[HN Gopher] Only 5.3% of US welders are women. After years as a ...
___________________________________________________________________
Only 5.3% of US welders are women. After years as a professor, I
became one
Author : Michelangelo11
Score : 240 points
Date : 2024-11-06 00:24 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theconversation.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theconversation.com)
| akira2501 wrote:
| > I'm resentful of these silent evaluations, particularly when
| I'm learning something new and trying to keep all my fingers.
|
| I don't think this is unique to Women at all. There's a tendency
| in these authors to perceive Men's interactions in the workplace
| as "easy" or "natural" or even desired for some reason. They
| typically aren't.
|
| > Stoicism is a workaround to credibility.
|
| It also comes with a high price. Those who pay it typically do
| not last. Ironically they often refuse to recognize the source of
| their suffering. If the job is hard, modify the tools to make it
| easier, your class of use just hasn't been typically considered
| but it wouldn't be impossible to create.
|
| > The pontificating metal-shop customer should be, too.
|
| It's everywhere. The number of times my credibility has been
| assumed based upon my appearance is huge. Customers often have to
| choose between two Men if a Women isn't working, and the same
| tropes apply there as well.
|
| It all seems like the right idea for the wrong reasons and so the
| interpretation is heavily compromised by it.
| bsder wrote:
| Yeah, my overall reaction was kinda "Welcome to being a dude.
| You get shit on mercilessly until you prove otherwise. You get
| told to shut the fuck up and knock it out even if you're tired
| after 4 hours. You have to look out for yourself because nobody
| else is going to. God help you if you're a tiny or effeminate
| guy. etc."
|
| Blue collar work sucks ass. You generally only do it because
| you don't have any better options.
| gaze wrote:
| I just bought a gas lens set for my welder and it included cups
| called the BBW and the FUPA. When I was taking MIG classes, they
| had a jar of anti-spatter gel called cooter snot tip dip. Can't
| imagine why women are so rare in the profession...
|
| I've been a tourist in a number of different trades, and welding
| beats them all for hostility and resistance to safety practices.
| You get called a pussy for wearing a mask, but of course the
| manganese fumes from welding steel will give you brain damage.
| I've been advised to run cutoff wheels far above their rated RPM,
| which risks explosion. It's sad because welding might as well
| some combination of knitting and calligraphy but with metal. It's
| great.
| kleton wrote:
| Cooter is a Black dialectal term for a turtle originating from
| the Mandinka language, and you can see a turtle on the logo of
| that product.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| that's called "plausible deniability"
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| Deniability for accurate and true reasons is just a subset
| of plausible deniability
| gaze wrote:
| I'm glad someone is here to argue on behalf of the cooter
| snot company.
| evilduck wrote:
| Are turtles also known for their snot, in which tips are
| frequently dipped?
| highcountess wrote:
| No, but the substance looks like blue snot and you dip the
| hot tip in it.
| maxerickson wrote:
| https://crittergoo.com/collections/goo
| reportingsjr wrote:
| Hahaha, wow. The other products on that page do a wonderful
| job of disagreeing with parent's explanation.
| stavros wrote:
| There's a "one eyed snake" product too, why are we not
| complaining about how men will be driven from the
| profession with such sexist talk?
| maxerickson wrote:
| Sexualizing the product name at all is more hostile to
| women than the reference is hostile to men.
| worthless-trash wrote:
| Are you suggesting women are less able to take
| hostilities than men ? Since now we have inuendos from
| both.
| esperent wrote:
| Context matters. In a 95% male profession, making hostile
| comments about women is absolutely more of an issue than
| similar comments about men. And vice versa in a
| predominantly female profession.
| maxerickson wrote:
| I'm suggesting that the "inuendos from both" is the wrong
| analysis and that the workplace issue would be the
| sexualization of the product name being used as a tool to
| harass women (there would probably also be comments made
| to men, but harassment would predominantly be towards
| women).
| conscion wrote:
| Hostilities from men towards women are much more
| dangerous and women have the correct response to be more
| vigilant about them.
| buildsjets wrote:
| What is the Mandinka people's relation the Camel Toe and One-
| Eyed Snake products advertised on the website?
| bill_joy_fanboy wrote:
| > I just bought a gas lens set for my welder and it included
| cups called the BBW and the FUPA. When I was taking MIG
| classes, they had a jar of anti-spatter gel called cooter snot
| tip dip. Can't imagine why women are so rare in the
| profession...
|
| Makes sense. I suppose if women had invented these things, they
| would have been able to name them something nicer.
| esperent wrote:
| Men from a profession that doesn't have these issues would
| probably name them something nicer too.
| snozolli wrote:
| Keep in mind that there are other products that fulfill the
| same need. This is essentially just novelty branding.
| jcgrillo wrote:
| This was my experience exactly working on a welding crew when I
| was 19. We worked 12s 6AM-6PM (or 6PM-6AM if on a night shift)
| and often worked longer. The longest shift I worked was nearly
| 20hr, which was great because every hour past 8hr was worth
| 1.5x.
|
| "Safety" was "watch the fuck out and don't get hurt." I didn't
| have access to a respirator even if I had known enough to want
| one.
|
| I _did_ have enough sense to listen to the old guys who said
| your body can 't take that kind of work for more than about
| 15yr without starting to break down, and that I should go to
| engineering school instead.
|
| There was one (1) female welder that crew of at least 20 and
| she put up with a ton of overtly horrible stuff. She was also
| incredibly good at welding, I saw her once burn an entire 7018
| rod without looking, no helmet, just by feel, and the slag came
| off in one piece.
| jojobas wrote:
| Then there's One-Eyed Snake something penetrating oil spray
| from the same company.
|
| The idea that sexual innuendos somehow differently affect men
| and women is rather strange.
| jandrese wrote:
| Women face higher consequences for pregnancy so you would
| expect attitudes towards sexual suggestion to be different.
| Also, when you're talking about a group where the gender
| ratio is like 20:1 the woman is going to be the butt of a
| disproportionate number of the jokes.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Please use PPE. My dad and grandfather were both mechanics (not
| welders, but adjacent) and both contracted very similar bladder
| cancers most likely from skin exposure to a particular solvent
| bath chemical.
|
| There is no reward for macho or risky behavior, only a
| painful/miserable death and shorter life, and less time with
| family. So many male members of my mom's extended family died
| early from tobacco use and from industrial and agricultural
| hazards.
|
| That means breathing fumes, unknown substances, or fine dust
| without a respirator (or smoking), not using gloves while
| handling chemicals/coatings/etc., or putting oneself in
| mechanically risky situations.
|
| TL;DR: Just use PPE.
|
| They cost money, they're a hassle, they're not fashionable,
| their benefit isn't immediately obvious but so is a seatbelt
| until there's a known problem like DDT, asbestos,
| tetraethyllead lead, dirt particulates, or fiberglass.
| lardo wrote:
| With respect to welding, $2k for a PAPR helmet is stil a hard
| pill to swallow!
| itishappy wrote:
| You should see the bill for tumor removal!
| jcgrillo wrote:
| I wear a 3M 7502 half face respirator behind my 3M
| Speedglas autodark mask and it fits just fine. A proper
| integrated system would be nicer but this setup is safe and
| works for 1/10th the price. Also if it's not too hot and
| humid I can leave safety glasses on which is convenient for
| grinding--just flip up the visor and go for it, no safety
| squints needed.
| gaze wrote:
| I only weld at the edge of my garage, with the door open,
| with a fan running, and while wearing a respirator. Thanks
| for looking out for me and others.
| shrubble wrote:
| There is Cooter from the original Dukes of Hazzard TV show, a
| man:
| https://dukesofhazzard.fandom.com/wiki/Cooter_Davenport_(Ben...
|
| Fun fact: the actor playing Cooter was elected a US
| Congressman.
| naming_the_user wrote:
| What comes across from the article to me is the class barrier
| more than the gender one - basically it's a posh person finding
| out what the "real world" looks like.
|
| Shop talk and banter are fairly universal. Any difference is
| going to be a target. Thin bloke who doesn't look strong enough?
| Ginger hair? Tall guy, short guy? Weird tattoo, etc. Definitely
| the one black guy or the one white guy is going to get shit. But
| is it malicious? Almost certainly not.
|
| The other thing, which in my experience is relatively common
| worldwide, is that working class communities are more accepting
| of male-female dynamics. In academia and in highbrow society the
| tendency is to basically sanitise every social interaction. When
| you're in an environment where that isn't happening then you
| can't suddenly ignore it any more.
| Rendello wrote:
| It was interesting for me going from interacting with wealthy,
| educated developers, to working in a very physical, low-paying
| blue-collar job. It seemed like living in two different worlds
| almost.
|
| > working class communities are more accepting of male-female
| dynamics
|
| I'm curious to what you mean by this
| naming_the_user wrote:
| I went the other way (grew up working class) and I still,
| decades later, find middle class folk (in the UK) to be
| uptight and terribly afraid of causing/receiving offence.
|
| I can't pinpoint exactly "what I mean" but basically
| traditional values. More willing to accept the fact that men
| and women are going to find each other attractive, that you
| probably don't want your wife or husband to have a "platonic"
| friend of the opposite sex that they meet up with one on one,
| etc etc.
|
| Whereas the highbrow view is more like - okay but if we
| accept those things then women can't work on nuclear
| submarines alongside the blokes. We want women to be able to
| work on nuclear submarines alongside the blokes, anything
| else is unacceptable, so we should sanitise all of the
| interactions and punish everyone for being human and then we
| might be able to make it work, sort of kind of but not
| really, everyone will be miserable but we pretend.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| > find middle class folk (in the UK) to be uptight and
| terribly afraid of causing/receiving offence
|
| This isn't just a UK thing. Seems fairly universal at least
| across the western world.
| naming_the_user wrote:
| Right. In Britain at least at some point this flips and
| if you're proper old money you go back to not giving a
| shit again. Classic example is Prince Philip.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Middle class is always more insecure. A middle-class
| individual could move either up or down, this causes
| anxiety.
| Rendello wrote:
| I see. I went from interacting constantly online and being
| surrounded by people in post-secondary and higher-level
| academics to working alongside immigrants in a tough and
| (frankly) undignified job. This coincided with some other
| major changes in life and it definitely changed my view of
| what's "normal". I had to think about my previous life and
| where I actually derived happiness and value.
|
| I got the impression that the highly educated types are
| wrong in a lot of ways, and the blue collar labourers are
| wrong in completely different ways, so I took the
| intersection of their worldviews and now ...well I'm
| probably wrong in every way ;) We can but try.
| naming_the_user wrote:
| > I got the impression that the highly educated types are
| wrong in a lot of ways, and the blue collar labourers are
| wrong in completely different ways
|
| Couldn't agree more!
| qazxcvbnmlp wrote:
| Where do you derive your happiness now?
|
| What is wrong from the view of each? (As someone who
| interacts both with phds and high school graduates on a
| daily/weekly basis I find the differences interesting).
|
| Biggest surprise for me was the sense of community that
| seemed present in the lower earners.
| Rendello wrote:
| It's hard to put into words. I think the essence of you
| questions is "what is your philosophy now, and how does
| it differ from before?" That's a question I've been
| struggling to conceptualize myself for a while now, so I
| can't describe it with any sense of coherence in a public
| forum.
|
| I will say that, at the root of it all, we are who we
| orbit.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > _Biggest surprise for me was the sense of community
| that seemed present in the lower earners._
|
| I was once in an environment where, depending upon how I
| was dressed, I would either be addressed in english and
| called "Sir" or addressed in spanish and called
| "Paisano".
|
| Why was the community surprising? (I mean, my mental
| model is that most dyadic social interactions can be
| approached with either authority or community, so I'm not
| surprised that groups without much authority tend to play
| the community card instead)
| kreims wrote:
| I think universal conscription is a good idea for the sole
| reason that everyone should get a bit of this perspective.
| The people who've never left the nice-people bubble of
| college and professional employment will go to completely
| inappropriate lengths to avoid feeling offended. You said
| the manager's idea was maybe not as good as the other thing
| in a meeting? You just made an enemy for life. Meanwhile
| soldiers have productive and respectful working
| relationships with people who they physically fight with
| the day before because that's a better alternative to
| however UCMJ allows your commander to screw up your life.
|
| It's a great exercise in personal growth for coping skills.
| boredatoms wrote:
| > universal conscription
|
| No thanks, Ill take anything that isn't involuntary labor
| eitland wrote:
| Look at it more like part of the education system.
|
| Because that is what it is. Nobody gets sent to
| Afghanistan as part of conscription.
|
| And, in my opinion, it has been some of the most valuable
| education I have got and something I'd definitely
| recommend my kids and my friends do if offered the
| opportunity.
| nicolas_t wrote:
| I have quite a few German friends who looking back speak
| highly of their experience doing the civilian alternative
| service (they objected to military service). This was
| before the conscription was abolished in 2011. Even
| though it was not military service, it put them in
| situation and workplaces that were different from their
| own experience and environment.
|
| Similarly, in France some engineering schools required an
| internship in a factory to learn the perspective of blue-
| collar workers that the student might eventually manage
| but at 8 weeks only I don't think it gives as much
| perspective as what my German friends had.
| grujicd wrote:
| "Nobody gets sent to Afghanistan as part of
| conscription".
|
| You should be more careful with such statements as that's
| more exception than rule. If you're country goes to war,
| and it's not just some peace keeping mission, you can bet
| that whoever is at the time in army could be sent to the
| frontline.
| TylerE wrote:
| Yes, but most 1st world nations have all-volunteer
| armies, not conscription.
| eitland wrote:
| All Nordic countries, Switzerland and probably Austria.
|
| Same goes for Taiwan and Israel.
|
| Germany does not at the moment but can reintroduce it at
| a moments notice, and also they are taking steps to
| encouraging voluntary conscription like service.
|
| Probably more 1st world nations, these were just the ones
| from the top of my head.
| eitland wrote:
| AFAIK everybody who was sent to Afghanistan was either
| professionals or ordinary soldiers who applied.
|
| If we end up in an attack on our homelands thats another
| thing.
|
| But even then no ordinary conscript that reads HN (ok,
| possible exception for russians, but even they try to
| maintain a veneer of "voluntary" on it when they send
| conscripts) will be sent to abroad.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| There are hundreds of thousands of people alive in the US
| right now who were drafted to fight in Vietnam. The only
| war with conscripts that the US didn't send people abroad
| for is the civil war in the US
|
| We didn't have any conscripts in Afghanistan because we
| don't have any conscripts at the moment. I can say that
| there were a lot of people that were deployed in the
| Middle East when they didn't want to be. Especially for
| second and third tours. I personally have a friend who
| was told he was going to be on a ship in the Navy who
| ended up in Iraq.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| > you can bet that whoever is at the time in army could
| be sent to the frontline.
|
| Of course?! We've had a volunteer army for the last half
| century?! How can you claim professional service members
| are being conscripted and sent to conflict?
