this post was submitted on 23 Apr 2025
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[–] Allero@lemmy.today 17 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

One observation I made is that when women get to comprise a significant part of workforce in science, those things seem to be flatten out.

Working in the place and field (Russia, food technology) where women are about 50% of the workforce, I've never witnessed anything talked about here. Women are taken just as seriously on the position, they are promoted on par with men, they are in charge of many high-profile projects, and actively taking male and female students under scientific supervision. Any sort of workplace harassment will not just contribute to your potential termination, but will earn you very bad reputation - you'll be seen as a dangerous weirdo no one wants to deal with.

One other observation I made is that international scientists often come from the position of entitlement, which is also weird to me. Male scientists tend to flaunt their position any time they can, and many of the female scientists tend to sort of mimic this behavior, but it feels different, like if they try to claw the attention they were consistently denied.

For me, it is weird and unnatural. Where I live and work, some baseline respect towards your more experienced superiors, male or female, is to be expected, is taught since school, and doesn't require such performances. Since most school teachers are female, the role of woman as a potential superior to be respected is clearly defined and doesn't cause questions. Students are not afraid to contact their superiors, but do it respectfully and with full understanding they take valuable time of a high-profile scientist. Why do people have to constantly fight for attention and respect in many other cultures is beyond me.

[–] Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de 32 points 4 hours ago (5 children)

As a man, it is insane to me that this is real.

I have a difficult time imagining malicious intent towards women by all these people. But given how common these stories are, there is something true about it. I just don't understand why.

Is it really an unconscious cultural thing? Or am I naive about how my fellow men (I guess maybe women too) feel towards women?

Something in me refuses to believe that these people knowingly and intentionally harm women. But it sure as hell looks intentional.

I am not defending them. I am expressing my struggle with the reality of this shit.

[–] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 8 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

Personal experience from when I was newly an adult, and chatting with a female university classmate and somehow got on the topic of games and I started explaining what Steam was, because I just subconsciously assumed, her being a woman, didn't know.

She politely pointed out I had mansplained to her.

I am very thankful to her for the experience as it's stuck with me and saved me from making a fool of myself on more than one occasion since.

I'm sure there are possibly small things like this, that you may have been been "guilty" of in the past.

These men, are engaging in similar behaviour cranked up to 1000.

However, it's even more malicious with them, because it's not like the last 30 years or so haven't had constant and increasing messaging (in the anglosphere, at least) about feminism and ways in which women have been treated unfairly.

So, it's not like they haven't had the opportunity to reflect, and change.

In summary, yeah, it is kind of baffling, but I will say society, while largely better than 30 years ago, still does have structural as well as conscious and unconcious bias towards women.

So I'm not surprised people like this exist.

[–] Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 hour ago

I hear you but what cranked it up to 1000?

Like I always saw my mom as a extremely competent person, as a child she was flawless. Nowadays, I see her flaws but I am flawed, so if my father and any person I ever met. I am impressed by my sister and how I can be like the person that she is in many ways.

I am talking about my direct family because these women had a lot of influence on me. So I wonder, what was their experience like to think so poorly of women? Not blaming the women in their social circle for being "bad", I just wonder wtf happened. Where does that belief come from? I don't think they all had great experiences with their male role models but horrible ones with their female role models. So what is it?

[–] CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 17 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Selection bias, the people who don't discriminate aren't causing harm so you don't notice them but since they don't speak up they aren't helping either, so the jerks are still setting the tone. The solution is to not just do the right thing but actively call people out the jerks.

[–] Tartas1995@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 2 hours ago

I agree with you there. As someone in programming, I don't quite have the opportunity to fight these things when they happen because... There are no women. (obviously linked to this) but I can't call out behavior when it happens when I am not around. But I am happy to report that I have been vocal about my support of trans people and fought against transphobia, even at work. Obviously I am not happy it is needed.

So I am trying to see and support victims of discrimination.

[–] BellyPurpledGerbil@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

You're simply not paying attention, because you don't have to. Not to be harsh. I went from male to female and how I'm treated is night and day. You've never tried to see how the other side lives, and when you heard stories that went against your experiences you dismissed them like your mind is trying to do right now.

