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"Lighten up"

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Re: "Lighten up"

#571

Post by kamaal »

OneBytePerGreen wrote: post #414
briancurtin wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think she needs to lighten up because you haven't had the same experiences and you have different ideas of comfortable clothing?

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…

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.

This is what most people do when things come with thousand strings attached.

I never talk to women unless and until it becomes completely unavoidable. And if it is needed, I just restrict to whatever minimal it would take to 'get the job done' for the moment.

I know about guys, you can tell anything to them. In fact in my team guys joking guys is so common, its considered abnormal if they don't joke.

But with women, you can never be sure, you don't even what offends and what not. So keep interactions to bare minimum.

Re: "Lighten up"

#572

Post by VMG »

erichocean wrote: post #418
Jabbles wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give an opposing opinion, I'm appalled that anyone said that to her, and am appalled at you for thinking it's a reasonable thing to say. Why would you make sexual comments at work? Making jokes is fine, commenting on clothes is fine, telling a joke involving sex is probably fine (depending on the joke...). Having a conversation (two-way) about sex is fine. Making a specific comment about a colleague's sex appeal i…

I don't disagree with anything you have to say, but a thought did enter my mind: At what point did we become okay with excluding sexuality from human lives, or a large portion of them -- the time we spend working? Sexuality is every bit as much a "human" endeavor as, say, eating -- and we don't (currently) say: never eat at work, work is for work only (despite the fact that food does separate people from each other,…

It is called "The Civilizing Process". It started in the middle ages, right at the time when belching and passing gas became unacceptable in social gatherings.

More here: http://www.amazon.com/Civilizing-Process-Sociogenetic-Psycho...

Re: "Lighten up"

#573

Post by Confusion »

drhayes9 wrote: post #254
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Katie's got the low cut dress on today! I know where I'm sitting!"...As I'm getting older, I see how sexist and demeaning this is. At the risk of revealing myself to be a chauvinistic jerk, is this kind of response sexist and demeaning, or just inappropriate for the workplace? Why do women wear low-cut dresses if not to attract male attention (in the majority of cases)? Would it be sexist and demeaning for me to not…

> Why do women wear low-cut dresses if not to attract male attention (in the majority of cases)? Yes, Virginia, this is sexist. Holy hell, is it sexist. You are characterizing a woman's behavior in terms of how it makes you, as a man, feel. There are many reasons that a human might dress a particular way, but by characterizing it as a gender-based, "she wore that to make me do this" kind of transaction you have incor…

  I'm a heterosexual man and I wear certain jeans because I 
  like to show off my butt. That's fine. But am I doing it 
  because I want to attract "female attention"? Not exactly. 
  This turns on a subtle point, but it's very important: I 
  wore them for me, not for anyone else. Feeling attractive 
  is not the same as receiving attention. I don't want to be 
  honked at, felt up, leered at, or even commented on. But I 
  do want to look good. Does that make sense?
No, it doesn't make any sense. It completely disingenuous and you don't even realize it. The question you need to address is: why do you want your butt to look good? And the answer is: for the women. Because you want to attract 'female attention'. There is no other reason to care about whether your butt looks good. You could wear any decent pair of trousers that does not show off your butt and the only thing that would change is how much attention you would get from women.

And as for 'being commented on': the only reason you even know it looks good, is because people have commented on it, in whatever way.

Everything we do, everything, is infused with a desire to mate. You can try to deny that, but that doesn't make it go away. That is exactly what leads to the "lighten up" attitude: trying to defend you acting out on your desire to mate. The only way to reduce the influence of that desire is by acknowledging it and actively attempting to diminish its influence.

Re: "Lighten up"

#574

Post by nickolai »

burgerbrain wrote: post #473
hythloday wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would like a set of instructions about how to talk to women properly Like you would talk to men. Simple.

No way in hell. HR would slaughter me.

They may consider torturing you first.

"Oh come on, my grandma/dog/goldfish would write better code!!!"

This would be a totally acceptable jab among guys, yet saying this to a female coworker would immediately be misinterpreted as "woman are bad at coding" promptly followed by the full wrath of the HR gender equality team.

Re: "Lighten up"

#575

Post by einhverfr »

natep wrote: post #566
knightenvy wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Lighten up means "I don't understand why that is bothering you because it wouldn't bother me." It is a lack of communication issue. In that article, many of the "lighten up's" are assumed based on past experiences. For example, she did not even address the guy for fear of interrupting the meeting.

That can't be what "lighten up" means because "lighten up" is a command, and your definition is not.

Woudl it be less offensive if instead of saying "lighten up" they said "it's no big deal. Why are you always so up tight anyway?"

Certainly the latter is not a demand and is even a question, but I would argue that even barring that, it's far more of a problem.

