Re: Sexist numpty & Reg titles
@ Alan_Peery
"I don't see any whining. I see someone learning the reality of group dynamics, which is something different."
I am surprised but a few people seem to have missed it. Based on the speed of votes up and down it seems during UK working hours more people were blind to the whining than after. I am assuming some form of frog boiling in PC which made some people blind. Interestingly a lot of other people commenting spotted the same problem early on.
The article itself has a good message- if you dont want to stand out as the odd one out then you need not to make yourself stand out. Plenty other people pointed out this problem with the article yet based on the title, sub title and the many comments she made in the article (how many times does she have to state she is a woman?) seem to suggest the problem is that she is a woman in a "boys’ club".
I took issue with her seeming to ignore the problems (which she solved when it was pointed out to her) yet attributes it to being a woman. She ignores her efforts to stand out as entirely different to the people she worked with and blames being a woman. That is whining. Blaming what she wants to blame while ignoring the problem she made. In chronological order it looks like this-
"I am female, and I work in IT."
"So much has been written about the need for more women in IT"
"But it can be even tougher as a woman"
"Oh, you’re a girl. We normally see guys fixing computers."
"If you want to be taken seriously in IT, you need to dress like a man"
""Wow!" I thought to myself, “I’m not being taken seriously already? Did my clients think I was joke?”"
"I traded my heels and Ann Taylor outfits for Gap khakis, button-down shirts and comfy Clarks. I was an IT guy now; I was one of the boys"
"I’m sure many of you reading this are wondering why I didn’t report him to HR"
"The boys’ club prevails"
"When I returned from maternity leave after my third child, the reality of being a woman in IT hit me"
"This is where I failed and let the stereotype of IT being a man’s world carry on"
"especially in a field that is predominantly male"
"I started to think back on what made me confident before, and the advice about dressing like a man once again popped into mind"
"I decided that if this behaviour worked for the men, it could work for me"
"and you’ll find that I’m no longer the token "IT guy" female"
"I no longer hide behind khakis and polo shirts"
"I wear pretty shoes, paint my nails with glitter, and change my hair colour as often as Microsoft releases security patches."
"IT is a boys' club"
"If you want to work in this field as a woman, you need not only to be able to play with the boys, but also sometimes to beat them at their own games"
"Once you’ve made it into the club, though, those boys see what kind of “IT magic” can happen when you’ve got Mars and Venus working together."
An entire article dedicated to missing the point and blaming the boys club for her desire to be the pretty thing with heels, glitter, make up and coloured hair while the rest of her workforce looked nothing like that. This is not a male/female problem yet she insists on pointing it out as one.
If you were right and she had learned about group dynamics then she would realise she had worthwhile information and understand why. Instead she seems to have misplaced the blame entirely