so sad that it is still going on. I usually put up with it but one time, (late 70's and short skirts were in style). I had to climb up on this stool to put dot matrix paper into a printer and this pharmacist tickled me behind the knees. Wtf! I yelled out stop it, ha hah. I couldn't help myself it was so very weird. He was embarrassed and never did it again.

[susandennis]

When I was your age, and in your situation, I had an actual friend in HR - two of them. I discussed this with them. Should I have reported? Should I report now? Both of them - one a manager and one a director - said no. Basically, we're not ready yet.

And then, I had the honor to write a couple of speeches for our (IBM's) highest level female executive and that led to some nice one on one sessions and I got the opportunity to ask her how she felt about not reporting all those situations all those years ago. And she said she would never have gotten where she was if she had and she always hoped that she could help be the fix as she moved up. "I haven't seen the impact I have made if I have made any and it weighs on me every day."

This was 25 years ago.

[smittenbyu]

I think though (hopefully), the young women can speak up more now, because there are folks like you in leadership positions. You didn't have that when you were in your 20s (possibly) and you had to let it slide. So, I see that's the small changes since, at least a bit. In some places.

[low_delta]

I finally had my talking points and could call them out.
I'm glad to hear you bring this up. I'm obviously not in your situation, but I've been in many situations where I had to hear racism, sexism and homo/transphobia, and very often I just don't know how to respond. It's only later that I come up with good replies, and by then it's too late. I can only use my thoughts as learning for the next time.

[low_delta]

Every time you say something, it makes a difference. But if the person you say it to refuses to hear it, it doesn't have much effect. I think when the people in power use their power, that's when it's possible to have a real effect. But it's still incremental change that's been building over the years.

[ironphoenix]

It depends so much on the organizational culture and on the specific people you'd need to go to, it seems to me.

Is there anything you can do now from your current position that might help those who might be dealing with this?

[siglinde999]

I’m the grizzled veteran at my workplace now and a lot of younger women come to me for advice. At least in my workplace, there is a lot less of the inappropriate stuff that I put up with as a young woman. Most of the things I hear about now wouldn’t even have been on my radar at the time because there were so many bigger issues. The few that are still hanging on are largely caused by the old guys who have been around as long or longer than me. It helps that I don’t work in exactly the same area as I did when I started out. My impression is that things there are better, but not always good.

I mostly kept my head down for a long time too, because that was the only way to avoid being labelled a troublemaker. I wish I had stood up more, but I also recognize that the kids are taking less shit. My role now is to model good people-centred management practices. There is less overt sexism but the unconscious bias that makes it hard to balance work and personal life is still there.

[katiedid717]

I worked security for the first half of my 20s. I was growing my hair of for Locks of Love when I was 22 and started wearing it in two french braids because it was more comfortable than a ponytail or single braid, and a few of the men I worked with started calling me "Handlebars" which was just vulgar. I reported it to my female supervisor, a retired Marine, and her response was "well you know that if I say anything to them it's just going to get worse, right?" I felt pretty let down by that.

[dandylover1]

I can't even begin to imagine not confronting someone who upset me. I don't tolerate nonsense from anyone. If, after talking in a civil manner, it continued, I would go to a superior, and if that didn't work, the local news station would be hearing some very interesting stories. Obviously, that's for serious things. But I would still speak with the offender even if it were something trivial. It's just common sense.