Re: "Lighten up"

#576

Post by einhverfr »

adrianparsons wrote: post #283
drostie wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sexism is endemic to the society and to the relationships which generate that comment. So, right. Imagine that you're a woman. You're told from a very young age that you have to watch what you wear, and where you wear it, and how you walk in it, how well-lit it is -- you don't want that sort of Attention. And wear high heels, they make you more attractive -- but don't wear high heels because they might be clumsy if y…

A female friend who worked in an office setting described it this way to me: "I can't wear anything too revealing, because I'm perceived as easy or slutty. I can't wear anything too modest, because it makes me seem prudish or not fun. I have to find that perfect middle ground -- between professional and cute. Every single day."

So, what is the solution? Work uniforms for everyone?

But more to the point, doesn't this suggest a desire on one hand to seem cute, feminine, and romantically attractive, but not to get too much attention? If this is the case, then are there bright lines at all in this area?

Re: "Lighten up"

#577

Post by ht_th »

tptacek wrote: post #532
yelsgib wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is that there is no "bottom line." Your analogy to a Zen monastery is a good one. For a lot of men (myself included), programming/chess/mathematics/etc. is an ESCAPE from women. I feel like what has happened in the past 10 years (note I'm not saying this is "wrong" - just that it's what happened) is that these monasteries have been invaded by women and that men have been acting very awkwardly. Here's the rea…

If you seriously feel a need to ESCAPE from women, I think you should consider seeing a therapist of some sort. A lot of the things you're asking people to feel sorry for do deserve sympathy, because they are signs of mental illness.

It is not that simple to equate a (perceived) need to escape from women to a mental illness. Female groups do behave differently than male groups in that they assert dominance and rank by psychological means whereas in male groups this happens more via physical means. It can be very hard for both women and men to enter a 'different-gender group', let alone to get accepted and feel comfortable. Especially in fields dominated by one gender, like, for example, construction, programming, education and child care, or health care this lead to problems and strengthens the trend of one-gender dominance.

In the last decade or two primary education has become a primarily female field even to that extend that male teachers (and teacher students) have chosen to leave the profession because they didn't feel at home in that environment any more. If you talk to them you'll hear stories about, basically, psychological war-fare among their female colleagues that they didn't want to get involved in but were forced into nonetheless. In these instances feeling the need to escape from women is quite natural.

Re: "Lighten up"

#578

Post by jamesrcole »

I can't stand it when people use the "Lighten up" line.

What it really means is that they can't empathise.

For them it's no big deal... so therefore, as far as they see it, it is no big deal.

.

If someone truly thinks another person is taking something too seriously, and really feels that something should be said about it, then the non-patronising thing to do would be to try and explain it to the other person.

Re: "Lighten up"

#579

Post by john_flintstone »

tomp wrote: post #365
Jabbles wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give an opposing opinion, I'm appalled that anyone said that to her, and am appalled at you for thinking it's a reasonable thing to say. Why would you make sexual comments at work? Making jokes is fine, commenting on clothes is fine, telling a joke involving sex is probably fine (depending on the joke...). Having a conversation (two-way) about sex is fine. Making a specific comment about a colleague's sex appeal i…

Why not? If a man (fellow coworker) has nice biceps, I say it (I'm not gay, not trying to seduce him, but being fit is very high on my values list). If a woman (fellow coworker) is cute, I say it (I'm not trying to seduce her, I just think it's nice to give compliments). Asking her to take notes (as in, not asking anyone else), though, is a completely different story. However, I believe that some women handle it in a…

>Why not? If a man (fellow coworker) has nice biceps, I say it (I'm not gay, not trying to seduce him, but being fit is very high on my values list). If a woman (fellow coworker) is cute, I say it (I'm not trying to seduce her, I just think it's nice to give compliments).

What about if a man has a nice bulge in his pants? Will you compliment him on that too? Because a reference to a low cut top is a reference to what lies under the top, and I'm not talking biceps. The male equivalent would be a not so subtle compliment on his penis.

Re: "Lighten up"

#580

Post by ordinary »

msbarnett wrote: post #500
cellularmitosis wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A or B? Consider this thought experiment: if it is the case that there is a ton of interest by women in programming, but that interest is frustrated by the "star wars" factor, that would imply that there's a huge pool of untapped female programming power. Why hasn't an enterprising business person realized this and created the next facebook-killer or google-killer by assembling a team of all-female ninjas? My first r…

> My first reaction to this experiment would be "Because they were frustrated before they had the chance to graduate with a CS degree". Well, there's more to it than that. Female participation was fairly high in the 70s, dropped precipitously through the 80s, 90s, and early 00s, and is only now kinda-sorta-maybe starting to recover. The hidden factor in there is the Personal Computer revolution. Prior to it, men and…

Intro CS classes turned into highly intimidating environments where the males had significant computer experience and may well have spent several years programming already

When I started my first year of CS at uni, I had almost no experience programming and I definitely felt intimidated by the (many) fellow students who already had 5+ years of experience.

During one of my first labs, I was told to write a toString method for a Java class. I could not understand why the signature had to say "String" twice. A TA spent half an hour trying to explain it to me and eventually gave up in desperation.

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