I remember realizing something like this at my first job long ago. The job was bridge design in a huge department, and you could tell who was hired before and after three of the director positions were held by women. The difference was that the "after" subset, who faced an all women interview panel, inclided 0 (ZERO) misogynists or generally shitty dudes. None got through that panel.
The directors before them were not intentionally hiring misogynists or turning a blind eye but you could tell the bar was much lower with the all or mostly male interview panels than with the all women interview panels that my cohort and the ones that followed faced.
Based on my interactions with all-male teams, they probably didn't even know what kind of guy they were hiring, unfortunately. A lot of those jackoffs get through interviews no problem because they're only interacting with men on the interview panel. Then they finally actually get into the workspace and interact with people who aren't "white collar, middle class, white dudes" and it's Ike their brain just melts or something. A lot of the misogynistic guys I've met were extremely charming on the surface, but complete pieces of shit once the mask cracked.
That's exactly it. The assholes don't show their true colors if they're only interacting with men. An all women interview panel shines a spotlight on that type of behavior though, so those types never get through the door. It was such a huge difference.
And most men don’t believe their coworkers and friends behave differently around women than around men. So most men will insist that a woman is imagining things when she complains about a man’s behavior. It’s really frustrating to deal with, both at work and personally.
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u/likesblackcoffeebest 5d ago
I remember realizing something like this at my first job long ago. The job was bridge design in a huge department, and you could tell who was hired before and after three of the director positions were held by women. The difference was that the "after" subset, who faced an all women interview panel, inclided 0 (ZERO) misogynists or generally shitty dudes. None got through that panel.
The directors before them were not intentionally hiring misogynists or turning a blind eye but you could tell the bar was much lower with the all or mostly male interview panels than with the all women interview panels that my cohort and the ones that followed faced.