Why does it happen? Nurture. History. Patriarchy. I could blame a lot of things. It's mostly that men never get treated the way they treat women.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 3 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

I've heard in my university that a lab manger/ head was trying to always get with the female students, and would ignore male ones, or would not allow male to volunteer in his labs. It's very close to bordering SH. Most other labs with male PIs don't really care about either gender

[–] insaneinthemembrane@lemmy.world 5 points 3 hours ago

I think you're naive but in fairness, it is shocking and hard to believe.

[–] SharkWeek@lemmy.blahaj.zone 59 points 6 hours ago (3 children)

Yuuup. Woman in engineering here. I once had a supervisor whose behaviour I thought of as normal, but two guys I worked with separately reported him to HR for bullying after seeing how he treated me.

It's funny, I had many years with almost no career progression, now my boss is a woman and I'm having to get used to the idea that bonuses and promotions are things that actually happen when I work hard.

[–] Dr_Nik@lemmy.world 1 points 24 minutes ago

I also am glad you got the support. I'm constantly reminded of a friend in college who was going through an electrical engineering undergrad with me. She got all the material so easily and literally dragged me through the classes. I wouldn't have passed some key topics without her help. Fast forward a few years and I'm getting my PhD and I decide to see what she is up to: she ended up quitting her PhD program because of the insane abuse and misogyny she experienced in the department and instead changed to a masters in music. This was a woman who could easily have made field changing discoveries but was shut down because of close minded individuals. It still makes me rage and is the reason I work so much harder now to ensure my female colleagues and employees have an equal voice at the table.

[–] ddash@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 3 hours ago

Glad to hear you at least had some decent colleagues!

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 9 points 3 hours ago

My wife was marked down on her PhD because she "wasn't nice enough" to her supervisor. All the assessors gave her top marks, but her supervisor vetoed them.

[–] Triasha@lemmy.world 16 points 5 hours ago

Not in stem but the same thing happened to me. I used to be able to speak to a room and be heard. Now I need to raise my voice, sound a little whiney or bitchy or nobody hears me. Only my closest friend still asks me for advice or to share my knowledge. Used to happen all the time.

At least I pass. I got that going for me.

[–] Michal@programming.dev 4 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

Is this unique to women? Do men experience anything similar in women-dominated fields? I'm not actually sure what these may be; teaching, childcare, hair stylists? I realise this may make me sound misogynist, but I'm really clueless.

[–] Dr_Nik@lemmy.world 1 points 29 minutes ago

Unfortunately I've seen men tend to dominate the conversation in women dominated fields as well, but only if they are misogynistic. I work a lot in the fiber arts industry and more often than not it is assumed I don't know anything because I am a man and humble, but I quickly prove my worth with my 20 years experience and it's wonderfully collaborative. Then I see so many men come in and say, "Look I knit a sweater! This is easy! Give me praise!" and weirdly enough there are enough people out there that just feed those egos. I completely blame the men in this case, but this problem wouldn't be so prevalent if everyone was just willing to shut these idiots down.

[–] rikudou@lemmings.world 3 points 2 hours ago

This is anecdotal, but male teachers get a special treatment if the school staff is mostly women.

[–] nanoswarm9k@lemmus.org 4 points 3 hours ago

Men in fem dominated fields get the glass escalator to promotion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Escalator

Propublica has some useful peices, but it might take an ebsco search or three to pry loose that dangerous and embarassing level of ignorance about what living is like.

Watching sociology videos can be a bit of a grind, but tastes better than foot-in-the-mouth.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 13 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Stem is still heavily dominated by Men, biology might be different as more woman are in bio than men are, and becoming more common in other stems. engineer and programming sitll gear towards men.