| scotty79 wrote:
| > No thanks, Ill take anything that isn't involuntary
| labor
|
| And involuntary restrictions of basic freedoms like what
| and when to eat and where and when to sleep.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Did you take two years of your life to go into the
| military in your early 20s?
| kreims wrote:
| Four years.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Did you choose to do that because you were going to _"
| completely inappropriate lengths to avoid feeling
| offended"_ after being in a _" nice-people bubble of
| college"_ ?
| dmix wrote:
| Wasn't that Mao's idea of forcing city kids to the
| countryside to make them better party members?
| ninalanyon wrote:
| I worked with a very well educated Chinese man who had
| been caught up in that. He had a terrible, and on
| occasion terrifying, time. I'm pretty confident that it
| didn't make him a better party member. As far as I
| remember from what little he was willing to say about the
| time the only thing it made him better at was catching
| stray dogs to eat.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > _find middle class folk ... to be uptight and terribly
| afraid of causing /receiving offence._
|
| I think it's the betwixt and between dynamic: working class
| folk know they're living on what they have coming; upper
| class folk know they're living on what they have; but
| middle class folk, no matter how they live, are only middle
| class folk _if other middle class folk agree_ they are --
| hence the insecurity, and at one reason for the conformity.
|
| (in the UK, I think U vs non-U started as a joke, yet was
| popularised by exactly the people it had been meant to be
| taking the piss from?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English )
| intelVISA wrote:
| Well it's not UK specicfic but as there's only really
| workers and owners, they could be insecure about being a
| slightly better paid worker?
| lazide wrote:
| Also, an owner - of a very limited amount. Junior
| partner, at best.
| immibis wrote:
| There are many taxonomies of people. Workers vs owners is
| one, and relates to the relationship between people and
| the means of production. Other taxonomies are young vs
| old, male vs female, and class structures with more than
| two classes. Notice that this thread has been about
| social class, more than economic class.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| That's one way of looking at it. But there are other ways
| of slicing and dicing an populace and it's capital.
| vundercind wrote:
| One point that Fussell's _Class: A Guide Through the
| American Status System_ makes over and over (maybe never
| quite explicitly, but implicitly, throughout) is that
| Fussell's "middle class" is essentially defined by being
| thoroughly _pathetic_. They're the most class-concerned,
| by far, desperately anxious to signal higher class, while
| having no clue how to correctly do that. An Upper-Middle
| spots them a mile away, to say nothing of Upper. To
| Proles, their preferences and behavior are grating or
| risible. They end up jockeying awkwardly for position
| only amongst themselves.
| graemep wrote:
| > I went the other way (grew up working class) and I still,
| decades later, find middle class folk (in the UK) to be
| uptight and terribly afraid of causing/receiving offence.
|
| I find the same (also in the UK) from having lived in (and
| grown with) a non-western culture. One that is also uptight
| (much more so in many ways, and definitely sexist) but in a
| different way.
|
| > Whereas the highbrow view is more like - okay but if we
| accept those things then women can't work on nuclear
| submarines alongside the blokes. We want women to be able
| to work on nuclear submarines alongside the blokes,
| anything else is unacceptable
|
| I am quite surprised at the extent to which gender
| stereotypes are pervasive. At a bonfire last weekend kids
| were being sold illuminated toys, and all the little boys
| had swords, and the girls had unicorns. My daughters would
| have wanted swords (they are teen and adult) but I have
| realised that is unusual.
| qazxcvbnmlp wrote:
| > working class communities are more accepting of male-female
| dynamics
|
| I've also seen this. There's more of an acknowledgment: that
| people will be attracted to each other (or not),the
| status/dating games people play will be out and open. It will
| be acceptable to talk about physical/sexual qualities of your
| coworkers, etc. That when you are in physically close
| proximity you might see each others sexual parts and comment
| on them. It will be understood that after a breakup people
| will be less amicable.
|
| You can also see this in literature: look at Les Miserables.
| In the factory they talk about sexual fantasies of the
| foreman. Whereas in the context of the upper classes it's
| talked about in context of love/romanticism.
|
| Contrary to popular believe, I find this much healthier.
| Emotions expressed can be dealt with and moved on. Emotions
| suppressed grow and fester. If it's normal to talk about
| who's is attracted to who, then everyone is aware of the
| sexual exploits of the general manager. Therefore people know
| where to set boundaries. If it's hush hush kept quiet then
| the exploits of the Gm can grow.
| Spivak wrote:
| I kind of get this for men, what you're saying makes sense
| and is for sure the healthier option _if all was equal_.
| The sticking point is the social and power asymmetry. Being
| commented on in that manner is low-key kind of threatening.
| The name of the game is appease the guy long enough for
| your friends to get you out of there. And when you 're at
| work it's hard to just leave. Guys with nothing to lose
| don't take soft-nos for an answer and hard-nos are how you
| get assaulted, from experience that one.
|
| The dynamic works when flirting is within a social circle
| because bad behavior risks your social status in the group
| and it works in bars because you're equals, around friends,
| and can just leave. At work, at least in an office, is
| kinda the worst combination. I've seen it work well outside
| of office settings because there aren't as complicated
| power dynamics-- we're all equally in the shit in the
| kitchen.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >I'm curious to what you mean by this
|
| pretty much all weird gender dynamics happen in upper class
| and posh environments. You won't find women on a farm afraid
| to get their hands dirty or men afraid to stitch something.
| People just do the jobs that are necessary. The entire idea
| that women are too pristine or fragile to do any work is
| basically an upper class fantasy because no working class
| household can afford to operate like this.
|
| Whether its the military, manufacturing or agricultural
| environments, anywhere that's sort of blue collar or
| practical people aren't obsessed with their differences that
| much. I grew up in a rural environment and as kids boys would
| play with girls, as teenagers we'd go skinny dipping, there'd
| be none of the weird neurotic and insecure interactions I
| encountered when I went to university. There's entire
| categories of stereotypes and boxes highly educated and "high
| status" people invent to separate themselves in, not just
| along gender lines.
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| > working class communities are more accepting of male-female
| dynamics
|
| I agree. Gender differences seem to be exaggerated, while in
| upper classes women and men converge to androgyny. One
| contributing factor is that surviving on low incomes requires
| more differentiated roles (care taker vs manual laborer).
| graemep wrote:
| Do the women have to be the "care taker" and the men the
| "provider"? The proportion of jobs in developed economies
| that require physical strength is much lower than it used to
| be.
|
| As a man who has been the primary parent for most of my
| children's lives (my ex is not very good with older children)
| I find the assumptions people make annoying. People are
| surprised my younger daughter lives with me rather than her
| mother. They struggle to find words to describe a man as
| primary carer.
|
| I think this is damaging to men - bringing up children is
| incredibly rewarding and men are given a smaller role in it.
| Its damaging to women too.
| foxglacier wrote:
| Not everyone has to be - I do about half the childcare of
| my daughter and am often the odd-man-out at child
| activities. But most people have to be because that's what
| each sex wants. It's not a great plan to be looking for a
| partner by not having a job and telling everyone that your
| goal is to be a stay-at-home dad who wants a high-earning
| wife to support him. Women aren't interested in that.
| tightbookkeeper wrote:
| I think you replied without understanding the context of
| the discussion.
| neilv wrote:
| I think there's some truth to that, but I don't think that's
| the only factor in everything the article described, and it's
| not specific to blue collar work.
|
| There's a lot of actual prejudices (not just banter) among,
| say, "educated" tech industry workers, too.
|
| Including sexism, racism, ageism, and classism.
|
| Most people will at least superficially hide it in modern
| workplaces, but it's still there, and having effects.
|
| You've probably seen evidence of this places you've worked, and
| you can also see it often in pseudonymous HN comments.
| mydriasis wrote:
| It's even worse. The educated tech industry workers don't
| actually make any banter, so any time their prejudices slip
| through, it's just their actual opinions instead of banter.
| It's a very bizarre opposite to the supposedly 'uneducated'
| blue collar way of doing things, which brings levity as a
| first-class citizen, and communicates boundaries well.
|
| You don't even need to be inappropriate to have workplace
| banter. Nobody ever said that a light environment has to be
| built on jokes that bust chops. In fact, busting chops kind
| of blows. There's plenty of room for clowning around outside
| of that, and plenty of ways to build camaraderie, too. You
| don't have to bring racism or sexism to the table to have a
| good time, and you don't have to have a good time at someone
| else's expense.
|
| Man, I'm really sick of the robotic culture of tech. It's
| such a stuffy bummer. We should be making more skeleton jokes
| and showing each other macaroni art pictures.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> Man, I'm really sick of the robotic culture of tech.
| It's such a stuffy bummer._
|
| HN is like this too unfortunately. Anything slightly out of
| the high brow sanitized tech groupthink gets downvoted or
| flagged even if it doesn't break the rules.
|
| It's mostly people who think the world must be a certain
| sanitized way and if you tell them the reality is otherwise
| they must suppress you to preserve their world view which
| they see as being the ritcheous one.
|
| People are too sensitive and act on their feelings and
| emotions instead of logic and critical thinking. Which is
| ironic considering how such people pretend to be liberal,
| educated and all about free speech and freedom of opinion
| but only as long as your opinion matches theirs.
| mydriasis wrote:
| > It's mostly people who think the world must be a
| certain sanitized way and if you tell them the reality is
| otherwise they must suppress you to preserve their world
| view which they see as being the ritcheous one.
|
| With regards to camaraderie and banter, I don't even want
| to talk about world views. I genuinely don't think they
| matter too much in that context. Really what I'm sick of
| is just a lack of any attempt to make a connection
| whatsoever. I don't need to align with a person
| politically or socially to build a connection and have
| good workplace banter. There's just such a fundamental
| unwillingness to do so, in my experience. That's what
| bugs me.
|
| And I know the difference. I've been in both blue collar
| and white collar environments. Blue collar people look to
| build the connection and bond together almost
| immediately, just about every time. There's a period of
| 'feeling each other out' when you start on a new job or
| with a new coworker so that they can suss out _how to
| connect with you_. That's right: it's such a first-class
| citizen to their working relationships that there's an
| entire art form to initiating it.
|
| Contrasting with the white collar environment... it's
| almost non-existent, unless you work with people who,
| ironically, come from blue collar environments. I think
| it's really sad, and I think we could benefit from being
| a little looser. I don't think that means we need to drag
| any contentious topics in, nor do I think it means that
| we need to drag ourselves into un-professionalism.
| There's just something to be said for being able to be
| goofy and chat with coworkers that seems to be lost on
| the white collar environment.
|
| Harmony is the strength and support of all institutions.
| Banter and camaraderie build that harmony.
| vunderba wrote:
| I don't know what this phenomenon is by which humans take
| personal experiences and attempt to extrapolate broad,
| sweeping generalizations and/or present anecdotal data as
| objective fact, but it's far too prevalent for my liking.
|
| I'm sorry that your experiences differed from mine, but
| some of my best friends are connections that I
| organically grew in ostensibly white-collar jobs (in the
| education and tech sectors).
|
| Many of the engineers I know are some of the most
| eclectic goofballs you'll ever meet.
| mydriasis wrote:
| I've worked a fair bit in both environments. Maybe I've
| somehow missed out on 'the mean', but that's my
| experience. I've met the eclectic goofballs in tech too,
| but they're far from the norm.
| Yeul wrote:
| The tech industry is completely silod from normal society.
| Women barely exist.
|
| And let's face it the kind of people who want to dedicate
| their life to staring at a screen make for a strange crowd.
| mydriasis wrote:
| > Women barely exist.
|
| This is the same in blue collar environments. They have
| more of the levity that I'm seeking regardless.
|
| > And let's face it the kind of people who want to
| dedicate their life to staring at a screen make for a
| strange crowd.
|
| Maybe this is it? I'm not fully convinced. I have worked
| with tech dorks that had a sense of humor, and that
| didn't bring contentious things to the working
| environment. Is it a lack of wit? I don't know. The more
| I think about it, the more confused I get, honestly.
| atq2119 wrote:
| This is an interesting question, so here's a bit of
| speculation.
|
| Banter is a matter of wit. You could call it an
| intellectual pursuit.
|
| Blue collar jobs are primarily not intellectual pursuits.
| They need their own kind of smarts, but these smarts are
| relatively orthogonal to the kind of linguistic smarts
| used in banter, and most importantly the work output
| itself is not intellectual. There's little chance of the
| banter directly getting into the work output, and so
| there's little direct motivation for bosses to police it.
|
| Software development is basically entirely an
| intellectual pursuit that very much overlaps the wit of
| banter, and banter is likely to leak into the work
| output. Hence easter eggs are a thing. So, bosses are
| more likely to want to police banter-adjacent activities,
| which has a likely chilling effect on banter itself.
|
| Another, more recent, factor is that more software
| development activity is online/remote and therefore lower
| bandwidth. The subtleties of banter don't convey as well
| as they would in-person.
| Pingk wrote:
| Tech isn't siloed for no reason.
|
| In the UK government, before programming was considered a
| high-value skill, the vast majority of programmers were
| women. So much so that programming was measured in girl
| hours (which were paid less than man hours).
|
| When it became clear that programming was going to be a
| big deal, women were systematically excluded, flipping
| the gender balance (although they had trouble hiring
| initially because men saw it as lesser work).
| vundercind wrote:
| It flipped because the roles programmer (largely women)
| and analyst (mostly men) became programmer-analyst. The
| role women were dominating was collapsed into the one men
| already dominated.
|
| At the exact same time (at least in the US), which was
| the 1980s, law and medicine (as in doctors, not nurses)
| rapidly shot toward near-parity of participation by men
| and women, while both being high-pay and much higher-
| prestige than anything to do with computers--now, still,
| but especially then. That the profession becoming higher-
| paying and a "big deal" was the _cause_ of this shift
| doesn't make much sense, given what else was going on at
| the same time.
|
| [edit] to be clear, I'm not denying the existence of a
| gap, or making claims about whether it should be
| addressed--in fact, I think understanding the cause is
| vital if we _do_ want to address it.
| raxxorraxor wrote:
| There is always a fine line between professionalism and stick
| in your arse. Of course you need to know when such a culture
| is adequate and when it is not. If you work in support you
| probably don't banter with the people calling you. That would
| indeed be unprofessional.
|
| Professionalism is to keep distance to others, banter is the
| opposite, as it is a form of bonding.
|
| "Modern" workplaces that advertise themselves as such are
| very likely toxic. Might seem counter intuitive but it is
| often the case in reality.
| nradov wrote:
| Some Indian immigrants working in tech companies have also
| alleged they were subject to caste discrimination by other
| immigrants. I have no idea how common this is but there does
| seem to be some actual prejudice.
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/big-techs-big-
| pro...
