[Mz]

I don't know if men have an easier time or not. But I am female and inherently am untrusting of most praise that comes from men. It usually comes across as a blatant pat on the head of a sort they wouldn't likely do to a man, which strikes me as belittling. Because it is delivered differently from what seems to be the norm between two men, it strikes me as either a form of tokenism/pity or makes me wonder if the real intent is to butter me up because he is attracted. Both are big problems, not any kind of leg up or meaningful assurance that I am perceived as competent. It is relatively rare for me to get backing of a sort which suggests to me that it is based on genuine esteem for my ability.

Edit: My point is I can see that being a source of self doubt which men might experience less of in a male dominant environment. So I can see this being tough to overcome for a woman surrounded by men.

(Not that I view myself as a woman in tech. I run a few websites. I do some freelance writing. I know a smidgeon of html and css. I have a certificate in GIS. But I am a former homemaker who paid insurance claims for about five years. My self image is not "woman in tech." I really do not know what professional label would currently fit me. It is quite irksome at times, though I suppose there is no need to drone on further about that detail.)

[tanglisha]

I've experienced something similar to what you describe.

There are times when I am new to a group, that I will be constantly told how very valuable to the group I am, how awesome I am, how happy they are to have me, etc; often before I've been in the office for an hour or written a line of code.

After this sort of thing, I tend to be suspicious of praise from that group of people. Do they actually mean it? Did they even look at my code?

[Mz]

I have written a few blog posts about that sort of social dynamic. Some of them have gotten a tiny amount of attention on hn. I also had some interesting experiences in GIS school, which was 70% male. My male teachers seemed to have a little trouble with a woman being the strongest math person in the class. In one case, the professor asked me so often "how do you know that?" that a male student blurted in exasperation "she's obviously already worked it out in her head!" In another case, different professor, he bet me "lunch" that he was right and I was wrong. When he had to pay up, he thanked me for not letting him confuse the class. (He quietly gave me a twenty. I think he didn't want to eat lunch with a female student for fear it would look like a date.)

[lotharbot]

> "it is delivered differently from what seems to be the norm between two men"

As a man, it's hard to deliver praise to women who totally deserve it because of the worry that "she might just think I'm hitting on her" or "she might think I'm saying it out of pity".

Do you have suggestions for how I might give genuine praise that doesn't get misinterpreted as either of those?

[Mz]

I loathe public praise. I was one of the top three students of my graduating high school class. Everyone knew who I was and mostly hated me for it. My adult experiences have not been any better. I typically cringe when anyone, male or female, publically praises me. It's horrible. So I don't know if I can help with that issue per se.

What I have appreciated is when men in positions of power have taken action to genuinely back my work. When I worked at a big company, I managed to impress one of the top three people in the department. I had an entry level job. We barely interacted, but his interaction with me spoke volumes and had I stayed at the company I strongly suspect that would have eventually led to something professionally.

I won a departmental award for improving a reference source that was widely used. It was announced at a big meeting that my version of the reference material would be made available via intranet. Months went by and nothing happened. I began asking around and hitting one dead end after another. After much frustration and run around, I ran into this departmental head in the hallway. I looked his way and he realized I wanted to talk to him. He stopped and came to me and graciously gave me a moment of his time. It was clear to me it was a mark of personal respect. Then he told me to email him the question.

I was only hoping he would give me an idea of who else to ask. Instead, he pushed it through personally and it finally went up on the intranet a few days later. I realized after the fact that I made a lot of ignorant, unthinking social gaffs in the process, which he covered over smoothly. I made sure he got a thank you note from both me and a supervisor who ended up being involved (turns out she wrote the reference and unofficially updated it and was finally getting recognition because of my award). I made sure it came from the two of us so there would be zero suggestion that this was "personal." I did not want there to be any raised eyebrows over the incident because it was clear to me I had basically gotten a personal favor from on high. I did not want anyone to take any notice of that fact.

I knew other men at the company in positions of power. One, in another department, asked me on a date. Another, again in another department, behaved in a way which I interpretted as a mild form of sexual harrassment -- he was attracted but I think married. He looked for excuses to be "collegially affectionate" that struck me as motivated by attraction and carefully covered as "not sexual, honest!" No other man did anything of professional value for me. I valued that small act of respect and of lending me his professional backing far more than any praise he could have given me. I find that being taken seriously by a man and engaged like that in a meaningful way is much harder to come by than sweet words, which are often essentially empty.

[maxcan]

> "But I am female and inherently am untrusting of most praise that comes from men"

So on the one hand, male engineers are creating a hostile environment by not recognizing the achievements of female colleagues (the 'she just got hired because they wanted a woman' phenomenon) but now male engineers are creating a hostile environment by recognizing the achievements of female engineers because of the inherit biases of the engineer receiving the praise.

[Mz]

I didn't say anything like that. This doublebind you are accusing me of bitchily creating is called the human condition. You put heterosexual men and heterosexual women together in a work environment and it gets tricky to navigate. That has absolutely nothing to do with me blaming men, something I generally am disinclined to do.