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Why don’t women speak out? ‘We are damned if we do, and damned if we don't’
4 comments- TAGS:ethics, women
- IT TOPICS:Management
The ongoing discussion of a vendor's use of scantily-clad women to attract attention to its booth at last month's Gartner Symposium/ITXpo following my Editor's Notes on the subject has yielded some intriguing points of view. One of the questions I raised in the original column was why more people didn't speak out against the practice during the event and its immediate aftermath. Rita Thissen, an IT manager in Chapel Hill, N.C., wrote to express her view on why women tend not to speak out against this sort of thing, and I found her explanation to be enlightening, if sobering. Here's what she had to say:
Why don't women immediately speak out against such nonsense? There are lots of answers for that one:
1. Recently published research and plenty of non-scientific evidence show that women who speak up suffer for it. A woman who complains is a whiner. One who gets angry is a bitch. One who protests is being unladylike, or humorless, or taking things too personally. We are damned if we do, and damned if we don't.
2. Complaining can backfire in more ways than social disapproval. Women who speak up against "perceived injustice" are then type-cast as either one-issue feminists, trouble-makers or unreliable. It's the old problem of the whistle-blower. Women in technical roles have complained at one time or another, with unsatisfying and possibly damaging results.
3. We're tired of battling endlessly. The few women at ITXpo probably have had to put up with much worse already. In the IT world (as in chemistry and other male-dominated domains), women who have been successful have developed coping mechanisms which helped them get to and stay in their current positions. Perhaps they have thick skin. Perhaps they can grin and bear it. Perhaps they can ignore it. They have to choose which fights to fight, because they are likely to encounter insulting or offensive situations frequently. One cannot fight them all. When one does fight, it's likely to be unpleasant. Some of us get tired of fighting.
4. It's painful and difficult, as you found out from the responses to your column.
5. Some of us "forgive" the offense, on the grounds that no harm was intended.
There are more reasons, but I'd guess those are the top ones.
In my 18 years in the field of IT, I have personally been grabbed, petted, subjected to physical comments, made fun of for objecting to sexual innuendo, kissed on top of the head (I am short), been called "girl"/"sweetheart"/"honey"/"pretty thing"/"young lady" (at the age of 50+) and various other demeaning or belittling terms, followed home from work, asked for sex at work, and on and on and on. It's tiresome. Do I speak up? Sometimes, yes, and then people call me ornery. In the past, I have protested to department stores, school principals, managers, marketers and vendors. Generally, I get more grief than I can give, and rarely does it do any good. Once in awhile, I "win" a battle, such as requiring a (male) co-worker to stop displaying women's panties as trophies on Monday mornings at work (1995). But sometimes I do not speak up about public things like the ITXpo exhibit, for all the reasons listed above. Fortunately, I currently work in a place that has many women in computing positions, and that has an environment of respect. Plus, I'm senior enough now that I outrank most of the men around me. So now I mostly speak up for others who carry less clout.
I applaud you for writing the original column and the follow-up remarks. Keep speaking up about injustices and indignities when you can. The ones who benefit the most are the ones who are not in a position to defend themselves.
Perhaps now a male IT professional will write in to explain why men tend not to speak out against the nonsense.
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