[–] Kamsaa@lemmy.world 26 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

I was actually joining the chat to write that things are not that different in biology. I have a PhD and 7 years of postdocs behind me. Over the years I have :

  • been denied a management position because "the team was only men, who wouldn't listen to me" (spoiler alert, they put an incompetent guy in charge who screwed up massively and I ended up taking over, successfully).
  • had a boss who systematically doubted my opinion (while he was not a specialist of the topic) but listened to the very same argument from a male colleague
  • had male Masters students who could speak uninterrupted during meetings when I couldn't
  • got denied a tenure position for a guy with the same profile (literally the same topic and same labs) but much less experience than mine (like 5 years younger) This last one broke me, I ended up quitting academia
[–] Danquebec@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

Patriarchy is not only cruel towards women, it's also dumb. It's like corruption. We're hurting ourselves, all of society, including men, by not giving the fitting positions and proper compensation and recognition to people who merit them.

[–] moosetwin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

here's a related video from Angela Collier, if you want to read more about how women are treated in STEM

[–] tromars@feddit.org 4 points 4 hours ago

I discovered her channel a few months ago and binged almost all of it. She’s great!

[–] andros_rex@lemmy.world 10 points 8 hours ago (8 children)

When I was a freshman before transition, I had a guy save my number and call me like 2 years after we had an intro engineering class (we spoke maybe once?) to ask me out on a date.

[–] SharkWeek@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I had that with a contractor who had had my number for work purposes. He kept trying for 5 years.

I'm a butch lesbian, my mistake was being polite and chatty with him.

[–] aeshna_cyanea@lemm.ee 5 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

My sister has a similar issue with a former classmate but for some reason she refuses to block/mark him as spam. it's been years now and he's persistent

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[–] undeadotter@sopuli.xyz 154 points 13 hours ago (7 children)

The experiences trans men and women have with misogyny will never not be fascinating to me. Like, for the first time ever we have this huge sample size of people who have experienced how their gender presentation affects how people interact with them, giving tangible proof of misogyny in action. And it can't just be swept aside with 'MaYbE tHe wOmEn JuSt miSuNDerStOoD' or 'mAYbe tHe mAN diDN't MeAn iT LiKE tHaT'. I mean idiots will still make idiot arguments but at least it chips away at them a little bit.

[–] OccultIconoclast@reddthat.com 13 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

I'm female presenting. I've known people who thought I was a cis woman for months, and I don't keep being nonbinary or trans a secret.

When I read actual cis women's accounts of misogyny, and also trans women's accounts, I can't relate. I don't get shut down the same way. Somehow, despite others perceiving me as female, I kept the tiny part of gender presentation that tells people to sit down and shut up when I'm talking as if I were a man. I don't understand what it is, but I still have it the same as before I transitioned.

I would love to know what it is so I can share it, but I can't tell why people respect me as much as they would respect a man. It's bewildering.

[–] insaneinthemembrane@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago

You could be lucky too or maybe you don't notice the microaggressions.

[–] ddash@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 3 hours ago

Confidence goes a long way, but maybe that is simplifying the experience too much.

[–] eestileib@lemmy.blahaj.zone 56 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

I told one of my friends that I'm being looked at differently in crowds now, and he just said "no you're imagining it".

Many people just do not believe what trans people tell them. At all.

[–] barsoap@lemm.ee 2 points 19 minutes ago

In that specific case it might've been an answer to "Do you look at me differently now", brains like to short-circuit like that, and not everybody is comfortable speaking for the tribe. "Does the tribe like me?" -- "Well I do" -- "Does the tribe?" -- "I'm not the tribe".

[–] insaneinthemembrane@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Women aren't believed, are you a trans woman? If so it could be either that you're a woman or that you're trans.

[–] anzo@programming.dev 3 points 3 hours ago

(I hope not to misgender either but) bro, she knows. No need to mansplain it, read it again:

Many people just do not believe what trans people tell them. At all.

[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.zip 74 points 13 hours ago

Hello it's me a trans woman. I knew before transition about some of it but never really understood. When I was masc I didn't realize how much of it was basically hidden in plain sight because of how I learned to socialize. After transitioning though omg it's everywhere. I'm in Seattle right now where I don't have to try too hard to pass and still get treated at least base line okay. Even then I still use my masc voice more than my femme voice because people take me more seriously when I do. Like there's a cultural acceptance of trans people here but if I behave more masc I get the privilege of being "one of the boys" even if I'm visually in full femme mode. It's all so weird

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[–] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 89 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

wow, that's really out there for being bee movie erotica

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