DD is doing summer internship with a large startup. She gets paid well at the Junior Software engineer rate. The engineering department is all male between ages 28 and 35. She is a rising sophomore and only took one course in her major during her freshman year. The company is looking to diversify engineering department and specifically looking for a female engineer for a permanent position they have open. Here is the story. As they interview women for the position they discuss it afterwards in a room. Some of the comments are not nice and borderline offensive. This is the first time DD has an internship in all male group so it is an interesting social experiment as well. One of the guys made a joke today about appearance of one of the applicants and that they should look for a best candidate, not the best female candidate which DD is agree with (the best person part). Then he made a joke to DD that if he was interviewing her, he would not hire her. After he made this statement, he said that this is a joke. This is an interesting comment, because the person she is working for asked her if she could continue working during the school year. She is a good coder, but obviously is lucking education and experience at the age of 18. I told her that she needs to have a thick skin if she wants to work in engineering and can’t get upset by every joke. What would you say to your DD in this situation?
Not much of a joke to call someone ugly and suggest that would be a valid reason to treat them unfairly in the hiring process.
Is the person she works under connected to the sexist jerk at all? Perhaps a well placed “I’d like to come back, but the culture of disparaging women’s looks after their interviews makes me feel unwelcome here”…
It’s not that much of the appearance joke, it is more like:“The shoes she was wearing was that bright that all I could see was the shoes”. Or something of the similar caliber. This is the first serious coding experience she ever had. She is growing professionally and they give her interesting projects to work on. She gets to do back end coding she never done before. She is very happy. But it is a specific environment. Or maybe this is a typical environment. I don’t know since I have never worked in engineering.
I’m not sure that commenting on loud shoes should be considered offensive as long as the same people would also comment on a guy wearing loud shoes.
Still, sexism does still happen, of course, and I have no idea how to address that with a daughter. I’ve got probably 16 or so more years before I really have to worry about that with mine, so if you have ideas I’m all ears. It hasn’t been too bad in places I’ve worked for the most part, but my experience isn’t super representative of industry in general and I’m also not female so I may not be as sensitive to some issues as a result.
My ernest hope is that, by the time my daughter is of that age, corporate cultures will have continued to shift enough that it’s nearly a non-issue.
I work for a large engineering company and have worked for a few others, and that kind of environment would never fly. The only comment I’ve ever heard about a female engineer was that she was an engineer and what skills she brought to the team. As a father of daughters, I would advise her to look elsewhere for employment. No one should have to put up with an environment like that.
I’m a female engineer. I will say that if someone at my work said anything even close to that they would be at HR within hours. Discrimination or hostile work environment are taken very seriously. That include “jokes”. Now there have been comments when a female wears non-work appropriate clothing. Those comments are not sexual in nature just of the “What was she thinking?” type comments. Bosses will still usually crack down on that (and the inappropriate dress). I have worked for a very discriminatory company when I first got out of college. I loved the work but the environment had me quit within 4 years. I shouldn’t have put up with it so long! I now work where there are lots of female engineers and I’m much happier!
I have been part of harassment investigations - for gathering information, not accused. IANAL, nor am I an HR expert.
It is important to know that harassment and intent and separate issues. If the person feels harassed, then it is time to speak up. I would suggest someone she really trusts as a starting point to help sort out how she feels. This does not mean do not report, rather take some time to get your thoughts together first.
Maybe this time it was shoes, but the last time it may have been different and brushed off as a one time misunderstanding. By compiling this information, the history on an individual can paint a very different picture than a single event.
" I told her that she needs to have a thick skin if she wants to work in engineering and can’t get upset by every joke."
Since the comment was about her shoes, ask her if she would have been offended if one of her classmates jokingly made the same comment about sitting next to him or participating with the group on a problem set. If it could truly be a light hearted joke, the lesson is that even adults misspeak when they are dealing with an uncomfortable issue; in this case interviewing and evaluating unknown talent of female candidates.
Every work environment has its quirks. Our DD would definitely prefer shoe comments over a group of american educated PHD pharma scientists continually discussing her internship research results in Mandarin right in front of her. Obviously the software group where your DD interns is struggling with adding a permanent female. Yes, that will change their environment, but ultimately make it a better place to work.