[ethbro]

> to make it completely unacceptable, in every way, for things to continue as they currently are

This seems key. Especially if it's "relatively rare but intensely negative events" (as seems to be the case).

Imagine if for every one of these stories, a colleague of the person dealing with discrimination or peer of the discriminator had tapped them on the shoulder and said, "Professor, what the fuck are you doing? That's sexist, and you're a terrible human for having done that."

And imagine if after three times of the above their peers had said "This is a pattern of behavior with you. We'd feel better if the department were headed by someone with different values."

Discrimination survives on awkward tolerance.

[whatshisface]

>Imagine if for every one of these stories, a colleague of the person dealing with discrimination or peer of the discriminator had tapped them on the shoulder and said,

I think the problem is that this stuff can be very hard to detect. If there's even the slightest chance of negative repercussions then the few responsible will stop talking.

[ethbro]

I'll respectively disagree. Granted, my personal experience is with antiquated southern racism, but I'd hazard most of the people in the OPs' stories do these things because they don't realize they're wrong.

In the "Well, why wouldn't you comment on a woman's pregnancy when evaluating her for a job?" sense.

There are certainly overt, aggressive, predatory stories included. But the bulk are things I can see being said in social or professional company.

Or as Colleague B puts it: "When asked for a paragraph, my first reaction was that I didn’t have the sort of big bombshell stories being looked for."

Borderline, casual sexism is important to vocally fight too.

[gowld]

> Borderline, casual sexism is important to vocally fight too.

Perhaps. Ideally. Eventually. But in a choose-your-battles context, borderline casual cases are fodder for contrarian denialists to minimize the over-the-line serious cases.

Focus on vocally fighting the most important or most fixable problem first, to make progress.

[longerthoughts]

I get that bringing the slightest offenses to the forefront feeds into denialists arguing that everybody is just too sensitive. That being said, I would bet that women suffer more frequently from these borderline, casual cases than violent, overt ones and I'm much more likely to see the former in broad daylight, especially in a professional context. It's hard to accept that I should brush off sexist comments and hold my tongue until I witness an assault (or whatever the threshold is for intervention-worthy).

[IntronExon]

Lingchi: Death by a thousand cuts.

Can you imagine how stressed and miserable you’d be, how untrusting and isolated, if your every interaction carried significant and unknown risk of turning out as described in the article? How many of the self-styled introverts here would be able to get out of bed after the hundredth time someone they thought was a colleague or a friend acted as described in the article?

What you’re saying was said to black people during civil rights, and women trying to get the vote. What you miss is the pervasive and cumulative effect of casual, constant shit, peppered with outright abuse.