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I mean "lighten up" as in, she perceives "a million little barbs" around her and sees herself as the victim of sexism lurking everywhere. She didn't just criticize one company or co-worker, but the whole industry. Her post is a torrent of rhetorical questions, exclamation points, hyperbole, and quotes she ascribes to her co-workers that likely never happened. Do you really think someone responded to her concerns with "if you are not in the middle of being raped or beaten or threatened or fired, lighten up"? To make such sweeping statements about the industry, I presume she was not happy at her job, changed jobs, and the same thing happened again, and again, to the point where she left the industry altogether, discouraged. Which is weird, given that I changed jobs often myself and never had such experiences. Two sentences gave me the most pause. One being, "Which label do I want to be stuck with today? Ice Queen or Slut?" It makes me think this is more about herself than the people around her. The other weird comment was that she loves coding and "spent thousands of dollars to go to conferences so I can learn more about it." All excellent IT people I know learn stuff hands-on by playing around with technologies and studying on their own. Maybe there are other reasons why she felt stuck doing inferior tasks. If you are crucial to the team's success, nobody treats you like the "secretary who we let on the server" or a personal assistant, regardless of your gender. I hope that the discussion of this topic doesn't make men paranoid about saying anything around women, because the fun and banter is one of the things that makes working in IT so enjoyable. |
I work on a small team - just over 20 people - with only four women.
Every single one is a hilarious, self-possessed, confident individual. All the men, myself included, treat them with respect... meaning, we tease the shit out of them.
To do otherwise would exclude them from the team. Have you ever seen a cohesive group that didn't joke around? A tiny fraction of the jabs traded by men are HR-approved... if we filtered that for the women who work with us, we would be treating them as if they're too weak or too sensitive to be a part of the group.
So instead, we treat them no differently than any other team member. If one of the other coders were to arrive unusually dressed up, I would absolutely comment on it, regardless of whether it's a suit or a dress, but one of the ladies would probably beat me to it. Frankly, the women push the HR line harder than any of us guys, and we love them for it.
If you find that people are constantly telling you to "lighten up," whether you're male or female, you shouldn't assume that the world is conspiring to put you down. You're probably just no fun to work with.