dev_chieftain (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dev_chieftain) wrote2012-03-23 03:02 pm
dev_chieftain) wrote2012-03-23 03:02 pm
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The words "lighten up" are words I am working very hard to un-say right now!
Here's the number one reason I'm not interested in getting into computer programming.
Disappointingly, I still have to deal with it in my work life occasionally. For me, this is when people will re-explain a problem using terminology specific to their profession ad nauseum in an attempt to make it clear that you're wasting their time, and actually it's all on you. This is the number one behavior of COWORKERS that I dislike about my job. The handling of the upper management is bad for other reasons, but I like my coworkers, with this one exception. What's worse, I sometimes do this to other people. So what can I take away from that?
-Some of it is discrimination
-Some of it is just that it's really hard to communicate with people. As the person explaining, you may have no frame of reference by which to actually explain to the person you're addressing. As the person being explained to, you may have no means to successfully convey what the problem is in a way that the first person will actually understand. (This is the biggest problem: we have HOUR LONG DISCUSSIONS sometimes when someone can't figure out what the heck I mean because having it described out loud is too confusing; this is nothing on them, and everything on how stupid our processes are. When you SHOW someone the problem, the process is infinitely faster.)
I mostly deal with the exact thing mentioned in the article in my personal life; people online will comment telling me to "lighten up" when I post about an issue I find important, which is hardly friendly and certainly not helpful. But I do it too! "Lighten up" is such a useless piece of advice, but we all think it's useful at one time or another, when we're worried and don't know how to help our friends out with something stressful. It SEEMS like a useful thing to say at the time, but that's a place where you have to put yourself in your friend's shoes. They're stressed out. They would probably like NOT to be stressed out. Saying 'lighten up' is the same as saying 'walk it off'. Utterly unhelpful, callous, and unsympathetic. And man, guys, I don't want to associate with people who are like that.
I definitely can't stand a society that is based around demeaning and demoralizing other people like this. The worst of it, to me, though, is when women buy into it.
I hate women that work really hard to "blend in" to the male-oriented culture by putting down the rest of their gender to try to seem cool. You know the kind-- "nerd" girls who are quick to remind you, "haha, WOMEN, right? They're so crazy and ruled by emotion! Not like ME though, I'm one of the guys"; or "normal" girls who will say, "Oh, well, it was that time of the month! you know how crazy girls get then!" to try to exempt themselves from responsibility for their actions. Or the worst-- "nerd but still totes normal, guys" girls, who will be quick to e-peen with you over some stupid trivia, and just as quick to remind you 'But my favorite color is PINK! I'm so CUTE!'.
Come on, fellow ladies. Let's be cool about this. And let's be cool about our own gender, okay? We're actually pretty dang awesome.
This was already on my mind, obviously, because we recently watched Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, which while interesting films are still the kind of romance that exemplifies the idolization of the girl that the man is in love with, without treating her as an actual equal. You know, romantic comedy; where the guy's awkwardness is somehow supposed to be adorable, and make up for the fact that he doesn't actually care about the girl, about her life, about what she does or wants to do; that he doesn't see her as an equal, but a prize.
Disappointingly, I still have to deal with it in my work life occasionally. For me, this is when people will re-explain a problem using terminology specific to their profession ad nauseum in an attempt to make it clear that you're wasting their time, and actually it's all on you. This is the number one behavior of COWORKERS that I dislike about my job. The handling of the upper management is bad for other reasons, but I like my coworkers, with this one exception. What's worse, I sometimes do this to other people. So what can I take away from that?
-Some of it is discrimination
-Some of it is just that it's really hard to communicate with people. As the person explaining, you may have no frame of reference by which to actually explain to the person you're addressing. As the person being explained to, you may have no means to successfully convey what the problem is in a way that the first person will actually understand. (This is the biggest problem: we have HOUR LONG DISCUSSIONS sometimes when someone can't figure out what the heck I mean because having it described out loud is too confusing; this is nothing on them, and everything on how stupid our processes are. When you SHOW someone the problem, the process is infinitely faster.)
I mostly deal with the exact thing mentioned in the article in my personal life; people online will comment telling me to "lighten up" when I post about an issue I find important, which is hardly friendly and certainly not helpful. But I do it too! "Lighten up" is such a useless piece of advice, but we all think it's useful at one time or another, when we're worried and don't know how to help our friends out with something stressful. It SEEMS like a useful thing to say at the time, but that's a place where you have to put yourself in your friend's shoes. They're stressed out. They would probably like NOT to be stressed out. Saying 'lighten up' is the same as saying 'walk it off'. Utterly unhelpful, callous, and unsympathetic. And man, guys, I don't want to associate with people who are like that.
I definitely can't stand a society that is based around demeaning and demoralizing other people like this. The worst of it, to me, though, is when women buy into it.
I hate women that work really hard to "blend in" to the male-oriented culture by putting down the rest of their gender to try to seem cool. You know the kind-- "nerd" girls who are quick to remind you, "haha, WOMEN, right? They're so crazy and ruled by emotion! Not like ME though, I'm one of the guys"; or "normal" girls who will say, "Oh, well, it was that time of the month! you know how crazy girls get then!" to try to exempt themselves from responsibility for their actions. Or the worst-- "nerd but still totes normal, guys" girls, who will be quick to e-peen with you over some stupid trivia, and just as quick to remind you 'But my favorite color is PINK! I'm so CUTE!'.
Come on, fellow ladies. Let's be cool about this. And let's be cool about our own gender, okay? We're actually pretty dang awesome.
This was already on my mind, obviously, because we recently watched Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, which while interesting films are still the kind of romance that exemplifies the idolization of the girl that the man is in love with, without treating her as an actual equal. You know, romantic comedy; where the guy's awkwardness is somehow supposed to be adorable, and make up for the fact that he doesn't actually care about the girl, about her life, about what she does or wants to do; that he doesn't see her as an equal, but a prize.
sorry this is tl;dr
Knew a woman at a clinic who used to work at Microsoft then quit due to the sexism. It's very unfortunate.
(That said, one of my professors pointed out a classic example of reverse sexism that would occur in nursing school, where the few male students were constantly made by the female students to lift stuff and do manual labor, which meant zero time to do actual patient care. Also even in my age group, regardless of major, there are girls who are convinced that men need to propose because otherwise it's emasculating, or there's other notions they have about gender that they just won't compromise on.)
"Lighten up" is in the same category as "calm down, man", which is to say it does nothing but act as a condescending and antagonizing phrase masked by flippancy or false concern. The way I approach such people is to either be sarcastic or smile and politely end the conversation.
...luckily enough, I don't encounter many women like the ones you described! If they do put down the rest of the gender though, that indicates a lot of insecurity and immaturity on their part. Less than the blending in, I've seen more women who hate their gender because they don't like drama and had a bad history of girlfriends or something.
There's also internalized sexism or devaluation too. I mean, I grew up with a mother who constantly complained about how useless having daughters were instead of sons and she threw fits when I went against her ideas of gender norms. Even though I knew she was talking BS, I still tried too hard to show how I could fit masculine roles by lifting heavy things, studying kendo, and acting aggressive. I think the environment some women have lived through can greatly impact their behavior -- perhaps they're still struggling to "fit in with the boys" because they've been told subtly or overtly that being female is weak or a disadvantage. Perhaps that's why I have sympathy for such people, because I went through a similar phase once.