Wow, that was a great article, thanks for sharing @bmacfadden! The personal testimonies at the end of the piece were stunning – I can relate to many of these. Like Catalina, I wouldn’t say I’ve been subjected to outright sexist/racist remarks – at least not remarks that were intended to be sexist/racist. However, these anecdotes show that lots of offhand or casual remarks have pretty strong sexist undertones and reflect really unfortunate stereotypes that are pervasive in our society. I think that these microagressions are so common that most women/minorities shrug them off. The article suggests women/minorities have to continually prove themselves worthy of their positions – calling attention to these incidents certainly has the potential to put them in a bad position with colleagues. Women I’ve spoken with tell me they hesitate calling attention to what might be seen as minor incidents and risk sounding whiny, sensitive, or weak – playing further into sexist stereotypes.
What do you think, @egardner, @taorminalepore, @llundgren, @sholte, @rnarducci, @cgrant, @mhendrickson, @sboessenecker?