When this man is concerned about his girlfriend's 'false' claims, he asks Reddit:
My girlfriend and I both work in the tech industry and both have 5 years of experience. I have a CS/math degree and she has an electrical / electronics engineering degree.I have been promoted to a senior level at my company and she has been promoted only once and is still a junior at her company.
She always complains about how things are unfair at all jobs she had (3 so far) and how she is not given opportunities, supposedly excluded from meetings (while still claiming she gets asked to take notes in meetings) and decisions.She judges her coworkers for things they say that have nothing to do about work like when they talk about their wives and partners.
She and another woman once complained about a coworker for being rude in meetings and HR (which was dealt with by a woman) did not find anything wrong and dismissed their concerns. She recently had a performance review and was not promoted and told that she needs to take on more challenges and told me that she does but is always told to hand over projects to other people when she starts them and excluded from the meetings.
I do believe that there is some sexism in the industry but I think she cannot blame everything on sexism and recognize that perhaps she has room to improve. She thinks that because she graduated with honors with a 4.0 that translates to industry performance.
Her degree is also in electronics and more hardware focused. I expressed this to her and suggested she follow her manager's advice to grow and she got upset with me and called me an AH. I get her disappointment but I don't think it is fair for her to expect me to just agree to everything she says.
Ok I think I might need to do more research into this, some of the comments seem concerning, this honestly sounds like 1950s level shit to me and it is hard to wrap my head around that it could be so brazen in 2023. I talked about it more with my gf and I think I was the AH unfortunately.
It is unbelievable and it seems like the place is even worse than her previous jobs and I did not realize that. Also I started getting loads of DMs from people telling me it is not sexist and justifying that with sexist remarks and claiming reddit is left, I am also very left (and I don't think reddit is that left). I have encouraged her to job search again and we will reach out to our friends in the field for opportunities.
cottagewhore420 writes:
YTA, you aren’t a women in tech, you wouldn’t get it. The reason tech is such a male-dominated field, despite all of the outreach to get girls in stem is because there is a lot of sexism in the industry. Many women study for years for the tech industry only to quit in the first year because of the issues that your girlfriend is currently facing.
vonshiza writes:
Being 'asked to take notes' is not a good thing. We all know what she's facing as a woman in a man's industry, how real the dismissiveness is.
severetask writes:
YTA. Been there. It stinks. How many times have you been the only guy in a room full of women, in a tech work environment? I think of these “microsexisms” as the remains left to our generation. This is our arena, this is our grain of sand, this is what we will contribute to the next generation of both guys and girls: to say out loud what is not ok.
The generations before us had the huge changes: women going into the workforce, women inserting themselves in what used to be men-only fields… getting a seat at the table. The next generation is growing up watching what we do today. They need to grow up knowing that they can also have a voice at the table, and getting called out on things like being overlooked for a promotion is how it starts.
Sure, your girlfriend could just be junior material, we all know the “forever a semisenior” type. But it would be naive not to acknowledge that… she’s not totally off in what she notices. It’s true, it happens, just start paying attention and you’ll see it too.