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[noamnety]

56. I can think of examples from my life.

I was an intel analyst for a while. At one point we needed someone to do a briefing to a group of special forces guys. It naturally would have fallen to me to handle it - I was someone who flew out regularly to the pentagon to do briefings for generals.

But the boss told me very bluntly he wasn't going to send me because I am female and because of the special forces attitude toward women (we're the sex class, not the colleague class). That attitude's tied to women's role in battle - we're not combat troops, therefore not equal or able to speak from experience about special forces missions. And the reason we aren't allowed as combat troops is tied to the fear we will be captured and raped.

So that briefing job - along with all the networking opportunities or awards with it - became an opportunity that was restricted to men in our office. That doesn't mean anyone in our office supports rape. It doesn't mean anyone in our office did or didn't oppose women in combat. It doesn't even mean that the guy sent to do the briefing was ever aware that he was sent BECAUSE he was male, or that I wasn't allowed to go because I'm female. To him it was a completely invisible (and therefore nonexistent from his perspective) privilege.

Editing to add that ironically, of the staff in the office, except for the boss and one major, I was the only one who had active duty experience, all the rest had only been civilians.