I have a VERY serious question about political discourse for the next four to eight years.

[moriah]

62. You said you would have "liked her better" if she hadn't, and I think that's what got me.

I'll see if I can explain this aspect of male privilege, but if I fail, maybe othrrs can.

When I said I wanted to be a doctor when I was young, my grandfather said "No, honey, but you'd make an excellent nurse."

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I had to work twice as hard in some situations as techs taller than 5'1 (I envied the 6'5 guys when no adequate ladder or lift is available, even though I got the job done). But I still heard the comments when I walked in as the only woman on a 100 person rollout -- "No fucking way she can do this." "Did they have to hire her, you know, legally?"

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When I led a team I was also apparently good enough that name recognition helped get me my next hirem. I got pissed when I learned how drastically underpaid I was compared to other leads on that project (between a 25%-$40% discrepancy) and managed to request and get a bump to make it better, but still not what men doing my job were getting paid.

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Another woman ended up being hired at the same company a bunch of us got hired on maybe a month before, so little appreciable difference in seniority. About a year and a half later, a female manager for the higher-level techs was conducting interviews for a customer-facing position that also required excellent technical skills. The newer female hire was chosen.

She had equal certificates, degrees, prior experience. Personally, listening to her on the phone compared to him in the main tech support area, she had better people skills -- I heard him get rather abrasive and when that's your customer...not good. But I had no input.

He couldn't say she had slept her way to the top, so he filed a complaint with HR that the female boss was reverse-discriminating, because he was obviously more qualified. Worse, he'd never had a bad thing to say about the woman who beat him out of a job before, but started publicly questioning her competence to have even been on the group we worked together on before. Really seemed to just HATE her all the sudden. "Bitch" was commonly said by him about both of them.

He did get a promotion himself when one was available, but it didn't involve anything like the customer interaction skills needed for the original position. But he was still bitter.

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You haven't been in my shoes to experience or witness these things. That's your privilege -- to know that if someone is questioning your competency/giving you promotions it's not about your gender, and have others know it too. To rarely, if ever, have much in your life be about your gender, particularly when it comes to achieving something.