[daenz]

My experience has been that people are weirded when someone talks from a non-natural perspective. I've met many women who talk naturally in a confident and assertive way, and it doesn't feel like they're forcing it, or telling themselves "I'm going to try to sound like an empowered man when I say this." It just seems to fit holistically in the situation. I personally get push back when I try to sound more confident than I actually am on an issue, vs when I actually am very confident on an issue. People seem to be good detectors of subtle cues.

So I guess my point is, are you only noticing it when you are testing for it?

[DoreenMichele]

That sentence could probably use some sort of proviso. I don't mean all people, all the time and I certainly am not testing for anything. I'm just living my life and periodically run into push back over things I had no idea would get some kind of reaction when I did them.

I had a corporate job for 5.25 years. My department had around 500 people in it. I routinely sat up front in large meetings, in part because I have terrible eyesight. One day, the highest ranked woman in my department said to the guy who was her only equal in rank "Look at Doreen, sitting up front."

I don't sit up front to signal aggressive type A personality stuff or ambition or whatever, but other people interpret it that way.

I went to GIS Summer School, an 8 week program that covered a normally year long certificate. It's a two thirds male field and most classes were two thirds male. The last week of this program, I realized that I was the only woman who routinely sat up front. Most women sat in the last two rows of class.

I'm routinely interpreted as highly aggressive and pushy for doing things that are totally normal and completely unremarkable when men do them. It's fine if a guy does it. It's normal for men to sit up front. No one accuses them of anything for not hiding themselves away in the back row seats. But it gets a fair amount of attention for me to sit up front, and not in a good way.

This was viewed by the highest ranked woman in my department as noteworthy and she said it in front of a bunch of people loud enough for me and everyone else there to hear. She didn't discuss it with her equal privately nor comment on it to me privately. You could interpret that as a rebuke, like "how dare she do that!"

You could also interpret it as a shocked reaction by a woman who is presumably a great deal more empowered than most people regardless of gender, yet could not imagine doing anything as daring as sitting up front, apparently. She also got very defensive when I said my sons had taken over the housework and cooking. Her husband followed her from another state so she could take the job, but she still did most of the women's work at home. Most of my female colleagues were shocked that my sons took over the housework and cooking at home after I went from homemaker to primary breadwinner.

[horsawlarway]

Can I suggest another possible interpretation?

People tend to remember the times they're mentioned in that manner, but forget/overlook the times it happens to other people.

I can't tell you if those situations were sexist or not, but I can tell you that I'm a man, and I've had a large number of experiences that absolutely match your descriptions.

I've been told the tone of my voice was commandeering in a fairly civil meeting, I've had it remarked on about how many questions I ask, I've gotten plenty of pushback when I ask folks to do things they don't want to do.

Those things are basically a normal part of office politics. Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just saying that your interaction there sounds fairly unremarkable to me, and likely stuck with you because it was about you.

Just like the offhand remark about being commandeering didn't matter to anyone else, but I sure as hell remembered it.

[DoreenMichele]

No one else in GIS school actually remarked upon my choice of seating. I was just struck one day by the fact that most other women sat as far in the back as possible most of the time. One or two women floated around a bit, sometimes up front and sometimes in the back.

It struck me that the female VIP said something in part because it was a "Pink Collar Ghetto" department in a company with an excellent track record for diversity and inclusion. When I got the job, the department head of my department was a woman. She retired shortly after I came on board and was replaced by a man. The two second in command positions were held by one man and one woman. When the woman retired, she was replaced by another woman.

So this was the last place I expected anyone to act like there was something noteworthy about me sitting up front. It was a female majority department with lots of women managers and other women in high ranking positions and you would think this would be one place where no one would think anything at all about a woman sitting in the front. Yet, here was this VIP woman remarking on it in front of everyone.

I gave up my car while working there. My apartment was about a 7 minute drive from work. It was about an hour walk. There were about 2000 people in the building I worked in. I rarely walked for more than 10 minutes before someone offered me a ride.

This resulted in a de facto informal survey where I would make conversation with the person who had picked me up and I would talk about having two special needs sons who had never held paid jobs and blah blah blah and they would express pity for me "Oh, you poor thing, you walked to work and worked all day to support the family and now you have to go home and cook dinner." and I would go "Um, no. I will peel and chop vegetables and go in the bath. When I get out the bath, dinner will be served to me. My oldest son does the cooking and dinner has already been started." And they would dramatically change their tune, from pity to envy.

This was a Fortune 200 company for part of the time I worked there and a Fortune 500 company the entire time I worked there. It was the largest civilian (non military) employer in the city at the time I was there. When I made small talk at eateries and people asked me where I worked, just telling them the name of my employer basically got oohs and aahs. Some of my coworkers had spent years trying to qualify for a job at the company at all.

So this is a sampling of arguably some of the best, brightest and most empowered women in the world who are not outright nobility or wealthy celebrities, who just have a job. And the vast majority of them still did most or all of the "women's work" at home. The fact that I didn't was quite unexpected and often met with shock and sometimes a lot of defensiveness.

I mean, not to dismiss your point. I often find it valuable when guys on HN say "Yeah, they do that to me too." That's often been enormously helpful to me. But, given the larger context, I'm pretty confident that this specific incident -- this remark by this high ranking woman -- was an expression of broader cultural expectations and sexism.