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Shop talk and banter are fairly universal. Any difference is
| going to be a target.
|
| Just that it's "universal" doesn't mean it has to be that way.
| For fucks sake we all exchange 40 hours a week (or more) to our
| employers, on top of overtime and commute. There's _no reason
| at all_ anyone should have to put up with unprofessional
| abusive /discriminatory bullshit _from anyone_ , no matter if
| customers ("Karens") or coworkers.
|
| At least the young generation got the message, this time they
| have the numbers advantage to actually demand meaningful
| change, and we're seeing the first effects of it - particularly
| in the trades, that fail to attract new trainees despite pretty
| competitive wages.
|
| (The next thing I'd love to see on the chopping block is
| corporate politics, it's utterly amazing that everyone knows at
| least one horror story where endless amounts of money were
| wasted, sometimes entire companies sank because two middle
| manager paper pushers thought their fiefdom wars to be more
| important than the success of the company at large... but
| apparently investors/shareholders seem to not care even the
| tiniest bit)
| stavros wrote:
| This is like someone telling a fish that there are people who
| live on land, and the fish saying "it doesn't have to be that
| way". Someone mentions a cultural difference between your
| group and another, and you say "the other group is wrong, my
| culture is right".
|
| Instead, what you could do is think about how this is a
| completely arbitrary thing that the two cultures just do
| differently, and that maybe people shouldn't be offended by
| friendly banter that isn't meant to offend.
| skinkestek wrote:
| Someone with background from from the US military (OK, Ryan
| McBeth) recently commented something along the lines of:
|
| > everyone is picked on. If you don't get picked on _that
| is reason for concern_.
|
| By quoting this, do I mean to encourage bullying? No, as
| the kid that wasn't included during my first years of
| school, NO.
|
| But there is a difference between everyone calling each
| other names vs everyone calling someone names etc.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| That's the thing.
|
| The line is mighty fine between bullying and good natured
| ribbing, and has a lot to do with group dynamics. Edgy
| banter can bring a group together, but bullying can do
| far more damage.
| edwbuck wrote:
| I was in the US military. We all joked, in ways that
| probably shouldn't have been jokes, that we would "trip"
| on deployment to the "zone" causing trendily fire
| accidents for the least like members of our team.
|
| Being US military didn't make it right, we were
| effectively deciding who we would kill in an effort to
| make the team more cohesive. That never set right with
| me, and I still remember the joke (but maybe it's not a
| joke, joke) to this day.
|
| Don't look to the military as a model of good teamwork.
| Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. One cannot pretend
| it's the right model to follow.
| scotty79 wrote:
| That's very reminiscent to arguments that western culture
| is just one of the possible cultures and is no better or
| worse than culture of pre-technological bushmen.
| stavros wrote:
| I agreed with you on the first bit, the second bit kind
| of ruins it for me.
| scotty79 wrote:
| I'm not really arguing for or against anything. It just
| seems structurally similar.
| stavros wrote:
| Sure, in the way that "exercise benefits me, therefore I
| should do it" and "murder benefits me, therefore I should
| do it" are structurally similar.
| flappyeagle wrote:
| Wishful thinking is not a strategy
| loa_in_ wrote:
| You don't have to present a full strategy to discuss a
| problem. In my opinion a strategy is something to reach
| through discussion. Dismissing the discussion because of
| lack of results is counterproductive.
| edwbuck wrote:
| One doesn't have to present a successful strategy to
| illustrate why an unsuccessful strategy will fail.
| justinclift wrote:
| Errr, it kind of is. Just not a very good one. ;)
| WalterBright wrote:
| > apparently investors/shareholders seem to not care even the
| tiniest bit
|
| They rarely know anything about what middle management is
| doing. After all, if you own any stocks, do you know anything
| about the middle managers in that corporation?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Guess why I'm out of the stocks game other than the
| occasional gamble of meme stonks. I'm German, we don't need
| it either way.
|
| The thing is, we allow corporations to become (way) too
| fat. When a corporation grows too big, it grows
| uncontrollable as well - once the complexity of any
| corporation grows so large that there is no way for any
| single person to understand at least the basic scopes of
| everything the corporation's parts do at the same time, all
| kind of auditing and oversight becomes a sham, no matter if
| internal (boards) or external (consultancies, auditors,
| regulatory agencies).
| WalterBright wrote:
| Large companies are needed to do large projects.
|
| > When a corporation grows too big, it grows
| uncontrollable as well
|
| True, which is why corporations eventually fail.
|
| BTW, governments also grow too big and become
| uncontrollable.
| WalterBright wrote:
| For a funny take on this, see the movie "Gran Torino", where
| two people excoriate each other viciously, until we the
| audience discover that they are actually two close friends.
|
| Sadly, in our modern world people are not only looking for
| things to be offended about, but are looking to be offended
| on behalf of other people.
| wwweston wrote:
| Yes, if only we could aspire to ideals -- no doubt better
| modeled in some golden past far far from modernity -- where
| more "close friends" excoriate each other viciously,
| obviously that's perfectly healthy and nobody could
| possibly have any reasonable basis for preferring something
| else.
|
| > only looking for things to be offended about, but are
| looking to be offended on behalf of other people.
|
| It's one thing if you or someone else personally enjoys
| some recreational conversational sadomasochism with the
| right partner, likely you can even persuade people to
| accommodate you with talk like that.
|
| But the idea that there can't be genuine offense, only
| motivated offense attributed to some handwavy goal is
| clearly more projective pretense than anything like actual
| insight.
| esperent wrote:
| > But is it malicious? Almost certainly not.
|
| Honestly, it often will be malicious, or will quickly become
| malicious if you don't take it graciously. And why should you?
| It's not acceptable to make fun of people for being skinny,
| ginger, shy, black, white, female, or any other things that the
| in group considers non-standard for whatever weird reasons.
| wyager wrote:
| If you have this attitude, you aren't cut out to work in the
| trades
| mock-possum wrote:
| The trades need to change then. What you and others are so
| blithely defending in this thread is textbook toxic
| behavior.
| wyager wrote:
| What exactly is your plan to achieve this "needed"
| change?
| jdietrich wrote:
| Without wanting to indulge too much in macho tropes: A
| welding shop is inherently dangerous. If you spend long
| enough in one, you _are_ going to get seriously injured at
| some point. You are going to be the first responder when
| someone else gets seriously injured. Surviving in that
| environment requires a certain level of toughness. I 'm not
| defending bullying, but some places aren't _supposed_ to be
| welcoming.
| esperent wrote:
| I just looked it up. Welding is definitely not a safe
| profession, but it seems like severe injury rates is around
| 3.5 per hundred workers throughout a whole career.
| Definitely not "most". And about the same or slightly less
| than carpentry (4 per hundred), which from personal
| experience is a profession filled with decent and friendly
| people.
| lazide wrote:
| There is no way that is correct. What data are you using?
| [https://www.bls.gov/iif/fatal-injuries-tables/fatal-
| occupati...]
|
| BLS is combining solder/brazing with welding. And has no
| concept of industrial vs fab, etc.
| bumby wrote:
| You are conflating serious injury with fatalities.
| lazide wrote:
| That sheet is fatalities. It's literally in the URL and
| at the top of the page. See column 'Total fatal
| injuries'.
| bumby wrote:
| Right. But the post you are refuting is talking about
| "serious injuries" not "fatalities".
| lazide wrote:
| they were claiming numbers an order of magnitude less
| than fatalities.
| bumby wrote:
| Per hundred workers. Your link is in absolute units of
| fatalities, their claim is a rate. At the very least, you
| need the number of workers (which is also available in
| BLS data) to refute their claim.
|
| The data shows roughly 454k workers in the welders,
| solderers, and brazers occupation series. With their
| claim of 3.5 severe injuries per 100 worker-careers,
| that's about 16k severe injuries. If you assume an
| average career is about 25 years, that's about 636 severe
| injuries per year, compared to the 48 fatalities per
| year. So it's an order of magnitude higher (which I think
| is the direction most people would expect).
| lazide wrote:
| thanks for tracking that down! I stand corrected.
| TylerE wrote:
| It's not so much accidents as the lifetime occupational
| exposure. Metal fumes are _nasty_.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| I did a couple of years at the NASSCO shipyard in San
| Diego as a welder after the first .com crash.
|
| The (literal) toxic work environment is why I left
| welding, even though I genuinely enjoyed the work. But I
| was already starting to see real changes in my health,
| even though I was super careful about respirator use,
| etc. What really sealed the deal was learning that my
| shift lead, who I thought was a good decade older than
| me, was actually a few years younger, but had just been
| welding longer, with the body damage to show for it.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| There's a lot of potential for petty injuries that'll be
| a nuisance for weeks to months. Minor burns, slightly
| smashed fingers or hands, some real good cuts, etc. Not a
| lot of potential for serious injury though above the
| baseline of your environment (i.e. air conditioned shop
| vs muddy trench)
| tikhonj wrote:
| Eh, the way to actually be safe--not just _feel_ safe--is
| not to be macho and tough but to be uncompromisingly
| professional.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| What on earth? Yeah, if I work in a dangerous profession, I
| want my coworkers to be people I trust, not people who
| bully me because I stand out. Honestly, if it's a dangerous
| workplace, shouldn't we be looking out for each other
| instead of making casually sexist comments at the only
| woman in the shop?
| mywittyname wrote:
| I worked construction for a few years after high school and
| the only injuries I received on the job was from
| bullying/hazing (minor, but still). Never mind the stupid
| shit they did that could have hurt someone, but luckily
| didn't.
|
| People who work dangerous jobs can get pretty callous about
| it. I saw people doing dangerous shit _constantly_. And the
| people with permanent injuries end up using gallows humor
| to cope.
| mock-possum wrote:
| Why would the risk of either being injured or treating
| injury require you to be the target of bullying or a bully?
|
| Wouldn't it be in your best interest to be kind and
| supportive to one another in such a dangerous / difficult
| environment? That way everyone is happy and confident and
| focuses on the stresses of the job, not the stress of being
| bullied or being cajoled into bullying for the sake of
| conformity?
|
| What you're describing sounds like it really only appeals
| to a certain kind of person, and I don't understand how
| that kind of person makes a better welder.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| On some level, you're describing a difference between
| traditional male bonding (joking and "razzing") and
| traditional female bonding (being kind and supportive).
| Both of these can be positive and both can be toxic -
| bullying is an obvious case, but just ask anyone who has
| been in a supposedly "supportive" environment filled with
| backstabbing and gossip how nice that is.
|
| I don't know why there's a need to define either of these
| as inferior and wrong - isn't the point of diversity to
| allow people from different backgrounds to take different
| approaches?
|
| To me, personally, the "kind, supportive" style often
| comes off as insincere. It's actually _a barrier_ to me
| trusting someone. But I don 't know, maybe that's just
| me.
| itishappy wrote:
| The main factor driving safety is experience. I suspect
| shop talk does indeed correlate, but I think it's a mistake
| to assume causation. Put differently, the number of angry
| words thrown around being a major contributing factor to an
| accident response strains belief. It's experience.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| _> It's not acceptable to make fun of people for being
| skinny, ginger, shy, black, white, female, or any other
| things that the in group considers non-standard for whatever
| weird reasons._
|
| How about let people say and do whatever they want amongst
| themselves and stay out of their conversations.
|
| Dudes in dangerous professions bond by calling each other
| slurs which is ok because they're all in on it, such that if
| you can't handle some bad words how are you gonna handle the
| real dangers of the profession where people need to know you
| have their backs, so you're either not cut out for the job.
|
| You as an outsider from the nice people bubble don't have a
| say in this to lecture them since you're not in on it.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| What does any of this have to do with what they said?
| There's a difference between an in-group privately calling
| each other whatever and said in-group directing it towards
| someone not part of said group.
| Angostura wrote:
| > How about let people say and do whatever they want
| amongst themselves and stay out of their conversations.
|
| Sounds like a great way of excluding people from the
| workforce.
| linuxftw wrote:
| Sounds like an opportunity for any of the wealthy left-
| leaning people to start a competitor and seize market
| share by hiring those traditional companies consider
| undesirable.
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| Great at excluding snowflakes which is what you want in
| those dangerous professions. If you get pissy that
| someone called you ginger, you're clearly not cut for any
| demanding and dangerous job. Better stay in your
| sanitized white collar safe space while you tweet how the
| world is mean.
| EliRivers wrote:
| "how are you gonna handle the real dangers of the
| profession where people need to know you have their backs"
|
| Some dickhead flinging racial slurs at me all day doesn't
| make me feel that they have my back. Quite the opposite,
| actually.
| joemazerino wrote:
| Have you ever attended a mandatory DEI meeting? The
| entire premise of that industry is to tell you which
| slurs are acceptable (ie: cisgender ) and which are not.
| DFHippie wrote:
| "Cisgender" is a slur the same way "male",
| "heterosexual", and "white" are (I am all three; four,
| including cisgender). In other words, it is not a slur.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Slur isn't an intrinsic property of a word: it's a
| property of how it's used. "Male" _can_ be a slur, as can
| "heterosexual", or "management". In theory, "cisgender"
| can also be a slur, though I've never heard such a use.
| (You'll sometimes hear "cissy", but I've never heard that
| used against a specific person.)
|
| You might argue that "punching up" is acceptable, or even
| that it's not slurring _by definition_ (which I 'd
| dispute), but membership of _one_ "privileged class"
| doesn't automatically translate to actual privilege. (I
| think the feminists call this intersectionality.) In such
| a context, the labels of "privileged classes" absolutely
| _can_ be used to punch down (e.g. saying "you're such a
| man" and slamming the door in the face of an impoverished
| gay transgender man trying to access domestic abuse
| services).
| tuatoru wrote:
| > if you don't take it graciously.
|
| _That is the point_ of the banter: to see how you handle
| stressful situations.
|
| Women don't understand this, but nearly all men do.
|
| Why? For every accident, there are around twenty near misses.
| For every near miss there are several situations that could
| have gone bad very quickly unless the person on the spot
| remains calm and acts rationally.
|
| It is _essential_ to know how you behave under stress in most
| blue collar work. They 're not being assholes for fun;
| they're doing it to save lives.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| The banter is not a cunning safety plan.
| notahacker wrote:
| And even if it was and watching sport or going down the
| pub was in fact an extremely safety-conscious environment
| compared with the sterility and politeness of, say, the
| aerospace industry, it's not entirely clear how
| encouraging people to either escalate or laugh off would
| help them deal with actual danger which generally
| requires neither of the above...
| MisterTea wrote:
| > sterility and politeness of, say, the aerospace
| industry,
|
| I work in that industry and can say with confidence that
| statement is false.
| notahacker wrote:
| Sterility and politeness is variable, but I also work in
| that industry and have yet to encounter a situation where
| the banter resembles that of a largely risk free but
| comparably male environment like, say a sports ground or
| pub lunch with friends I've known since we were kids.
|
| Which is a good thing really, because I wouldn't want to
| think that people were actually determining fitness to be
| trusted with a soldering iron or embedded systems design
| based on their witty comebacks or tolerance for jokes
| about their wife.
