This is all so alien to me. I am a white man, but I have never ever seen anything approaching what TFA talks about, having studied a STEM at a top university, then worked in tech / finance for well over a decade. Admittedly all outside the US.
I had female lecturers, and no one treated them any different. You couldn't if you tried, they dealt out the pain of hard academic stuff just the same as the men. They were somewhat in minority, yes, but not seen as decoration.
Then I went on to work in tech / finance, among many women, who were mostly very good software engineers - like the, admittedly more numerous men around them. I never saw any mansplaining, anyone getting angry at The Woman for being right, being passed for promotion.
I'm not denying the author her own experience, I just mean, it is so alien to what I have experienced and seen that I don't know what to make of it. Is it a US thing? Am I beyond blind to social forces around me? I just don't know.
I have, sure, seen garden variety bad taste jokes, but these were minor in both content and frequency, and no more virulent towards the women than the men. "Banter", you could say, if this wasn't itself a loaded word.
My mother was a programmer from the 70s until 2008 when she retired from it. I asked her / told her about the gender disparity problem in tech. She said she never had an issue, and always felt like it was a job where she was equal to the men. So I think it's perfectly possible to have an entire career and experience that's not in line with expectations.
As a fellow white man, it's hard to see for us, unless you're looking for it.
I was going to a meeting with my product owner, I was there to answer any questions about a particular tech, nothing else, she had designed what we were going to build, I was there as backup to explain the backbone of it on a technical basis.
They didn't have any technical questions, but every time they asked a question about her design, they asked me. I kept redirecting them back to her, but still they asked me.
The first link in the article is specifically about the fact that men don't experience and aren't aware of how common these issues are for women. Its first anecdote is from a female assistant professor, who is probably similar to the female lecturers you think no one treated differently.
I had female lecturers, and no one treated them any different. You couldn't if you tried, they dealt out the pain of hard academic stuff just the same as the men. They were somewhat in minority, yes, but not seen as decoration.
Then I went on to work in tech / finance, among many women, who were mostly very good software engineers - like the, admittedly more numerous men around them. I never saw any mansplaining, anyone getting angry at The Woman for being right, being passed for promotion.
I'm not denying the author her own experience, I just mean, it is so alien to what I have experienced and seen that I don't know what to make of it. Is it a US thing? Am I beyond blind to social forces around me? I just don't know.
I have, sure, seen garden variety bad taste jokes, but these were minor in both content and frequency, and no more virulent towards the women than the men. "Banter", you could say, if this wasn't itself a loaded word.