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Comment by angersock | Hacker News Reader

Yep. Sounds like shop talk--amazing how things at machine shops, oil rigs, and construction sites can be very similar at times. The women I know that work in any of those fields tend to either ignore it or join in--depending on their mood.

One wonders how things would be different were roles reversed--indeed, what sort of talk was common on factory floors during the world wars?

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I did once in my youth avoid one end of the office were I briefly worked, for there was a mouthy, and by her own account sexually adventurous young woman--who was free in voicing her opinion of my looks. I used to run home from that office a couple of days a week, but made damn sure never to exit past her work area. That was a third of a century ago, and stands out in my mind, so the reverse case is apparently not that common.

Do women freely express their opinions of men among themselves? Certainly. But it is my desire and care to avoid overhearing them.

I imagine it was pretty bad. I recall my grandma telling me that the talk on the shop floor during the war was... not polite.

Here is one example.

"A female council boss has been suspended for biting a 24-year-old junior employee so hard that she drew blood through his underwear.

"The worker was taken to hospital, after the incident, for a tetanus injection.

"A colleague called the bite a horseplay that got out of hand."

http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-ani/boss-bites...

When a man walks into a predominantly female group, the behaviour is exactly the same, just the words are different.

At least in my experience.

I would be interested in hearing about your experience.

Well there are two.

1. I was out with a group of female friends. Them being 3 to 4 females who have known each other for ages, me being the newcomer. I got the distinct feeling that men are walking penises. (granted they were all in their early twenties)

2. Living with my mum and sister (and female cat). Every day I am reminded that a man is incapable of tying his own shoes without a woman's help. We are these helpless sort of creatures you know, women only put up with us out of the kindness of their hearts and because we're good for a lay now and then.

You seem to be all over this thread saying "oh well this is bad but men also have it equally bad sexism is exaggerated etc etc".

I agree that women can be shitty to men. But men, in general, can be far shittier to women. Being patronised by your female relatives is a completely different league to having sexual abuse shouted at you by strangers (strangers who should be subordinate to your professional expertise).

And yes, I've worked in blue collar jobs (factories, as a cleaner, as a binman), and I too found it hard to fit in with that culture. But I had it nowhere near as bad as this woman did.

I'm saying this isn't a gender issue. This is a basic human psychology issue. This is the way humans behave, regardless of gender. Gender doesn't even have anything to do with it, gender just defines the specific words used in the overall pattern.

In the article men are making fun of a woman. Here on HN startups are making fun of lifestyle businesses. On r/programming Scala developers are making fun of Java developers. On imgur people are making fun of 9gag. The internet is making fun of Bieber fans. Bieber fans are making fun of old people. Old people make fun of young people. Young people make fun of old people.

People poke fun at each other. It's how we establish groups. It's how we operate. We pick a trait and converge around it, as soon as we see a member of the species who does not have that trait, we make fun of them and maybe, just maybe, we eventually let them join the group.

If you want to fight sexism, go to a country that hasn't given women the vote, or women are still treated as property. that's sexism.

"People poke fun at each other. It's how we establish groups. It's how we operate. We pick a trait and converge around it, as soon as we see a member of the species who does not have that trait, we make fun of them and maybe, just maybe, we eventually let them join the group."

That's true. But the traits chosen are not arbitrary. There are some traits which are consistently used to exclude people from certain groups. As a lifestyle entrepreneur, people on HN look down on me. 99% of the population don't care. Whereas if I was female, or black, or whatever, suddenly I find myself excluded from a lot more groups.

Yes, there is much worse sexism in the world, but I can't think of many people who would think shouting sexual abuse at your manager as anything other than sexism. You seem like an intelligent guy, but you seem to have already reached the conclusion that this isn't sexism and are now trying to justify that conclusion.

I have reached the conclusion that this is a deeper issue that in this particular instance manifests itself as sexism.

Why treat the symptoms, let's fix the problem eh?

I don't think going out to a bar with a group of women or your home situation can really approximate a hypothetical workforce of women.

When in my early 20's I once walked into a factory floor full of women in their 30's and 40's

Boy did their looks and remarks make me feel uncomfortable.

I also got groped and really unpleasantly advanced by a drunk older woman once.

Shit like this really does happen, and women are no better than men.

yes I recall a case in the uk where a young lad was bullied by the mostly female workforce on the shop floor of a factory.

In the mid-eighties I was a process engineer for a printed-circuit-board company whose production staff was predominantly female and with an education level of 10th to 12th grade. I decided I'd be part of the company if I ate my lunch with the rest of the crew, and on the second or third day, one of the "ladies" asked if I was going to eat my banana.

When I responded with "I don't have a banana", she said that sounded like a personal problem and I was asked if I had one every day for months. What I can tell you from that experience is that women can be far raunchier than men - and in this case, I think they had a contest running to see who could make me blush or fluster me the most.

I've been part of the minority in other cases (race, country of origin, gender) and I think that much of this behavior is really related to crowd dynamics. Would the men described in the article behave that way if their SO was present? In any case, this female engineer shouldn't be hazed in this way and while it probably doesn't count for much, I'll still say "I'm sorry" for the behavior of my fellow men.

Let's all try to be a bit more civilized ... and especially here on the Internet!

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