| embeng4096 wrote:
| It's not about the social actions, it's the traits they
| represent. Are you quick-witted? Do you freeze or
| overreact and lash out, behave erratically? Do you stay
| calm? Can you think fast enough under pressure to choose
| to say and do things that result in laughter or de-
| escalation, or escalate in a way that shows you're
| communicating on the same level (i.e. tease back, but not
| overdo it and insult the other person)?
|
| If I can't stay calm and think rapidly under mild social
| pressure without threat of bodily harm or lost lives, I
| personally wouldn't feel honest in telling my teammates,
| "yes, if you or I are in a situation with risk to life or
| limb, you should trust that I'll handle it appropriately
| and protect myself and/or you."
| nitwit005 wrote:
| People have tried to study groups like Medal of Honor
| recipients, and found that they have a wide range of
| different backgrounds and personalities.
|
| Our assumptions about who will succeed in the most
| difficult situations don't seem to hold up.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Sorry, without some sort of data I'm refusing to believe
| that social adeptness has anything to do with ability to
| act in an emergency or other high pressure situation.
|
| My own experience in tall ships and shipyards, where
| there are plenty of life and death decisions is not that.
|
| There are people that I can fluster easily in a social
| situation that are perfectly calm and capable in high
| pressure dangerous situations. There are people that are
| practically insult comedians that I wouldn't want driving
| a car in the same parking lot.
| notahacker wrote:
| Not to mention that people doing boring, safe jobs behave
| like that too. Trust me, when I have the _banter_ with my
| friends in the pub, I 'm really not evaluating whether I
| can rely on their accountancy or web design to save my
| life
|
| What actually seems to be the common factor is male
| groups in informal settings
| howenterprisey wrote:
| No, I don't think ability to banter has any relationship
| with ability to properly handle those risky situations.
| There's zero intrinsic reason why someone who freezes
| when insulted must also freeze if a bay crane lift starts
| going wrong, because to me they are clearly different
| kinds of stress.
| ledauphin wrote:
| i agree it's not cunning or a plan, but that doesn't
| exclude the possibility that this is an
| evolutionary/societal adaptation that _really works_.
|
| Two things can be true at the same time: that this type
| of banter has undesirable consequences as well as
| desirable ones. This type of nuance is generally the sort
| of thing that's worth trying to understand before you try
| to 'fix' it.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| My mother and father were both fishermen. They would've
| shitcanned someone firing off slurs in the middle of a
| stressful situation, because if you're doing that then
| you're making a stressful situation worse.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| This is so bizarre. No, it's not. It's to shit on the new
| guy because he's new or different or whatever. You just
| made up a post-facto justification for bullying out of
| whole cloth and tried to make it sound like some social
| benefit.
| mock-possum wrote:
| Or, they're doing it to blow off aforementioned stress.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| > Women don't understand this, but nearly all men do.
|
| I completely agree with you about the purpose and value of
| banter- but do you actually know any women or interact with
| any on a regular basis?
|
| It's simply not true- women banter with each other just as
| much as men do, and they especially banter with men they
| are interested in romantically- for the exact reason you
| mention - to see if they handle stressful situations well,
| which is a desirable (attractive) trait in a romantic
| partner.
|
| I'll admit women tend to be more subtle with this then men-
| such that some people (especially the ones who are failing
| the test) will mistake it as complaining or arguing.
|
| I enjoy it very much when my wife does this- I usually
| respond by turning it into some kind of joke, or turning it
| back on her in a way she doesn't expect, and I can see her
| light up with joy that I 'got it' and didn't respond with
| frustration/etc.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| It's strange but it's a fine line. Being made fun of your
| physical attributes is pretty par for the course in most male
| groups and it paradoxically makes the place more comfortable
| to be in. Women just don't get how this works. Obviously I'm
| talking about most places. Sometimes it's just truly evil
| bullying because they genuinely hate you.
| mplewis wrote:
| Women get how this works just fine. If you think it makes
| the group more comfortable to be in, you're simply falling
| for the yoke of patriarchy.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Then I suppose I like the patriarchy.
| raxxorraxor wrote:
| That is not true. The goal of banter isn't to belittle
| others seriously, it is often just used to break the ice
| or for some fun in between work. It is not about a group
| bullying another.
|
| Many places that require nice language are far more
| toxic. Or perhaps any place with strict behavior and
| language rules is toxic, it often seems to be the case.
|
| The parent said that women don't get it. I disagree, most
| of them working in such environments get it just like
| men. There are some exceptions for either gender.
| scotty79 wrote:
| Close people can joke like that. Joking like that before
| you become close is rough attempt at manufacturing
| closeness fast. If it works it works, if it doesn't it
| gets nasty.
| Angostura wrote:
| The role of banter absolutely _can_ be to belittle people
| -frequently it's used as a tool for establishing a
| pecking order.
|
| There's nothing better for team cohesion than agreeing on
| the person you are going to bully
| rightbyte wrote:
| I am so glad that the betting culture all but dissapeared
| before I entered the workforce.
|
| Hearing old stories of what people did make it seem like
| some sort of thug culture. I wonder what share of
| workplace 'accidents' was due to betting.
| kardianos wrote:
| Why? Men make fun of themselves and each other all the time.
| It's how we talk. It honestly isn't negative; it's almost a
| form of banter that tells the truth in a low-key softball way
| where we can all laugh. Why is banter not acceptable? Who
| went and took the fun out of life? I'm not talking here about
| purposefully mean banter or taking things too far. But come
| on, who made these "rules" you speak of?
| mercutio2 wrote:
| I am a man. I don't know who this "we" is you speak of.
| Sure as hell isn't me or my friends.
|
| Assholes exist everywhere, but "we" don't have to apologize
| for them or make the workplace a safer space for them.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| I'm a man, and literally every male friend I've ever had
| engages in this kind of banter. If you and your friends
| don't, you are outliers.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| I like how you've defined yourself as the norm and not
| the GP, even though you're both calling from your
| personal experience with a sample size of one.
| naming_the_user wrote:
| It's fascinating for me to watch these comment threads
| blow up, I hadn't thought this would take off so much.
|
| It's a constant stream of "but my guys don't do this"
| "but my guys do do this".
|
| It's all just rephrasing of, well, this is the highbrow
| culture, and this is the working class culture, and I'm
| in one or the other and you're abnormal.
|
| The reality is that it's just two different worlds and
| where they clash things get weird.
|
| Looking at _so many_ responses to my post, almost none of
| which actually have new content, makes me think this is
| some sort of dead internet bots vs. bots contest.
| mercutio2 wrote:
| Only one side is making positive claims in this thread.
|
| I never made a claim that "all men do X" or that "shop
| talk and banter are fairly universal". I did point out
| that I and my friends do not mock our friends and
| colleagues.
|
| Still avoiding positive claims, but here are some
| normative claims: - I object to claiming
| that mocking is normal and acceptable in all groups of
| men - some, not all, working class subcultures use
| mocking as a shibboleth - this aspect of those
| subcultures is not a thing I think "we" should valorize
| wwweston wrote:
| You do understand "If I can't mock people, what joy is
| there left in the world?" could make you look like an
| asshole, right?
|
| Just telling the truth in a low key softball way where we
| can all laugh, and of course you're laughing right along
| with me.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| Fair, but trying to enforce "you're never allowed to mock
| people, even when those people expect enjoy it and it's
| all in good fun" also makes you an asshole. Different
| behaviors are appropriate for different groups. I have
| groups I swear in, and ones I avoid it in. Same thing.
| howenterprisey wrote:
| How do you know whether the people being mocked genuinely
| enjoy it or the culture requires them to appear like they
| enjoy it?
| RHSeeger wrote:
| The same way you know whether it's ok to talk about
| someone's family life, or politics, or anything else; you
| get to know them.
| pxc wrote:
| Mockery can be cruel, and even gentle mocking can be
| irritating or even harmful if it's very repetitious.
| Mockery is not always appropriate, or even truly funny.
| Mocking others is not an especially important activity or
| an especially important form of humor.
|
| Even so, categorical prohibitions of mockery (in society,
| in particular workplaces, whatever) are truly and
| obviously joyless propositions. Maybe they're warranted
| in some contexts! But to say 'there can be no mockery' is
| indeed inherently stifling.
| mock-possum wrote:
| Speak for yourself. I don't treat people I care about that
| way.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| Banter is wonderful when you are part of the in group,
| especially if you are the dominant player in that group.
| But it is often used by members of the in group to
| marginalise those outside and to maintain the dominance of
| the leading players in the in group.
| cies wrote:
| > It's not acceptable to make fun of people
|
| Is that not down to the culture? I found some of the warmest
| workplaces were also the places were everyone was constantly
| shitting on each other and not taking it too serious. I'd not
| say it was bullying, as everyone got a piece. There was a
| certain toughness to it, but at the same time everyone was
| caring deeply for one another.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| If the target of your joke isn't laughing (if they're upset
| by it), then it's not a joke, it's bullying. If they _are_
| laughing/enjoying it, then it's playful banter. You're
| right, it very much varies by culture (culture here being
| as specific as "the specific group of people")
| cies wrote:
| In a culture where banter is accepted, sometimes someone
| will be upset by something.
|
| I think the current tendency to prevent all possibility
| to upsetting behaviour is overshooting the mark.
|
| Against bullying is a good movement.
|
| Against all possibly upsetting remarks is basically being
| against banter and killing a part of what makes us human.
| I hope that free speech remains allowed and to some
| extend "uncancelable".
| boogieknite wrote:
| Spent a lot of time in hunting and fishing parties with
| near constant teasing and in those situations its usually
| the rudest and most egotistical jerk who doesnt laugh and
| enjoy. They cross the line repeatedly, everyone takes it
| in good nature while internally counting the incidents,
| then eventually someone takes them down a peg and they
| act like a child.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| > It's not acceptable to make fun of people for being skinny,
| ginger, shy, black, white, female, or any other things that
| the in group considers non-standard for whatever weird
| reasons
|
| This probably seems obviously true to you but it should not.
| Some people think there's a reasonable amount of banter,
| sometimes at the expense of another acquaintance, before it
| becomes bullying or unacceptable in the workplace.
| wruza wrote:
| It's not just fun, but the least offensive way of
| establishing hierarchy, which is required to form a group, in
| men. They ask you who you are. A reference to some rule (e.g.
| what's acceptable) is by definition a confrontation. A
| refusal to position yourself in a group, which is
| tested/offered by poking a person, makes you a questionable
| element in it. Yes, all this is mostly pointless in a modern
| life. But that's how an average hunting-age male works.
|
| The attributes and reasons do not matter in isolation. They
| will find where to poke even if you're a twin of one of the
| group members. Red hair is just the obvious one to use.
|
| The alternative is going to the office, filtering thoughts in
| your mouth and reporting slight misspeaks and inappropriately
| timed eye contacts to a special manager who then decides
| who's higher in hierarchy according to some rules.
| aaplok wrote:
| Well there is this though:
|
| > Women in trades have reported encounters with customers who
| doubted their competence and who refused to deal with them,
| seeking a man instead.
|
| There is plenty of low key sexism (and racism) like that among
| white collars too so it is not restricted to trades (as
| acknowledged by the article's author), but this goes beyond
| banter like just teasing someone because they have red hair.
| orwin wrote:
| I think GP is right though.
|
| Real sexism is way more present among middle-class/white-
| collar workers (whatever their gender is) than between blue
| collar workers. You will have poorly worded jokes from your
| coworkers, but the ass-grab or demeaning remarks will always
| be from managers (the kind of manager who don't know the
| trade or inherited the job) or customers.
| notahacker wrote:
| See, I kind of agree that there are certain types of sexism
| like assumptions that women won't get their hands dirty or
| patronising artificial politeness that are purely middle
| class constructs.
|
| But the idea that only white collar workers are capable of
| ass-grabs or genuinely derogatory remarks is _wild_...
| dmix wrote:
| He claimed "more prevalent" not "only white collar does
| x"
| notahacker wrote:
| He also claimed the ass-grabs and demeaning remarks will
| "always" be from managers [without trade experience].
| Which is wild.
| orwin wrote:
| It is only when someone think they have power over
| someone else that they allow themselves to be
| inappropriate on the workplace. My mom was a nurse before
| forming nurses, and lived through that (from doctors
| especially). Her best friend was a security guard at
| diverse places, but she started at a mall (where she has
| "wild" stories as you put it. Confirmed 100% always her
| manager or customers, once the day manager was put on ice
| for harassment, his replacement ended the night by
| touching her butt the day he arrived. Crazy that people
| do that).
|
| But even closer to me, and more recently: i know a woman
| who work in a call center, and she explained to me the
| reason why it's always managers on the workplace: the
| other don't have the time to play powergames with each
| other, they have too much work (for her it was a female
| manager who learned of her homosexuality who started to
| get touchy).
|
| I stand by that. Obviously it is different in non-work
| settings, but at work?
| RHSeeger wrote:
| My guess would be that it's less about "position of
| power" and more about "less likely to face consequences".
| You see the same type of behavior in a variety of cases
|
| - Construction workers hooting and whistling at women
|
| - Gamers online being horrible to _everyone_
|
| - Managers (as noted) sexually harassing employees
|
| All cases were consequences for behaving badly are far
| less likely.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| What is power, if not the ability to do what you want
| without facing consequences? If other people already
| support you or are indifferent, no power is needed to do
| what you want.
| mock-possum wrote:
| > It is only when someone think they have power over
| someone
|
| Isn't that kind of the point though? That the racist and
| the sexist and the queerbasher think they have power over
| the group they're bigoted against - and that's what lends
| them the confidence to act mean?
