Whether or not this incident was motivated by sexism, there's absolutely no indication, based on the facts presented, that it was. All that's there is a bare assertion that "wow, you were really hard on S" is somehow equivalent to "you're being too emotional" in terms of sexism, and that we should be offended.
Here's the relevant part, from the post:
It's a very bizarre and stunted conversation. The woman is clearly going to great lengths to not elaborate. She's answering things as succinctly as possible so as not to give you any way to claim that she's being emotional. It doesn't matter! You can still play that card!
Here's what you do. After the meeting, you get her on chat and you say "wow, you were really hard on S". It doesn't matter that she was answering direct questions posed by the boss and had to answer them. The more you accuse, the more it becomes true, so stay at it!
I don't see any hint of missing context, I plainly see the claim that "wow, you were really hard on S" is an accusation of "being emotional." Which is bollocks, plain and simple.
If there was more to the story, then it should have been presented if the author wanted to rack up page views by blogging about sexism in the field.
If there's not, then she is overreacting. Not because she's a woman, mind you. Because she really is too touchy about this.
Quite frankly, the fact that she's raging over and reading so much into a statement that is, by normal standards, extremely neutral, leads me to believe that even if she has been directly accused of being too emotional in the past, then maybe there's something to the accusations. Some people really are overly sensitive to perceived slights, and the fact that they're women doesn't necessarily mean the criticism is unfair...
Granted that as an example of sexism in the industry, the post could have been written more thoroughly. In defense of anyone in a situation like this, I often find myself frustrated at a particular thing, and tempted to write about, except that I realize I don't have good enough notes (or often any notes at all) and I don't have a precise enough memory to get enough of the background right to be able to present it well.
> Quite frankly, the fact that she's raging over...
"Raging" seems loaded to me. Tone-wise, her post struck me as more sardonic than anything -- detached.
> ...leads me to believe that even if she has been directly accused of being too emotional in the past, then maybe there's something to the accusations. Some people really are overly sensitive to perceived slights...
We really should try harder to not psychoanalyze people we don't know based on their blog posts. Clearly she was in a frustrating situation, and that situation culminated in this particular event, which she felt was unfair. I'd be inclined to leave it at that at this point -- sort of an Occam's Razor Of Psychology.
Again, she worked with the manager, we did not. She was in that situation, we were not. All that we have to go on is words on a screen -- which are affected by our own biases, states of mind, and interpretation.
I would expect that her opinion of the situation should carry more weight than ours.
If she had written a post psychoanalyzing someone else's blog post, I might agree with you. But, that's not what happened, so I do not think she opened this particular door for us.
> I would expect that her opinion of the situation should carry more weight than ours.
It probably would to the other people involved in her company, but to us---3rd party obvservers, we have to suspect bias from the self-proclaimed "whistle blower".
We at least know what our own biases are, and can try to avoid them, but regarding her bias which might be baked into her statements and recollection all we can do is speculate.
Now we can disregard that notion if her actions suggest that she is both unbiased, and correct but no one should naively take someone else's word on a topic simply because they have a first hand account.
Final rejoinder: she psycho-analyzed the manger in claiming that saying X implied hidden sexism or a sexist culture even though on its own X is not sexist (i.e. saying someone is "too hard" on another is motivated by the thought that women are "too emotional").
If reading hidden motives isn't an open door to psycho-analysis, then I don't know what is. Apologies, if I misunderstood her writing.
>We really should try harder to not psychoanalyze people we don't know based on their blog posts. Clearly she was in a frustrating situation, and that situation culminated in this particular event, which she felt was unfair. I'd be inclined to leave it at that at this point -- sort of an Occam's Razor Of Psychology.
But you're claiming we should "leave it at" the point where she's assumed to be correct, and telling it as it is, assuming that her anecdote was, in fact, an instance of gross sexism, indicative of a problem within the IT community.
Personally, I consider "leaving it" via Occam's Razor to mean assuming nothing new, which in this case would mean discarding her anecdote. Hell, I'm even willing to accept her anecdote as true, I merely reject the consequent, the conclusion that because some guy thought she was being harsh to a co-worker that means that the guy was sexist. Fine, she was upset, but I see no reason to assume that anything here had any relation to her being female rather than male, certainly nothing she related would support that fact.
> I often find myself frustrated at a particular thing, and tempted to write about, except that I realize I don't have good enough notes (or often any notes at all) and I don't have a precise enough memory to get enough of the background right to be able to present it well.
I would call that a situation that is best left unwritten about.
Here's the relevant part, from the post:
It's a very bizarre and stunted conversation. The woman is clearly going to great lengths to not elaborate. She's answering things as succinctly as possible so as not to give you any way to claim that she's being emotional. It doesn't matter! You can still play that card!
Here's what you do. After the meeting, you get her on chat and you say "wow, you were really hard on S". It doesn't matter that she was answering direct questions posed by the boss and had to answer them. The more you accuse, the more it becomes true, so stay at it!
I don't see any hint of missing context, I plainly see the claim that "wow, you were really hard on S" is an accusation of "being emotional." Which is bollocks, plain and simple.
If there was more to the story, then it should have been presented if the author wanted to rack up page views by blogging about sexism in the field.
If there's not, then she is overreacting. Not because she's a woman, mind you. Because she really is too touchy about this.
Quite frankly, the fact that she's raging over and reading so much into a statement that is, by normal standards, extremely neutral, leads me to believe that even if she has been directly accused of being too emotional in the past, then maybe there's something to the accusations. Some people really are overly sensitive to perceived slights, and the fact that they're women doesn't necessarily mean the criticism is unfair...