![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Feb. 18th, 2008
The "boys" club!
Feb. 18th, 2008 09:09 pmI am a software consultant. The company is not a very big company with less than fifty employees in two subsidiaries. One is a product development subsidiary, and the other, where I work, is a consulting company. I am the only woman in the consulting side. There are other woman in the other side which is another office in the same building. I sit at a group of four desks with one director opposite me and another beside me. My employers are recruiting for a new engineer based in LA. So in between listening to my iPod I've been over hearing them discuss potential candidates.
Towards the end of the day one director was reading out a CV (resumé) from an engineer with an Far East sounding name. As a result the candidate's gender was not immediately apparent. They were commenting on skills and breath of knowledge as well as depth of knowledge. All the way through they referred to said candidate as he however some of the more interesting skills, such as being a published poet and knowing music theory [1] suggested to me this was a female candidate. Then they followed a URL to a website. The director exclaimed "Oh, she's a babe!". The other leapt up and said "Lets have a look at this babe!". I internally fumed.
Because I have to work with these guys and so discretion is the better part of valour I kept relatively quiet and didn't show my anger but just turned and said "If I were the sort of person to get upset over these things I would be berating you know about calling a potential female colleague a babe. As I'm not I wont." and left it at that.
I will do it here! Look guys you work with a female colleague who's fucking good and who you decided should be the company's software architect. Why do you immediately leap to conclusions over the gender of your candidates and what right do you have to call us babes. Arseholes!
[1] Yes I know in some respects I too am depending upon stereotyping!
Cross posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
feminist_rage
Towards the end of the day one director was reading out a CV (resumé) from an engineer with an Far East sounding name. As a result the candidate's gender was not immediately apparent. They were commenting on skills and breath of knowledge as well as depth of knowledge. All the way through they referred to said candidate as he however some of the more interesting skills, such as being a published poet and knowing music theory [1] suggested to me this was a female candidate. Then they followed a URL to a website. The director exclaimed "Oh, she's a babe!". The other leapt up and said "Lets have a look at this babe!". I internally fumed.
Because I have to work with these guys and so discretion is the better part of valour I kept relatively quiet and didn't show my anger but just turned and said "If I were the sort of person to get upset over these things I would be berating you know about calling a potential female colleague a babe. As I'm not I wont." and left it at that.
I will do it here! Look guys you work with a female colleague who's fucking good and who you decided should be the company's software architect. Why do you immediately leap to conclusions over the gender of your candidates and what right do you have to call us babes. Arseholes!
[1] Yes I know in some respects I too am depending upon stereotyping!
Cross posted to
feminist_rage