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Yeah that's normal, like we short fat guys are never popular
| with girls. Learnt that from teenages and firmly believe that
| biologically people look down on each other.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| [delayed]
| jrflowers wrote:
| I love this post. It not only makes no sense whatsoever, it
| flattens gender, race, being ginger, and having tattoos into
| one uniform measure of Otherness in a way that preserves a
| magical naivete and childlike wonder that's absent in virtually
| every adult
| brownJorts wrote:
| Crafting grammatically correct sentences doesn't rewrite
| immutable physics.
|
| https://research.aston.ac.uk/en/clippings/swearing-is-
| becomi...
|
| Swearing and language rules are "made up". The idea of harm
| is programmed into us.
|
| People don't riot despite receipts for priests molestation.
| They don't riot over social scandal after social scandal.
| They'll riot when they can't feed their families. Most on the
| planet aren't as obsessed with the pristine syntactic
| structures like the HN crowd. They never asked to exist and
| just want to live in conventional terms and die.
|
| Like religion it's just made up constraints; biological tick
| some all seeing eye will get mad.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| What are you trying to say?
| mplewis wrote:
| It's never malicious when you're the one having fun, huh?
| scotty79 wrote:
| > Any difference is going to be a target.
|
| Those are primary school rules. Seeing adults living like that
| is shocking.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Primary schoolers are the sweetest people in the world. It is
| middle schoolers that express adult emotions with no filter.
| Fortunately the filter does get more effective with practice,
| but it is always worth remembering that at their core, most
| people are not fundamentally different than they were in
| middle school.
| verisimi wrote:
| Seeing adults pretending not to notice differences is also
| shocking, funny too.
| scotty79 wrote:
| I'm sure they see the differences, just decide to evaluate
| them as irrelevant. Which is their right as adults.
| kardianos wrote:
| A lot of the specifics mentioned in the article aren't specific
| to her being a woman. Many guys just talk about things
| differently; they will banter about themselves and how any lady
| is easier on the eyes then any man. That's not sexism; that's
| just reality of what a guy thinks and banters about. And an
| average guy is stronger then the average girl; that's biology.
| Most guys don't care what sex you are, so long as you can do
| the work, don't complain much, and can afford banter to make
| the day go by faster.
| Neil44 wrote:
| I thought similar. Anyone moving from an office environment
| to one of physical work is going to struggle both with the
| physical challenges and the workplace culture. Trippily so
| coming from academia!
| cies wrote:
| The "physical work workplace culture" fits me much better:
| more fun, less stringent, less talking behind someones back
| because maybe he/she made a non-PC remark, no one will go
| cry to HR for a remark you made that was not even about
| them personally...
|
| It's not a struggle is a relief!
| tiltowait wrote:
| I don't miss many things from my last blue collar job,
| but it was so much more relaxed. My coworkers all felt
| much more "real". Too bad the pay wasn't there, or I'd
| still be doing it.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >less talking behind someones back because maybe he/she
| made a non-PC remark
|
| it's still a workplace. There will always be people
| talking behind others' backs
| millzlane wrote:
| As someone who started their career in an office
| environment, then went to grunt work, and now back in an
| office and a remote WFH job. I don't think it would be a
| struggle. Would it be different? Of course... physical
| labor is the complete opposite of office work. Would it be
| harder than sitting in a chair pressing buttons?... sure.
| But it wouldn't be a struggle. It would be more of a
| struggle working with people that don't understand what
| context is or what nuances are.
|
| It's not the work or the culture, it's the people. The type
| that would call you a vagina for wanting water on a hot day
| to avoid dehydration. Or the boss that will tell you "you
| think too much" when you come to them with an idea that
| increases productivity. But ya, the work or culture would
| be a piece of cake to navigate. For me, often time it's the
| idiots you have to work with that usually make a place a
| shit place to work.
| karaterobot wrote:
| The one that got me was the comment about a customer looking
| past her at a co-worker, even though she was older than he
| was, and "for all they know, more experienced". But, she's
| not actually more experienced, she's new at the job, which
| might have been evident (this detail is left out). Anyway,
| judging someone's competence based on their age, which she
| expected them to do, is hardly better than doing it based on
| their sex.
|
| If the customer was trying to guess which of two people in
| front of them might be a welder, and only 5% of welders are
| female, it's not irrational to assume that it's the man. The
| customer may never have seen a female welder before. Until
| they say something like _you can 't be a welder, you're a
| woman_, I think the generous reading would be that the
| customer is having their priors updated in real time, not
| necessarily that they're a misogynist.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I agree, this is just an expression of the real world, and some
| people are uncomfortable with that. In my friends & coworkers
| circle, there are people of all varieties and it is the
| conservatives who are most honest. This morning they are
| affirming that the dems lost because a small fraction of the
| population ("the alphabet people" is the term I am seeing)
| don't understand their place, that the rest of the world does
| not want to live by their rules.
|
| It's kind of gross, sure, if you're in that minority, but a
| part of me can appreciate that the conservatives are honest
| about what's in their hearts. It's hard to have a meaningful
| conversation when everyone is pretending to be someone they're
| not.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| I'm now a soft-hands, academic-type but worked in a metal
| fabrication shop all through my schooling. Your read is very
| accurate. I still get her perspective though, because even as a
| male, white, straight, married guy in a shop full of the same I
| found it exhausting.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| What did you find exhausting, specifically? Just trying to
| understand your comment.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Not GP, but I've made similar transitions:
|
| > Shop talk and banter are fairly universal. Any difference
| is going to be a target.
|
| Can be exhausting. You have to either join in, be a target,
| or both.
| ein0p wrote:
| So can "corporate talk" at a white collar job. There are
| days where I want to vomit after hearing about
| "stakeholders", "action items", and "alignment". I'd
| prefer crude jokes to that, even if they were directed at
| me.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| It's a little different when people are regularly talking
| about your genitals or sexual preferences or histories or
| your family reputation. And in public. And in team
| meetings.
|
| That kind of thing rarely comes up in corporate america.
| In corp/academia people just like to imply you're lazy or
| unintelligent, subtly and frequently. But yeah, white
| collar jobs are annoying as well. That's why we all get
| paid to do them.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| I think everyone else is assuming a different level and
| amount of personal insults when we discuss "shop talk".
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Because I've heard different levels and amounts of
| insults. It can just be some harmless dad jokes and
| softball stuff you'd hear in white collar work. It can
| just be outright sexual harassment. It depends so much on
| your environment that it's hard to pin down a universal
| "standard" .
| xeromal wrote:
| I've found that the shop talk communities end up with
| stronger bonds and generally more real friendships vs
| office friendships which are very weak.
|
| It makes me think it's a somewhat innate way to foster
| relationships. It definitely seems to break down walls.
| I've come to learn that the more a group roasts you the
| more they like you.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I kind of agree...
|
| My strongest lifelong work friends definitely came from
| grad school where none of that happened. Or from research
| work where it didn't either. But there it was pressure
| and performance and cooperation that helped. It breeds
| trust.
|
| In blue collar work, esp team oriented which it often is,
| I'm not sure it's the shop talk or the team/trust
| environment. Either way i felt the same bond to people
| making pizza 5 busy nights in a row as I did late night
| coding sprints while pair programming, or contorting
| under the steel hull of a target boat to reach a bad CPU
| while my colleague watched the terminal while seasick and
| we are both drinking diesel funes.
|
| It's about shared trust I think. The level of casualness
| of shop talk is just an indicator and kind of a stress
| test of bonds.
| xeromal wrote:
| Yeah, I'm sure you're right. It's something about the
| level of pressure but a lot of us software guys have
| pressure but don't get the same relationships blue collar
| workers get. I've done both industries (industrial
| construction and programming), and I definitely found it
| much easier to make lasting friendships in the
| construction one even though I experienced similar
| pressures
|
| It's something to do with the casualness or gruffness of
| it that makes it better. Office environments are so
| sterile. Maybe it's the lack of HR. lol
| jvanderbot wrote:
| Also it's easier to talk, and you're constantly moving
| around. Focus is paramount in SWeng, which is the same as
| "leave me alone".
| sangnoir wrote:
| Bonds forged in fire are stronger - this has been known
| since Rome needed soldiers. Bootcamp doesn't _require_
| sleep deprivation, adversarial leadership,and that level
| of physical strain, but shared suffering increases unit
| cohesion.
|
| I choose less suffering at my work, I can choose my
| friends from other circles, thank you very much.
| edwbuck wrote:
| This is an idea that is promoted by the media.
| Occasionally it is true.
|
| After eight years of working in the military, it only
| took two years before I never heard from another member
| of my unit. Within the first three months of leaving,
| only one person kept in touch (for the two years). When
| they moved out-of-state, I never heard from them either.
|
| Don't underestimate the perception of what happens with
| what is likely to happen. I don't think it differs much
| between "the shop" and "the office" having worked in
| both. How many people do you talk to on a weekly basis
| from your last company?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| It REALLY depends. There's as many factors in if you are
| being ribbed or bullied as there are in friendships. YMMV
| immensely.
|
| But yes, the best way to bond has often been by putting
| down others.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| Another anecdote: my straight white male friend who isn't a
| tough guy left a job (building commercial ACs) as an
| electrician because the whole business was full of dudes
| bullying whoever they could. Plus the management just didn't
| care about worker safety, and the workers took it as a point
| of pride that they were ruining their own health. Toxic as
| hell. He found a different job with less machismo bullshit
| and more safety and is much happier. But that job is also
| overnight shift; if he was a single parent that'd be nearly
| impossible, luckily his wife can stay at home with the kids.
| This is in rural Virginia, not a ton of jobs around.
| vundercind wrote:
| My window into the blue collar world has made it look like
| if you want a job where safety is respected, you probably
| want a union job. There a macho tendency working against
| it, and management's all too happy to let that, plus the
| implied threat of firing if you become too _irritating_ ,
| erode safe practices, even if they nominally have policies
| to the contrary.
| hnthrow90348765 wrote:
| >But is it malicious? Almost certainly not.
|
| I realize I made a throw away account just to post this, but
| try reflecting shop talk back to white men with white
| stereotypes
|
| They often can't take the shit they give out. You won't know
| who's-who until you get undermined behind your back and they
| start fucking with your work
|
| The insecure ones blend in with the ones who can actually take
| the shit they give and it's the collective support of giving
| shit to non-white men in the trades that's the problem
|
| It's high school bullies trying to present as it being all in
| good fun when it rarely is
| rascul wrote:
| Certainly not limited to white men
| millzlane wrote:
| It's never in fun. I don't mind a good razzing. But when it's
| constant or every day or you're the only one razzed because
| people like laughing at your no nonsense attitude when you
| get riled up at their stupidity it's like living in a
| courtroom of idiocracy.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfifauG93ZU
| mmooss wrote:
| Almost every time someone brings it up, people dismiss sexism,
| racism, etc. and their impacts. If I want to know the impact
| of, e.g., weather on farming, or the hurricane, I ask someone
| who has experienced it. This person had these experiences; you
| didn't but that's irrelevant.
|
| > posh ... highbrow
|
| It's using a stereotype as argument - perhaps not
| coincidentally - rather than listening to what people actually
| say.
| renewiltord wrote:
| This is common in software too. Like, you make fun of a guy for
| being from Kansas or generally non smart states as banter, and
| they'll get all riled up about it. Dude, we're just playing
| around about the L3 cache latency on a 9684X. It's okay if you
| don't know it. It's not malicious or anything. Just the amount
| of elitism this and elitism that. It's folks unfamiliar with an
| environment and the fact that some of the rough and tumble of
| life is helped by not being so sensitive.
|
| There was a truth to the business about scolds and snowflakes.
| It's all right to have a bit of fun. No need to lose one's mind
| over it.
| camgunz wrote:
| > But is it malicious? Almost certainly not.
|
| IDK, I think it's to enforce pecking orders based on stuff you
| can't at all help. I grew up working class and hated it--it's
| essentially bullying, no matter how you look at it.
|
| It's one thing to make lighthearted jokes about some stuff you
| did, like "remember the time you forgot to base64 decode the
| images and stored garbage in the DB". It's entirely another to
| bully people for who and what they are. You're basically daring
| people to get somehow violent with you to get you to stop, and
| besides that being dangerous, a lot of people would rather not.
| It also creates this dynamic where people willing to be violent
| avoid bullying and rise ok the pecking order, and those who
| aren't don't.
| edwbuck wrote:
| On my way to a "white collar" job, I worked construction. It
| was stage building, which is the kind of construction that
| "blue collar" workers routinely laughed at, but it was still
| hard, physical work.
|
| How did I get my promotion that made the job worthwhile? A
| person fell 30 feet onto concrete. The next week, I was
| replacing him, with all of the risks he had, and the
| potential outcome.
|
| That said, all of the chiding and sideways comments I
| received in the construction field didn't amount to half of
| the comments I received as a developer. There is something
| toxic about our field that we don't want to focus on (and I
| can't blame those that look away).
|
| People claim "simple" when they mean "my way". People claim
| lack of "knowing how to use the language" when the wrong
| ideas get injected into a language (I'm personally looking at
| you Perl, but now that I'm working Golang, it's starting to
| feel too familiar).
|
| The truth is, there is often more than one way to solve a
| problem, but an strong willed person won't see it that way.
| I've walked away from plenty of marginally (and I mean
| marginally) better solutions just to compromise to some form
| of a solution than I care to enumerate. One can't win such
| arguments.
|
| I agree, it's not malicious, but is is egotistical. I've even
| won solutions where I said "Let's all agree that you're
| right, and then let's accept the code as-is." This industry
| is improved compared to decades before, but it's not yet
| fully rational, or even fair.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _That said, all of the chiding and sideways comments I
| received in the construction field didn 't amount to half
| of the comments I received as a developer. There is
| something toxic about our field that we don't want to focus
| on (and I can't blame those that look away)._
|
| As a programmer, I've worked in places and with people who
| were straight-up sociopathically abusive and I've worked
| with people who were absolutely respectful and reasonable
| and groups that were in-between. The co-workers, the boss,
| the company and location's culture all went into this.
|
| Thing about this is - since it is variable, since it is not
| necessary, there's no excuse for it as a natural thing, in
| any industry. Also, while sometimes it's the result just
| dysfunction (the "tolerant" boss who tolerates psycho team
| lead) but often it's a strategy for extracting more work
| for people (at Intel, for example).
| awkward wrote:
| Never welded professionally, but I learned to weld from a few
| friends, one was a woman who let me into the art school's
| jewelry shop. She considered welding as a trade, but as someone
| coming out of college, part of her hesitation was that she'd be
| starting fresh in the workforce and, as a welder, she'd be on a
| more senior payscale than many of the people she'd rely on on
| the job site. It wasn't a dynamic she wanted to be in.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| _What comes across from the article to me is the class barrier
| more than the gender one..._
|
| I read the article. There is zero indications anywhere in the
| article that this is the case, none.
|
| Notably, the authors describes both her experience and the
| experience of other women. And they don't like but they expect
| and let it roll off their backs.
|
| Sure, some work places have culture of "good-natured razzing"
| but others have a culture of straight-bullying. Sometimes the
| bullying comes from people who are damaged themselves and other
| times it comes from a company or a manager who believes this
| lets them control their workers (not always incorrectly).
| Either the bullying doesn't serve the workers.
|
| _But is it malicious? Almost certainly not._
|
| A second of thought should show this kind of generalization is
| impossible. You're engaged in the classic "I know the working
| class and they are exactly this way" sophistry.
| adamtaylor_13 wrote:
| Yeah, folks who don't grow up in rural towns or grow up lower-
| class REALLY don't get this.
|
| They get the exact same treatment that you'd get if you were
| the 14-year-old kid working in the shop with his uncle. You get
| called names, teased, and tested--it's part of the culture.
|
| But instead of recognizing it for what it is, they try to apply
| labels like "sexism" to it. Or they're "resentful for being
| tested" as if any shop jockey feels _confident_ the first time
| they fix an item for a customer.
|
| If you don't like the culture, leave it. Stop applying your
| labels when you don't even understand the world you stepped
| into. It's like labeling the Native Americans as "savages" just
| because they don't fit your sensibilities of how the world
| "ought" to work.
| aaron695 wrote:
| If you want to look at hidden GDP women and access to power tools
| is probably a big one.
