Part of me wanted to complete this title with “colon, a perspective” but it seemed redundant and incomplete from the get-go. Its a blog post, not a lit review or a scientific study. Also I definitely need to elaborate on my perspective: White-ish, American-ish male bootcamp trained dev. So far I’ve only worked on a professional basis with people that (I assume) identify within that gender binary so that’s the framework this post is using. I generally regard myself as someone who’d respect someone who is along a gender spectrum/axes/Venn diagram. There are some of my formative social biases to tell you dear reader: the “ish” in my nationality is informed by a decade stint in Brazil in my pre-teen and teenage years and a collegiate experience defined by my stay in an incredible residential co-op that espoused egalitarianism and equitability. With those experiences laid out for you, here’s my boots-on-the-ground experience (apologies in advance for generalizations, any presumed gender identity or crass humor).

After completing App Academy, many students were concerned about salary negotiations. The school directors, having gone through this process with a few other cohorts informed us that there was a significant salary disparity between their male and female students. This is not really a surprise, pay inequality is well documented. But to have it be so measurable and out in the open was eye opening. Another part of our training was how to handle negotiations and many of my female friends often expressed apprehension about wheeling and dealing at the table. This relates to my teacher training where we shouldn’t just call on students who raise their hands all the time. There is intense and unequal social conditioning inherited by people in the work place regarding taking initiative in the face of authority. I wonder if Hackbright, a developer bootcamp for women, tailors its negotiation approach with the aforementioned concerns in mind.

There’s also a peculiar flavor of sexism I’ve encountered in the hiring process: A bias toward women with brothers. Its an interesting prejudice applied toward women. By no means am I justifying this practice but, as a manager, having new hires who have already socialized with men in all stages of development might result in less instances of reportable friction. And there are plenty of men in various forms of arrested development in this profession. On the other hand, I certainly appreciate having an upbringing that was very co-ed and feel sorry for kids with boys/girls only birthdays and such. Thanks mom.

Lockerroom talk is pretty graphic and exclusionary. Uhg.

Sometimes I spectate a questionable, but not blatantly negative, interaction between a male and female coworker who are of the same or similar ethnic background (commonly Indian or Southeast Asian among my coworkers) but different than mine. At times the conversation even shifts into a different language, whether for facility or other reasons. I often feel conflicted regarding whether a transgression is happening and if I should intervene in some form. Do my standards apply to them? Tone of voice, facial expression, gesticulation, body language and even the words being used could all be loaded with very different social cues. Should I go to my supervisor, HR or the distressed party regarding the issue? I’m still sorting this one out.

Mansplaining plagues me to no end, as a perpetrator that is…. If I catch myself doing it I start rephrasing my statements as questions but at the risk of sounding patronizing. This often comes up in the software development profession. Background to the uninitiated: Before we introduce some new code in a program it is customary for another programer to review the code change. One of the worst offenses among these code reviews is “feigned surprise” toward someone’s misunderstanding or ignorance of a concept. Its demoralizing, belittling, not constructive and attempts to assert power. This rhetorical device is often a lead in to mansplaining. Nonetheless, I often find that there is no rubric for entirely avoiding this sexist oratory phenomena.

Developing solutions to these issues is beyond the scope of this post at the moment, I hope that increased exposure will drive dialog regarding this issue. I look forward to when these disparities are no longer a problem.