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Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

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Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#421

Post by namaemuta »

Mz wrote: post #333
rhaps0dy wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it work to outright say "It's not a date, I just want to talk to you"? Or does it have the opposite effect and make the askee more wary that the asker may, in fact, take it as a date?

I will suggest that saying it is not a date is problematic. It is more effective to signal this is specifically work related in some other manner, like saying you want to discuss X project over coffee. Affirm it is work related. Don't reference dating at all.

This is what annoys me. With a male colleague I don't have to size my words or rethink too much what to say to ask for a coffee and a chat about work. Even if you have the best intentions you end up having difficulties to express something that should be pretty straight forward. IMHO that's the difference that makes so hard to treat women as any other colleague.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#422

Post by biafra »

MollyR wrote: post #122
enigmango wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please correct me if I'm wrong - I think phrasing the request appropriately is a big part of this, and could mitigate a lot of potential misunderstanding. Something like: "Would you be interested getting coffee sometime?" Definitely sounds like a date setup to me, so framing it as (1) more immediate than a planned date, and (2) work related would be much better. Something more like: "I'm going to grab some coffee in…

It's honestly hard to tell sometimes. People are emotionally complex, and life is messy. But there is a reason office romances typically have HR rules in a lot of companies.

What? There are workplace rules for romances? Is that legal? I have never heard about that. Are they in the contract? Or the house rules? What are they covering?

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#423

Post by Grangar »

wrsh07 wrote: post #43
houselouse wrote: post #19

> Invite women you work with for coffee No chance of this being misinterpreted. Invite women you work with for coffee and ask what they like or dislike about their day-to-day. If they mention concerns or problems they’re having, ask if there’s any way you could help make it better.

Ask everyone you work with for coffee. Please don't omit the women. I've mentored new hires, and in that context it's easy to say, "hey can we get tea and talk about how the first few weeks have been?"

This whole thing sounds like it was thought up by Jared from the Silicon Valley TV series

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#424

Post by throwanem »

wpietri wrote: post #389
throwanem wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a name for this. The name is isolation. Abusers do it. Mine did. Other things, too. I'm sure she still does. But not to me; I left. I can't help whoever's stuck with her now, and I'm sure there is someone. But I could help myself. Perhaps you could as well. Others helped me, too. Perhaps someone will do the same for you. If you want to hear from me, let me know, and I'll get in touch. You need not suffer thi…

Exactly my thought. For anybody interested in the topic of abuse, I strongly recommend, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men": http://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-He-That-Controlling/dp/042519... It is the single most astute book I have read. The author, a domestic violence counselor for men, mostly had clients who were court-ordered to attend his sessions. He spent a decade listening to vas…

Such a book has a great deal of value, to be sure.

Is it possible that there are significant differences in the way abusive men behave, and the way abusive women do, such that more is required to make a book useful to abused men than simply taking a book written for a female audience and swapping pronoun genders throughout? It seems possible to me. And the book you mentioned implicitly disclaims relevance to a situation of the sort under discussion here:

> In addition, I have chosen to use the terms he to refer to the abusive person and she to the abused partner. I selected these terms for convenience and because they correctly describe the great majority of relationships in which power is being abused. However, control and abuse are also a widespread problem in lesbian and gay male relationships, and the bulk of what I describe in this book is relevant to same-sex abusers.

From the perspective of a man who has been abused by a woman, it is very hard to read anything in this paragraph other than "Go away. You do not exist. This is not for you." Perhaps you may object that that is not an accurate reading. Do you imagine an abusive relationship to be strongly conducive to objectivity?

In any case, I'm having a hard time finding anything like a companion volume for men abused by women. It seems pretty reasonable to imagine that such a book would exist, but if it does, it's sorely in need of publicity. I've found some dating books, and some books of statistics, and some websites that seem to regard the fact that women sometimes abuse men as evidence of some kind of overarching anti-male conspiracy, which I'm not sure is helpful. But I haven't found a "Why Does She Do That?", or anything substantially similar. Perhaps I'm just looking wrong.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#425

Post by Broken_Hippo »

namaemuta wrote: post #421
Mz wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will suggest that saying it is not a date is problematic. It is more effective to signal this is specifically work related in some other manner, like saying you want to discuss X project over coffee. Affirm it is work related. Don't reference dating at all.