|
| Lighter batteries and brushless and mass production allowing for
| a quick jump in and companies like Ryobi's making tools look good
| (but not cliched pink) and how-to's on TikTok have changed the
| landscape.
|
| We have gone from upkeep at home to asset building.
|
| Some of this will go to careers, but it's not that simple.
|
| HN isn't mature enough to discuss this but men die in dirty jobs,
| no one really cares. For every one who dies many are hurt and for
| the many injuries there are many many near misses.
|
| A near miss is often about reaction times and strength. These 1%
| issues are the problem. You are 3 hours from anywhere and stuck
| in mud by yourself and the tool kit is missing. So you can get
| the 5.3% up, but it can't be 50%
| tstrimple wrote:
| > A near miss is often about reaction times and strength.
|
| Funny, I thought it was about safety procedures and culture.
| Leaving accident avoidance up to reflexes is an incredibly poor
| way to build anything safely right?
| christophilus wrote:
| I once met a welder who was told upon entering the field, "You're
| going to meet a lot of serial killers in this line of work." He
| thought his boss was just messing with him, but it turned out to
| be prophetic. He met something like 5 convicted serial killers in
| 20 years as a welder. Welding is solitary work that is itinerant.
| Some of the stories that guy told me would turn your stomach.
| Anyway-- totally off topic, but I thought it was interesting.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I don't know about serial killers, normally they are in prison
| if known. But felons, yes definitely. A criminal record is not
| disqualifying in most trades and unions.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| My experience w/ metal workers of all types holds true to this.
| I think it's the fumes.
| eYrKEC2 wrote:
| That theory does make sense. Half of serial killers have had
| traumatic brain injuries -- this would just be more of the
| same.
| MisterTea wrote:
| Seconded. Hiring Machinists at work we went through a few ex
| cons and wound up hiring one for a few years which turned out
| to be a nightmare. Now we have a hippy in a band who makes
| inappropriate comments. You cant win.
| Dazzler5648 wrote:
| Are there actually any women in this conversation? I find many of
| the comments at YC to be obnoxiously male dominant and
| condescending, this comment section included. It's been
| frustrating me for quite a while now.
|
| Would guess only 5.3% of YC readers are female. And would say,
| it's posh, not "real world," and it's not comfortable even though
| I'm a very strong woman - and a welder.
| righthand wrote:
| Lol no there aren't.
| rickmortythrow wrote:
| > Are there actually any women in this conversation?
|
| I think the average demographic here is the standard software
| engineering team in the US, unfortunately. I hope I'm wrong.
| There are some high profile HN'ers that are women (e.g.
| DoreenMichele comes to mind).
|
| Fun fact: in eastern Europe (and Russia too?) the gender
| dynamics of software engineering are much more gender equal
| compared to the US/EU. Probably other STEM disciplines as well.
| I'm not sure about welding though.
|
| I'm getting a bit side tracked with my thoughts, it's just that
| I think it ties into bigger issues.
|
| I remember once being in a feminism class, as the only male,
| making a case for getting women into stem and it fell on deaf
| ears. I think that's also in part because women (and men for
| that matter) that take feminism classes tend to skew liberal
| artsy. I just happen to have a liberal artsy side and a STEM
| side (and a cool feminism teacher that was patient enough for
| all my naive questions so I felt emotionally safe to take her
| class).
|
| I wish there were more women in the conversation but
| unfortunately there aren't. The last company I worked for
| happened to have an equal 50/50 gender split. That was cool. It
| confirmed what I thought about men and women: ignore gender and
| focus on personality and their thoughts. I've often been in
| situations where any form of stereotypes have been thrown out
| of the window and my last employer was one of them. It's
| beautiful.
|
| Unfortunately, HN seems to be too big for that. The culture
| needs to shift and I don't have much of a clue how. I think in
| part it's with how women versus men are socialized here. Boys
| that are socially excluded tend to go towards computers. Girls
| don't really seem to be socially excluded that often compared
| to boys? Just brainstorming, I might be totally off.
|
| > Are there actually any women in this conversation? I find
| many of the comments at YC to be obnoxiously male dominant and
| condescending, this comment section included. It's been
| frustrating me for quite a while now.
|
| I'm curious how you find them frustrating. When I was reading
| them, I wasn't quite sure what to think about it.
|
| By the way, I've used a throwaway because of my submission to
| HN, not because of this comment. I thought I was on my
| pseudonym account. I have autism (diagnosed in my mid thirties)
| and I think many people here are on the spectrum, which is what
| my submission is about.
| bradjohnson wrote:
| >I think the average demographic here is the standard
| software engineering team in the US, unfortunately
|
| I think this would be extremely generous to the demographic
| here. Women get paid for their time and get to solve problems
| they might be interested in at work, so it makes sense for
| them to want to be there. Women do not get paid to be
| condescended towards on a tech bro website like hacker news.
|
| Even if women might read the front page, I do not know why
| they would want to participate in the conversation on this
| site, honestly. It is hard to articulate the totality of the
| issue to someone who participates and does not see it. This
| community *is* obnoxiously male and condescending, to put it
| mildly.
| rickmortythrow wrote:
| It's totally okay if you don't want to go into a nuanced
| discussion. I guess I'm just bored and curious. Overall, I
| find your comment interesting.
|
| > a tech bro website like hacker news
|
| HN doesn't feel like that to me. Whenever I'm here, I have
| my brainstorm and science hat on. Nothing more, nothing
| less. To call HN a tech bro site, it seems to be a bit of
| an attack and not conductive towards the discussion. I
| guess the definition of tech bro differs. Also, being a
| male that doesn't care too much about its own gender, I am
| probably "well-suited" to not care.
|
| In my case, I draw the line if they're also into sports
| (like going to a soccer match or something). Probably
| others don't. But that's why I have a bit of an issue with
| words like "tech bros". Like, do tech bros even lift? Most
| don't seem to. The characterization is too vague.
|
| > Women do not get paid to be condescended towards
|
| That makes sense, and I can imagine how it is experienced
| as such. It's sad to see.
|
| I remember being on a subreddit once and experiencing it
| the other way (r/womenover30 or something). When I said
| something I was downvoted. If a woman said the same thing,
| she wasn't. I can imagine some women feel that a bit here.
| Perhaps a lot, but my imagination fails there. I get that
| it sucks.
|
| > This community _is_ obnoxiously male and condescending,
| to put it mildly.
|
| What does it mean to be obnoxiously male? I've seen so many
| different ideas on what it means to be male that I honestly
| stopped giving a shit about what people mean. It's too
| confusing, despite me being a hetero cis white male.
|
| I guess it's the autism. Whenever it comes to gender
| (masculinity and femininity) I mostly see rhetorical
| nonsense (e.g. some people saying that being emotional
| sensitive is a feminine quality. It is most likely true
| that more women are like that, but I just find that whole
| frame of thinking toxic as the word "femininity" almost
| implies it's inherent, which I think is highly debatable -
| I can go on like that for a while, also about masculinity).
| Could you be a bit more factual so I can make my own
| conclusions?
|
| I mean, I've been to a feminism class and while that was
| really useful, I still think the typology is silly.
|
| ---
|
| That it is seen as condenscending, that depends. With
| regards to condescending on women in this thread, I see
| that. I've also seen it to some extent in other threads.
| But condescending in general? No. I'm not sure if that's
| what you mean, but you write a little hand wavy at times. I
| mean, the points you make still stand, but I think they'd
| stand better without the labeling things so strongly that
| are clearly a strong interpretation that I don't understand
| how you get to it.
|
| I do get the general vibe of the average Hacker News person
| when the subject is about dating. Comments tend to steer
| towards hopelessness, and that particular way of being I
| found is strongly correlated with being out of touch with
| how women look at certain things. I get the sense when
| women write something the average HN commenter has an issue
| to not look past their own trauma in order to listen to
| what women are saying. In that sense, I can see it's off
| putting.
| bradjohnson wrote:
| I really believe that you are approaching this in good
| faith, so I will do the same. I don't have time to really
| dig into this deeply with you so these brief
| justifications of my stance will have to suffice. I don't
| understand some of your tangents, and you will have to
| forgive me for not addressing the reddit or sports stuff.
|
| > Re: tech bro
|
| The tech bro thing comes across most apparently in the
| pro-VC slant of this site (inextricable, I know). There
| is a high proportion of believers in a fantasy
| meritocracy where current wealth concentration is
| justifiable due to the sheer genius of "founders". This
| is very much a tech-bro way of thinking.
|
| The way HN regularly reduces socio-political problems
| into a technological gap is another tech-bro "thing".
| When someone suggests that a country switch its currency
| to crypto to eliminate state corruption, or suggests that
| biometrics scanners be installed at ports of entry to
| eliminate slavery and humans rights abuses, that is a
| tech-bro opinion. It is different from a blue collar
| environment because the people on this website are
| extremely insulated from the social issues that come up
| on here. Nonetheless, they feel like they have an obvious
| solution to a version of the problem that they've
| concocted in their head based on a 2 second glance at a
| headline. It reminds me of this Adam Savage video that I
| think is great:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OP4CKn86qGY
|
| > Re: obnoxiously male
|
| This is exemplified by the high confidence and
| combativeness in this and other similar comment sections
| on HN, but let's just talk about this comment section.
|
| Commenters here are confidently asserting that the
| author's lived experience is wrong because of a certain
| interpretation of the words that they typed in the
| article. When she says that someone made comments that
| made her feel othered, the reaction here is to disbelieve
| and downplay. That is very much a "obnoxiously male" way
| of approaching things. In more balanced spaces, the
| presumption would be that this blog post was made for a
| reason and that the person who made it is valid and
| rational by default. Nobody here has any additional
| information, and they are asserting that their
| interpretation of her words is correct even though they
| are heavily influenced by their own biases of gender,
| class, and otherwise.
| mezzie2 wrote:
| I'm female and I've been here, on and off, since Hacker
| News was founded. (I burn accounts every so often so I
| don't get attached to them.)
|
| I participate for a few reasons:
|
| 1.) I'm a 3rd generation techie and that's a fairly rare
| perspective, particularly for people of my age group (I'm
| 36). HN is one of the few places online that can appreciate
| that nuance and why it might matter. Related to this, I'm a
| woman who can in no way be considered an interloper or
| someone who doesn't understand the culture or the
| professions. I'm basically here to offer the perspective
| that the average HN user might hear from his daughter in
| 10-30 years when I opine on gender stuff.
|
| 2.) It's one of the few places with a decent age spread
| amongst users. Too many other sites are dominated by people
| under the age of 30 (to be generous).
|
| 3.) It's text based and amenable to long format textual
| discussions, which are how I prefer to interact online
| since I joined the WWW in 1993 and grew up with the text
| based Web.
|
| 4.) It's somewhere online where a good chunk of the
| userbase is more technologically proficient than I am and I
| like talking to people who know more than me about esoteric
| subjects.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> I think in part it 's with how women versus men are
| socialized here._
|
| Indeed. Women are socialized to seek men of higher status as
| a partner. Thus men feel the need to seek higher status to
| become an attractive mate. And so men "infiltrate" any
| position that offers a chance at higher status (at least
| where high pay stands in as a proxy). Likewise, men are
| socialized to seek women with beauty rather than status, so
| there is little imperative for women to seek professions of
| status, but do benefit from careers that will preserve their
| beauty - so something like welding in a harsh environment
| that is hard on one's health is not a top choice.
|
| That said, the social norms do seem to be changing. It
| appears the younger generations aren't coupling up so much
| anymore, and if that trend continues attracting a mate may no
| longer be a consideration.
| bradjohnson wrote:
| You can't just say random garbage and use it to justify a
| wack conclusion, dude.
| randomdata wrote:
| I provably can. I just did it. You didn't think this
| through, did you?
| nindalf wrote:
| That last line truly took the cake. I've heard "romance
| is dead" before, but this person is suggesting that all
| relationships are gone haha.
| bradjohnson wrote:
| I suspect you might even be overestimating.
| yogurtboy wrote:
| 100% agree, every comment seems to be men explaining why the
| author's problems are actually not that bad.
| teunispeters wrote:
| My partner's a welder. None of the comments here surprise me,
| sadly... you're right.
| zahlman wrote:
| The comments you're complaining about appear to be men
| describing, from their own experiences as men, what it's like
| to be a man.
|
| If you're going to imply that one needs to be a woman to
| understand the female perspective on these social encounters,
| you could at least be consistent and fair about it. As much as
| you might tire of seeing discussions like the current one, I
| tire of the insinuation - across so many discussions I've found
| myself stuck in across the Internet - that women have some
| special insight into womanhood, and also some special insight
| into manhood.
|
| Just as I tire of being urged to have empathy for people unlike
| myself, then shouted at when my empathy leads me to the "wrong"
| conclusions, or told that actually having such empathy is
| impossible on account of my whatever immutable characteristics.
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > Like other tradeswomen, I've learned to work around unwanted
| comments, including uninvited conversations with men bent on
| signaling their expertise.
|
| It's obvious why an uninvited conversations are perceived as a
| sexism.
|
| But anyone with the experience in almost anything but
| particularly in any trade would tell you what men do receive
| uninvited conversations with men bent on signaling their
| expertise all the goddamn time.
|
| Sure, seeing 'a woman out of place' triggers some of them to do
| it when they wouldn't do it with a man in the same place, because
| they _could_ get told to shove their oh-so-important opinion to
| the place where sun is not shining, but the source of this
| behaviour is not to be a _sexist_ asshole but just being an
| asshole.
|
| As the other comment rightfully notes, any difference is going to
| be a target.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I've had men try to teach me stuff a bunch of times. I listen,
| learn, and thank them.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Yeah, same here. Even if I know what I am doing, sometime I
| learn something new or a new way to approach something.
| Sometimes not. But then hey, free advice is worth what you
| paid for it.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > free advice is worth what you paid for it.
|
| Occasionally. Many times it is worth considerably less.
| Time is valuable.
| arkh wrote:
| > receive uninvited conversations with men bent on signaling
| their expertise all the goddamn time
|
| My father was a mechanic. He learnt fast to stop trying to
| correct know-it-alls about cars. "Let 'em do stupid shit, it
| gives us work to bill".
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Cool.
|
| I keep wondering if Kurtis from Cutting Edge Engineering will
| eventually borrow the camera and have Karen do some gouging,
| metal deposition, and/or MIG welding on stuff to show how fun it
| is. Also, the combination of liquid nitrogen and flame for
| interference fit parts is pretty cool too.
| rurban wrote:
| Women would be much better welders than men, because they don't
| wear their testicle outside close to the welding area, avoiding
| the most common welders desease, testicular cancer. In the
| European eastern block countries there are much more female
| welders.
|
| Welders don't really like their plastic testicles.
| mgarfias wrote:
| The photos of the welds made me think she needs to goto welding
| school.
|
| Ugh. I'm a total hack and can do better.
| sambapa wrote:
| Yeah, those TIG welds are something else, verging on trolling
| blitzar wrote:
| I went looking for it and got distracted by the faux wood
| grain paint on the aluminium frame.
| jandrese wrote:
| It is annoying to be generally in support of diversity but then
| you get a case comes where someone is claiming discrimination
| and it turns out they just suck at their job. This sort of
| thing is just ammunition for the "dumb, barefoot, pregnant, and
| in the kitchen" crowd.
| martin293 wrote:
| I know barely anything about welding, could you explain what a
| good weld would look like?
