General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The latest "banning" (NYC_SKP) is an interesting lesson on REPUTATION. [View all]haele
(12,660 posts)Heck, I'm a 55-going-on-56-year old woman who has worked all her life in a particularly chauvinistic "man's field" - the US Navy and Shipyards.
Look, I have been called all sorts of names and propositioned all sorts of ways throughout my life - and the only times I have been called a "c" word to my face was by other women. Might be a unique experience amongst women, but then again, I was also never actually abused in my life other than through unsafe employer practices.
I grew up poor and even though I absolutely admit to experiencing "White Privilege" - and frankly exploiting it when I could when competing for a job in which I had talent and qualifications - I have always been seen as a minority at the workplace, or in my "class" groups one way or another all my life.
My pay has been and still is in the lower ranges of my salary level. The only time I have ever received equal pay for equal work was in the military. My opportunities for leadership position or advancement have been limited by the preconceptions of the limits of experience or strengths I should have had due to my gender, totally ignoring my actual experience or how I can leverage my actual strengths to overcome my physical weaknesses. The few times I've not experienced those limits was when I applied for positions or merit advancements "blind" - using initials rather than my given name, and no gender information.
I have had men tell me they were surprised, because they had initially thought I slept my way into my position of authority. Or was a lesbian (as one XO told me, he protected "his gals" because if upper body strength wasn't an issue, as a group, lesbians made the best sailors.)
I have been to foreign countries where women are property to be bartered, and experienced the overt sexism from peers in those countries, so much so that I had to send male co-workers or subordinates to get the tasks done, because those "men" couldn't believe a mere woman could be an engineer or a project manager - or a Chief Petty Officer in the United States Navy.
I work to change all of these things every day. I shouldn't have to work twice as hard as the average guy, nor should I have to put up with twice the shit, but I balance my reactions, figure out what I have to let slide, and bull my way through the rest of it. And hope to teach some people who hadn't thought about what they were doing some reality along the way.
In my experience as an American female, I know cruel and disparaging words and jokes can be a warning sign of disrespect and outright hatred or distain for a particular targeted subset of humanity or person. Those same words and jokes can also be a sign of exasperation, or of someone's attempt at trying to fit in with other strong personalities within their particular group.
Or they can just be a sign of "what was I thinking, trying to be cute?" when someone experiences a brain fart and lets loose with a little bit of that lizard brain stench that all of us homo-sapiens carry within our souls.
The trick is to identify where these words are coming from. Because all of us have said things in haste or to be cute with an "in joke" that we feel monstrously guilty about later on, because we never want believe that we could be the type of animal that would be so damaging. We're supposed to be people...
My parents and grand parents taught me "words are warning signs of what may happen, but the actions are always the reality of what happens". Both words and actions have to be taken in context, unless one wants to go around punishing everyone for the random thought crime that typically go no-where.
Haele