This is what annoys me. With a male colleague I don't have to size my words or rethink too much what to say to ask for a coffee and a chat about work. Even if you have the best intentions you end up having difficulties to express something that should be pretty straight forward. IMHO that's the difference that makes so hard to treat women as any other colleague.

This works the other way around as well. I can ask a male coworker for coffee, and suddenly he thinks I'm interested. It gets weird. Same sorts of things happens with guys I thought were just a friend - dating was the furthest from my mind.

If I were to speculate, I think some of this has to do with the way we treat dating culture and flirting - lots of hidden meanings and things that aren't/shouldn't be said instead of simply being upfront about intentions. If some of the courtship ritual were changed, I think there would be less ambiguity. I also think this has a good deal to do with culture and the messages we are taught growing up (for example, women being taught they should be suspicious of men's intentions, even though most men aren't assholes in that way).

In a way, your expressed difficulties are precisely the problem.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#426

Post by throwanem »

Chris2048 wrote: post #415
throwanem wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a name for this. The name is isolation. Abusers do it. Mine did. Other things, too. I'm sure she still does. But not to me; I left. I can't help whoever's stuck with her now, and I'm sure there is someone. But I could help myself. Perhaps you could as well. Others helped me, too. Perhaps someone will do the same for you. If you want to hear from me, let me know, and I'll get in touch. You need not suffer thi…

Is it isolation if it's just women?

I used to think that's just how women are, too. Eventually I realized that I had been made to think so in service of a purpose not my own.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#427

Post by Broken_Hippo »

mbfg wrote: post #377
Chinjut wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Y'all have some super-paranoid jealous partners, if you can't even talk to a colleague of a particular gender, purely as colleagues. I hope both for your partner and for you that they stop being that way someday.

that's cute. not married eh?

I'm married. I have friends of both sexes. I'll go out alone with them if I please. He has the same freedoms as I do. I don't see what the problem is. That is being respectful and not allowing jealousy to stifle your partner's behavior. IMHO, if you can't trust your spouse to go out to lunch or coffee with their coworkers, perhaps there is a problem with the relationship.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#428

Post by Chris2048 »

throwanem wrote: post #426
Chris2048 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it isolation if it's just women?

I used to think that's just how women are, too. Eventually I realized that I had been made to think so in service of a purpose not my own.

No, I mean if your spouse only cares to keep you away from other women, but doesn't care which men you associate with.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#429

Post by Broken_Hippo »

__s wrote: post #268
mrtron wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't know this was a thing. Can you explain why it would be a problem?

Shun women because if I casually mention saying something about having talked to a non male while my wife wasn't around the wife'll beat me. If I don't say anything about talking to non males then I'm hiding things, which never goes well if wife ever meets a non male coworker who doesn't describe me as super shy

Hi. Woman here.

This is a form of abuse, and it seems she has a jealousy or insecurity problem. It is unfortunate that men aren't taught these sorts of markers in the same way as women - women are taught this is one of those red flag things. It is even more of a tragedy that it is culturally acceptable for women to be like this to a point, when we should be calling folks out for it.

I don't know what the rest of your marriage is like, it could be mostly peachy as far as I know. But this does impact your life significantly and adds to the overall issue of women not having equality at workplaces. I'd urge you to suggest counseling as a minimum.

Re: Introducing “Ask a Female Engineer”

#430

Post by Broken_Hippo »

mrtron wrote: post #255
daxorid wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elephant in the room. Nobody seems to want to discuss the very real chilling effect of spousal mate-guarding behavior on workplace camaraderie. Thank you sir.

Didn't know this was a thing. Can you explain why it would be a problem?

Ok, example. You've watched movies where a dude looks at a woman sitting alone or talked to her, and her boyfriend/spouse shows up. Sometimes he gets angry at the random dude, sometimes gets angry at here for talking to him.

Same sort of thing except reverse the roles. It is still a control mechanism, and still wrong no matter which way it goes.

I've had women get angry at me because I'm talking to "their" man, and some will get angry at men for simply looking at a pretty woman or talking to any others.

In the workplace, this means that treating women the same way as men - building rapport, having lunch, etc - winds up causing problems at home.

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