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Some examples of a good weld:
|
| https://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.bmxmuseum.com/user-
| images/2...
|
| https://s3.amazonaws.com/uploads.bmxmuseum.com/user-
| images/2...
|
| Steady hands and a good rhythm are helpful.
|
| I won the top welding student award at my high school. The
| competition wasn't great. Mostly, I just didn't smoke a ton
| of pot right before class.
| Hasz wrote:
| weld prettiness != weld goodness. I am not saying she is god's
| gift to welding, but without actual testing, a cross section,
| and xray, you cannot judge accurately.
|
| This is why safety critical welds are xray inspected, checked
| for cracks, etc. Not clear if her diploma included some certs,
| but those typically will include a bend test and/or xray.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Not every weld has to be pretty. The ugly aluminum welds look
| plenty strong and are not normally visible. Welds like that can
| take 1/10th the time of pretty welds.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| I admit it, I enjoy the FB videos for comments like this. It is
| hilarious. It never matters a bit whether the target is a good
| welder or not, guarantee a raft of people will swing by and
| tell them they suck.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| They're not the worst welds I've ever seen but they're very
| good either. I would be embarrassed if those were my welds and
| I wouldn't take a welder with such welds seriously regardless
| of their gender. The quality is on the level of pretty low end
| job-shop. I wouldn't care about the bed slats but it would be
| hard for me to ignore the bad welds on anything regularly
| visible.
|
| Making welds look good is more than just appearance, the
| appearance tells a story about how the weld was developed, how
| the temperature was controlled, how deep the penetration,
| porosity etc. It's easier to do this than do a post weld
| validation of weld integrity. TIG welding requires a lot of
| skill and is not like using a glue gun.
|
| Laser welding on the other hand is much easier. Instead of
| making the large investment in time to learn how to TIG weld
| property she could just skip it and go direct to laser.
| skinkestek wrote:
| > "You're better looking than the guy I talked to before." Such
| harassment remains common for tradeswomen
|
| If people think this is harassment, no wonder people experience a
| lot of harassment.
|
| Unless there was more to it the correct answer is along the lines
| of "yes thankfully" and then a laugh.
|
| I'd recommend a good look in the mirror when looking for the
| problem in such situations.
|
| Same goes for the thing about trying to discreetly notifying that
| someone has dirty hands:
|
| Yes, I don't know what is up with Americans and demanding
| everyone has clean hands at all times, but as long as that is a
| thing this probably is meant as a favor. Maybe clumsily, but
| still.
|
| More generally the saying: "when you hear hooves, think horses,
| not zebras" comes to mind:
|
| If you expect things to be meant funny or helpful (and give
| people some slack) maybe life becomes a lot less stressful than
| if everything has to be seen through a lens of gender dynamics.
|
| And if one is known as a reasonable person, I guess people will
| also take your side if you have to be loud and clear about
| something, e.g. if it turns out someone wasn't just clumsily
| trying to be nice or funny.
| blitzar wrote:
| I still get flashes of the traumatic day when I was in the
| kitchen area at work making myself a cup of tea and one of the
| female employees came in and said "You are a strong and tall
| man, can you get that heavy box from the top shelf for me".
| kazinator wrote:
| I had that happen numerous times in supermarkets.
| blitzar wrote:
| The supermarket encounters are most often dirty old women
| who are still stuck in the past, or have gotten away with
| it for so long they just don't know any better.
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's not sexual harassment, it's flattery to get you to
| do a favor for them. They would never sleep with you.
| It's also extremely normal and anodyne.
|
| Why do men think sexism is symmetrical? The reason sexual
| overtures from men are a problem is because they are
| usually serious and they are statistically threatening,
| because men often hurt women who don't respond to them in
| a way they deem appropriate. You would never fear this
| woman.
| fhfjfk wrote:
| As a fearful anxious man - Don't presume to know what I
| fear.
|
| I expect variation in the women I meet, some will be
| scared of me and some have much bigger balls than I do.
| If I calibrate my banter such that 1% of women are
| scared, am I in the wrong?
| nashashmi wrote:
| > dirty old women who are still stuck in the past
|
| This counts as an inflammatory statement. Even thinking
| this is beneath a person of fairness. Those are people
| too. And you may not like the era they were in and you
| may want to redefine the era of today to some lala make-
| believe, but at no point should you disrespect and
| denigrate the people who don't buy in to your
| redefinition.
|
| It is like saying: Windows developers are stupid and
| stuck in the past because they cannot get in line with
| programming on a mac. come on! they don't have to. And
| they don't want to.
| blitzar wrote:
| It is like saying: dirty old man or even perverted old
| man. Which has probably been uttered 100s of thousands,
| maybe millions of times on this planet today in reference
| to men (those filthy perverts) interacting with others.
| jandrese wrote:
| I think this is one of those cases where a strong majority of
| the population in question can handle the interactions just
| fine, but the ones who can not are extremely vocal about it.
| The complainers get their way and company policy is changed for
| everybody. Many people go "well, it was for the best I guess",
| but for others it is some whiner ruining the fun for everybody.
| In extreme cases we have national examples where people's
| entire careers have ended over a tasteless but largely harmless
| joke told decades earlier (See: Al Franken) and that kind of
| threat feels scary.
| fhfjfk wrote:
| This has more nuance than just whiners vs normal people.
|
| Using verboten words as an example, I'm often willing to stop
| using words that others don't like. The harm to me is low
| (english is a big language, there's plenty of other words
| left), so if there's any harm at all to another it's
| reasonable for me to stop using the word. Assessment of harm
| will vary, as will harm to me from loss of words - which is
| why I stand my ground on some technical words.
|
| My line is, n* - Not even going to type it pronouns -
| Whatever floats your boat master->main - Sure. Fine. I guess.
| Stop coming in my room and messing with my stuff.
| master/slave->controller/peripheral - Really? I'm going to
| say no for now, but work on brevity and check back later.
| MOSI/MISO->??? - NO.
|
| Does drawing the line there make me a bigot? Where's the
| cutoff?
| jfengel wrote:
| As an isolated incident, it's charming. When it's every day of
| your life, it gets to be upsetting. Especially when past
| experiences have included more than on incident where the
| charming line was followed by anger and insults when it wasn't
| properly appreciated.
|
| Ask your female friends if it's ever happened to them. I expect
| a large majority of them will be able to tell you a story.
|
| Here's the best way I've been able to come up with, to get a
| feel for it. Suppose you have a nice watch. When somebody says,
| "Nice watch!", you say, "Thanks". But when you start meeting
| more than one person who won't stop talking about your watch,
| you get a little antsy. When somebody follows up with "Give me
| your fucking watch!" you start to think about leaving it at
| home some times.
|
| Except that when you're a woman, you can never leave that at
| home.
|
| This experience really isn't just about her. It's something
| practically all women experience. She seems to have just
| assumed her audience would share that context -- perhaps a side
| effect of being in academia.
| conradfr wrote:
| Workers in contact with the general population ear the same
| jokes everyday. Ask a cashier.
|
| Actors get their famous catchphrases thrown at them
| consistently as well.
|
| That's just the way it goes.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| You can choose your response to such things. Annoying, sure.
| Uncomfortable, sure. But that's life. At a certain point you
| have to just accept that things like the comment in the GP
| (which, to be clear, is the behavior I'm talking about here,
| not actual sexual harassment) will happen to you as a woman,
| and you can either get upset about it constantly and view
| yourself as a victim, or learn to accept that that's life.
|
| People who are not women have to deal with such things as
| well, as a sibling commenter pointed out. Short guys, fat
| guys, skinny guys, they would all get picked on (in a
| friendly way or otherwise). The difference is that society
| will not tolerate them whining about it. Women won't care and
| men will laugh at them. So they suck it up.
|
| It's frustrating when people say "just talk to a woman", as
| if all women have the same perspective on this, or women are
| the only ones who experience it. It's itself a sexist thing
| to say. I know women who don't have this kind of victim
| mentality and they're happier for it.
| boplicity wrote:
| >learn to accept that that's life.
|
| Yeah, harassment is is part of life. Just accept it,
| right!?
|
| WTF? How low should our standards as a society be!?
| kupopuffs wrote:
| I'm sure there's a line somewhere where "nice watch" or
| "you're better looking than the guy before" are
| acceptable
| andyp-kw wrote:
| As a man who lived outside western society for many
| years, I often received comments about my looks and
| mannerisms.
|
| Did I cry like a baby, no. I made jokes about their looks
| and mannerisms. It's called banter.
|
| There is a line that should not be crossed, but someone
| making one off comments on the out of the ordinary
| shouldn't be classed as harassment.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| No, receiving comments like "you're better looking than
| the guy before" is a part of life. Using the term
| "harassment", which is vague enough to cover both
| innocuous comments like that, and actually creepy
| disgusting stuff, is an easy way to create a strawman.
| thrance wrote:
| Or you know, we can collectively work on not making people
| uncomfortable because of who they are. Just because a
| behavior is very common today doesn't mean it is universal
| and written in our DNA. Society has become more tolerant
| over time, and that is a good thing. You wouldn't tell your
| female assistant to wear shorter dresses like in Mad Men,
| even if that wasn't considered unusual in the 60s.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| I never claimed we should not strive for that kind of
| society. My points were that: 1) this is not a problem
| unique to women, 2) that comment specifically should only
| upset you if you have a very thin skin, and 3) having a
| very thin skin is not a good trait to have and everyone
| should strive to be able to handle comments like that
| without getting upset.
|
| I actually think humans will never be able to achieve a
| utopia where no one will ever be made uncomfortable for
| who they are. One problem is that some people are more
| sensitive than others. Put another way, someone will
| always get offended at something. At some point you have
| to draw a line and say everything on this side of the
| line is fine, and if you get upset, it's _your_ problem.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> having a very thin skin is not a good trait to have_
|
| It is if you get leverage from it. There is a perverse
| incentive to have thin skin - in fact, you can get flak
| for not having thin enough skin, these days. I once heard
| someone call it "reverse CBT". I invented a game called
| "Take it Personal" to demonstrate how easy this is, where
| the participants say anodyne things to each other and are
| tasked with taking offense. It is an easy game, if an
| unhappy one.
| zahlman wrote:
| >Ask your female friends if it's ever happened to them.
|
| Many years ago, I used to take this advice seriously.
|
| The feedback I got was generally along the lines of "what are
| you talking about?" and implications that it's weird to ask,
| so I stopped.
|
| >It's something practically all women experience.
|
| It's strange to me how so many people believe themselves to
| have this insight.
| LitFan wrote:
| It sounds like from your perspective, being better looking than
| their co-workers is a good thing. By and large, men are going
| to find women better looking than other men. That means the
| "better looking" comment is directly pointing out that the
| recipient of the comment is a woman.
|
| This article is talking specifically about the ways in which it
| is detrimental to be a tradeswoman. So in this context, being a
| woman makes it more difficult for this person to their job.
|
| Looking at another example of something that would make being a
| tradesperson difficult: Would you call it harassment if
| customers were consistently making flippant remarks about a co-
| worker that was missing a hand?
| skinkestek wrote:
| > It sounds like from your perspective, being better looking
| than their co-workers is a good thing. By and large, men are
| going to find women better looking than other men. That means
| the "better looking" comment is directly pointing out that
| the recipient of the comment is a woman.
|
| It is hard to be funny without referring to anything about
| the current situation.
| nashashmi wrote:
| The other perspective on this is Women put a lot of care into
| how they look. Men don't. Admiration for your best qualities
| is a gesture of friendship. Same goes with those who are
| young and energetic. Statements like "pretty boy" is a
| compliment and adoration. Or statements like "big guy" or
| "general" for old and experienced.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > If people think this is harassment, no wonder people
| experience a lot of harassment.
|
| Especially seen that people pushing for this to be considered
| harassment are the _exact same demographic_ closing their eyes
| when it 's pointed to them that number of actual rapes are
| going through the roof in Europe.
|
| White men joking about a woman looking good: harassment. White
| women getting raped: eyes closed, don't want to hear about it.
|
| And of course the overlap between polite people complimenting
| women that they're good looking and actual rapists is
| approximately zero.
|
| Priorities, priorities.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I often wonder what my life would be like if I'd been told as a
| child that I would face discrimination. Would I attribute every
| failure, rejection, misfortune, and unfair treatment to
| systematic discrimination? I think I probably would.
| graycat wrote:
| Welding Example:
|
| Brother and I bought and old Chevy. Front end parts so badly worn
| that could turn steering wheel about 20 degrees before the wheels
| moved!
|
| Used bumper jacks to raise the front end and rest it on concrete
| blocks. Took out everything from the steering wheel to the front
| wheel. The springs were dangerous -- kaBOOM!
|
| Took the worn parts to a Chevy parts department -- they enjoyed
| helping a teenager do it yourself, first time.
|
| Installed the new parts: Had no spring compressor so used two
| bumper jacks; had them supporting the car while also using the
| jacks on the lower A-frames to compress the springs. kaBOOM! as
| one of the jacks slipped, the spring expanded, the lower A-frame
| rotated ~180 degrees and hit near the center of the frame (but
| not me!).
|
| Drove the car to our Buick dealer (family car was a Buick) to
| have the front end aligned. Mechanic was surprised and pleased to
| see the work done -- all nice clean parts correctly installed!
| But he said he couldn't do the alignment because he needed a
| _bending bar_ for the king pin (vertical heavy iron bar
| connecting the outer ends of the lower and upper A-frames) so
| sent me to the shop of a friend. The friend said "Bet you got
| these nuts too tight ... no you didn't. How'd you know to do
| that?" Had read a maintenance manual at the city library. He said
| "We get those manuals ..."!
|
| Shocks were part of the upper A-frame pivots and poor. At a parts
| shop, got two _piston_ shocks that looked about right, were
| officially for some Mercury car, and drove to a muffler shop for
| the needed welding. The shop was pleased to help a do it yourself
| teenager and with a challenge well outside their usual welding.
| So, with some fabrication and welding, they got each shock
| attached to the frame and the front side of the lower A-frame.
| Worked great for years!
|
| Lesson connected with the OP: People can like helping a teenager
| do it yourself, alone, a first time, with too little or nothing
| in information and tools and facing some danger. The muffler shop
| liked the challenge of doing the one-off, first-time, innovative
| fabrication and welding! Such a teenager can get a good welcome
| and respect.
| mmooss wrote:
| The welcome they get may depend on their race and gender.
| cynicalsecurity wrote:
| Why would you want more women to become welders? What's your
| motivation?
| avhon1 wrote:
| So that there can be more welders?
| DFHippie wrote:
| I'm not the author, but there are a lot of motivations one
| could have. The less people are constrained by stereotypes and
| hostility, the more they can do what they want to do, the more
| likely they are to be able to make a living, the less they will
| be beset with self-doubt, the less they will be dominated and
| abused by others who have more opportunities. It's about
| freedom. Why shouldn't women be free to be welders if they want
| to be?
|
| The more women are welders, the weaker the social constraints
| become against women being welders; or things _like_ welders,
| because the stereotypes we 're talking about aren't generally
| so narrow.
|
| Women aren't a special case. Lots of people are hemmed in by
| stereotypes and biases. Why shouldn't they be free? Well,
| people who get the opportunities others are fenced out of do
| benefit from the biases, but that's not a noble motivation.
| cynicalsecurity wrote:
| > You're better looking than the guy I talked to before." Such
| harassment remains common for tradeswomen...
|
| This is not harassment.
| alwa wrote:
| Why should somebody's attractiveness or looks be part of a "I
| need stuff welded" conversation at all?
| mhb wrote:
| Because people interact? Offensiveness is not "harassment".
| Veen wrote:
| Because we are evolved, embodied beings interacting with
| other embodied beings. We are not disembodied atomistic work
| units compelled to follow social norms invented by
| maladjusted corporate "ethicists".
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| It's a joke. Jokes are a common feature of conversation.
| mhb wrote:
| OK, I'll ask. What's wrong with using a tape measure the way the
| guy suggested to measure a length of pipe?
| class3shock wrote:
| Best guess is the tolerance required for the pipe length was
| tighter than you can reliably get going off of a tape measure
| foot (which are often loose, worn, bent, etc. and not a
| reliable starting/zero point for precision measurement).
| martin293 wrote:
| > One man, watching me while I cut 8-foot lengths of tubing for
| him, told me that I could simply hook my tape measure over the
| saw blade and subtract 1/8 -inch to find the correct length.
| Piqued after I explained why his method wouldn't work for a
| precise measurement, he responded by quizzing me on something I
| wasn't likely to know: the purpose of the black diamonds on my
| tape measure.
|
| Perhaps I'm picturing the situation wrong, but why wouldn't it
| work on the precision levels of a tape measure?
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| I don't know specifically, but If your saw has a stop or
| something that's going to be better than repeated tape measure
| measurements. Also assumes that the saw blade is actually 1/8
| of an inch.
| zahlman wrote:
| Not the blade itself, but the total width of the material
| that will be removed as it cuts
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saw#Kerf).
| iamtheworstdev wrote:
| she may be implying a lack of precision from the floating tip
| on a well used/worn measuring tape. i wouldn't rely on that for
| anything i considered "precise". framing a house? sure.
| maples37 wrote:
| Fun fact: the floating tip on a measuring tape is loose by
| design. It's to account for the width of the tip itself when
| you're measuring by pushing the tip into a corner, versus
| measuring by hooking the tip around the edge of your
| material.
|
| So a "loose" tip on a measuring tape is actually more
| accurate than a fixed rigid tip that does not move. (though I
| don't think I've ever seen a tape measure that is lacking
| this feature)
|
| https://asktooltalk.com/questions/faq/tools/tape_measures/ta.
| ..
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Unless she's cutting tubing for a nuclear reactor a tape
| measure is perfectly accurate.
| Hasz wrote:
| Autofeed bandsaw should hold 1/16" no problem, probably closer
| to 1/32", especially for short stuff.
|
| On a full stick (20/24'), holding an 1/8, especially for hand
| layout and fabrication, is perfectly fine in most cases.
| aynyc wrote:
| If you accept the accuracy of the tape measure, then it would
| work. Tape measure hook is loose for a purpose.
| Cerium wrote:
| The request may have been to take a 24 foot segment and cut it
| into equal nearly 8 foot segments. Measuring all at once lets
| you avoid the last piece being notably shorter.
| michaelt wrote:
| The most obvious reason is if your blade isn't 1/8 inch
| (3.17mm) thick.
|
| If you're cutting with a bandsaw - the blade is a lot thinner
| than that.
|
| And if cutting with a circular saw, the cutting teeth are wider
| than the main disk of the saw, which complicates matters - and
| I can't imagine it'd be easy to keep the tape measure hooked on
| either.
|
| And of course - _subtract_ 1 /8 inch? Are you sure you don't
| mean _add_ 1 /8 inch? If you're learning a clever new
| technique, better to practice on some scrap, not do it on a
| customer's material while they're watching :)
|
| At the higher level, saws have no undo function. Cut an
| expensive bit of metal too short? Someone has to pay $$$ for
| new material. Buddy on another machine did a load of work on
| the part before you cut it too short? He's going to have to
| redo it all. Who'll pay for his time? The stock you cut too
| short was on a long lead-time or urgent project? You just
| fucked up the schedule.
|
| So if a machinist is doing some work for you and they want to
| measure twice and cut once - they're doing you a favour :)
| zahlman wrote:
| >And of course - _subtract_ 1 /8 inch? Are you sure you don't
| mean _add_ 1 /8 inch?
|
| Depends which side you measure, and/or how you position the
| saw relative to the mark, surely?
| deskr wrote:
| > The man in the audience at the academic conference who wants to
| lecture rather than ask a question...
|
| To be honest here, she started the lecture. He offered advice she
| lectured him and "explained why his method wouldn't work". There
| was no need for that lecture/explanation.
|
| Had she been a man she'd be challenged in the same way with that
| response. The right non-provocative response would have been "I
| can't use the measuring tape since that's only precise to X ...".
|
| He felt put down and he'd have done exactly same had she been a
| man.
| shrubble wrote:
| Her welds look a little sloppy, with too much material on them,
| to be honest.
| brodo wrote:
| Should this even be discussed here? It's not tech-related, and
| the "all professions need to be at least 50% female" argument
| always leads to the same, emotional discussions.
| LitFan wrote:
| Seeing a parallel to another field with more blatant examples
| of the types of discrimination keeping women out of tech-
| related jobs is helpful.
|
| And more discussion around these issues is more likely to lead
| to positive outcomes than ignoring them.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > And more discussion around these issues is more likely to
| lead to positive outcomes than ignoring them.
|
| Sometimes I wonder.
|
| The left spends a lot of time pointing out that the right is
| bigoted, and the right just shrugs, because so what? These
| two groups disagree on whether there is a problem.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| It's not computing related, but welding is (or can be) quite a
| technical field, requiring years of education and experience,
| particulary welding exotic materials or in critical
| applications such as nuclear reactors. It's not all muffler
| shop work.
| mmooss wrote:
| > "all professions need to be at least 50% female"
|
| I think you are the only one who said that?
| deskr wrote:
| The talk/banter between two men can be very harsh, without any
| malice intended.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| As with most things in life, as long as both are consenting
| adults, great.
| verisimi wrote:
| > Another man commented on my appearance, comparing me to my co-
| worker: "You're better looking than the guy I talked to before."
| Such harassment remains common for tradeswomen
|
| Is this really harassment? It sounds kinda humorous or
| complimentary. Author seems to have no sense of humour.
| LitFan wrote:
| Harass: to disturb or irritate by persistent acts
|
| While one person saying this once is not necessarily
| harassment, the frame of reference has to be from the context
| of the recipient. Consider how often the author has to hear
| this or similar comments from customers as a result of being a
| woman working in a trade.
| blobbers wrote:
| Is it just me or do others not care if the welder is a man or a
| woman. I just want my welds to hold.
|
| If she struggles when they ask her to do a 6mm and 8mm weld,
| guess what, then she shouldn't get the job. If she does it
| properly, maybe she should. Complaining about being tired and
| having to squat to lift things? It's the job. And having someone
| tell you your hands are dirty is now harassment? Maybe customer
| didn't want a super dirty invoice. Guess what librarians deal
| with homeless creepers all the time. Welders are not uniquely
| harassed.
|
| People really ought to have a poll on whether this whole woke
| equal nature of things matters. In WW2, we had plenty of Rosie
| the Riveter working. Now less so. Times change, jobs change.
|
| I just want my welds not to break.
| motohagiography wrote:
| it reads a bit like this prof learned welding to diminish the
| dignity of the men who do it for a living. It reminds me of that
| old Pulp lyric, "and when roaches climb the walls, you can call
| your dad and stop it all." where in this case it's academic
| credentials that will forever take her out of the working class.
|
| I can think of a few instances where I would have looked past
| women in trade shops and have made a concerted effort not to, but
| it was because the value in skilled trades work is more than the
| transaction. there's a significant and physical trust component
| involved and also an implied relationship with aspects of
| reciprocity that come with the work. part of that is assessing
| whether the person you are dealing with can signal the values to
| facilitate that trust. tropes about sexism don't capture that
| nuance.
|
| we can talk about sexism from men all day, but for men who are
| contenders for finding wives and having kids, when young working
| class women have "a man whose boss is another woman" in the top
| of their selection criteria, you will see guys lining up to
| welcome women into trades. until then, the stated reasons for why
| women don't feel welcome in them will seem inconsistent, evasive,
| and won't bear much scrutiny.
|
| what the criticisms and entire worldview of the prof seem to lack
| is an understanding of human desire. great that she learned a
| useful skill. not great that she's coopting it to drive a
| narrative from her institutional background at the expense of men
| for whom this is their actual livelihood.
| ggm wrote:
| Ex Mil will mansplain anything to anyone. It's coded in
| behaviour. Pretty sure she got some sexism but also, pretty sure
| some was receiver-sender impedence mismatch and also nongendered
| "I do this because it's my culture" behaviour.
|
| I agree some of this is class warfare not gender warfare.
|
| Liked the article. Odd to say that of a sad observation of life's
| iniquities, but it's a good article I think.
| anon291 wrote:
| A professor my wife had in her feminist studies class confided in
| my wife that she enjoyed having her in class (my wife leans
| conservative), because she (the professor) had gotten tired of
| the bubble. Her professor was raised lower-middle class and spent
| many years in trucking before entering academia, and was just
| tired of the constant echo chamber that academia has become. This
| woman seems to have done the opposite. Good for her.
|
| For me personally, despite being in tech in a well paying job, at
| my church and at various volunteer groups I'm part of, I am
| exposed to people of all backgrounds. And of course, growing up
| middle class and seeing how my friends and family behaved, I feel
| way more comfortable among what I consider 'normal' people. It's
| like two different worlds at work versus in person. Luckily, I'm
| now at a chipmaker where people seem more level-headed. Something
| about having to interact with physical constraints makes people
| more moderate I think. The SW startup world is so far off the
| rails, I found it difficult to relate.
| foxglacier wrote:
| What these stories always miss is a control. Yea, people are
| judging her as being incompetent but they'll do that to anyone
| who seems incompetent. Maybe being a woman was part of it, or
| maybe having the subtle mannerisms and body language of a writing
| professor was part of it. They can't verbalize the "looks out of
| place" bit so they'll just latch onto the "looks like a woman"
| instead. I've worked with tradesmen and despite being a man,
| received similar treatment. I just didn't look competent. For
| example, I was about to move a truck to somewhere else on site
| and somebody offered to do it for me because it was hard to
| drive. In another case, somebody was surprised that I could weld.
| Another guy who understood put it as "you aren't as green as you
| are cabbage-looking".
|
| That legs turn to jelly thing is internal. Some people are just
| less confident than others. Some can fake or really feel
| confidence even when they're inexperienced while some are the
| opposite. How can a professor not understand this when they
| surely all go through similar situations teaching a new class
| where the students are judging them on their competence?
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > people are judging her as being incompetent
|
| She is in good company. Everyone thinks most other people are
| incompetent. Find the best welder you can, film them doing
| their thing, post it on the Internet. Watch the comments flood
| in with scathing criticism for how they're doing it wrong.
|
| It's like a sport now.
| foxglacier wrote:
| Sure but it seems like they were particularly judgmental to
| her compared to her coworkers.
| class3shock wrote:
| Jives with all the trades in general. Sometimes you have people
| being insulting who are genuinely trying to have fun with you,
| other times it's just people using that as a cover to be
| assholes. Often you are expected to just take brutal conditions
| with a smile even though they aren't safe and even though
| everyone knows you should say no, but no one wants to be "that
| guy". Customers can be condescending and mean, often for no real
| reason other than that's who they are and the trades in general
| put up with that kind of person because they don't have the draw
| of higher end gigs.
| edwbuck wrote:
| All that I can add of value is summed up in the phrase "Sweet
| hood, you go girl!"
|
| Personally, there are many jobs that people just don't understand
| because they just don't interact with them. Welding is one
| example, but there are many.
|
| My Uncle died with a well deserved lifestyle after doing "large
| pipe" welding. The definition of large, in this case, was pipe
| you could theoretically drive a car through. Just to weld the
| pipe together from plate steel, one would have to weld together a
| rig to hold the plate, as well as a roller press to bend the
| plate correctly.
|
| People would be astounded that I, a software developer, would
| hold a welder in such high esteem, but while I might be (my own,
| probably faulty estimate) in the top 10,000 he was in the top 100
| (again my own, probably faulty estimate). I've seen him walk into
| a job that took three "lesser" welder (mind you, these are family
| members, so please don't call them out as such) six hours and
| complete it in 20 minutes.
|
| I'm what one might call a 10x programmer. That said, he was at
| least a 100x welder. Alas, he died due to a lung full of
| chromium, which is a real risk when welding the exotic metals
| that generally the top welders are asked to work.
|
| I miss him dearly, and Lon (Lonnie) if you can read this from
| heaven, you're still the best damned welder I've ever seen, and a
| true master of your craft. You inspire me to do better than I do.
| I only hope to become as good in my field as you are in yours.
| glitchc wrote:
| I am happy to see you proud of your uncle, and am very sorry
| for your loss. You aptly described why the trades are in
| decline across the country:
|
| > Alas, he died due to a lung full of chromium, which is a real
| risk when welding the exotic metals that generally the top
| welders are asked to work.
|
| This is why. There's no appetite to do this kind of work.
| People are too comfortable.
| whartung wrote:
| If anyone is looking to get in on the ground floor of a welding
| career, the Navy and their contractors have stood up
| buildsubmarines.com.
|
| Apparently it's a large effort to recruit 100,000(!!) trades
| people, of all sorts, for a very large effort to build a lot of
| submarines.
|
| And one thing they certainly need is welders. And they're
| training.
|
| The opening video even has a female welder in it.
|
| It's more of a grand assembly endeavor than a grand engineering
| endeavor (like the Apollo program was), but I know my time in the
| defense industry (supporting naval weapon systems: Standard
| Missile, Phalanx, RAM, etc.) was an interesting time. I've built
| enough software systems from seed that grew, flourished, and died
| with a simple `rm` command to know it can be interesting to point
| at a big metal hole in the water and say "I helped build that".
| bastloing wrote:
| Great! I feel good watching women and men doing all the jobs and
| sports they can do, regardless of gender.
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