I am a white, cis woman, who is able-bodied, who everyone will assume to be straight and vanilla, maybe even married.
I cannot even stomach what it must be like for women at these events without such privileges.
Not that I do tech events, but I feel this way in a lot of sitautions, especially when people are having a go because I fail to live up to some metric of class and am buying or eating something they think is "chavvy" or "so council house". All I can think is, if they can't accept the level of difference that I represent, what do they do when presented with people who are less privileged than me? And less able to stand up for themselves.
The article on having to work for free to get paid work isn't just applicable to the tech world. It's rife in culture and publishing, and always has been. And as long as there's upper middle class women (and it is almost all women) graduating with arts degrees whose parents think subsidizing them for an extra year or two after uni is just fine, it's going to continue.
And following on from my comment above, if someone with my level of privilege was unable to do a media or publishing internship due to the love of eating and living indoors, what chance has anyone from further "outside" got?
Speaking of unexamined privilege, there's a commenter there who is stubbornly determined Not To Get It who beautifully illustrates why the article needed to be written in the first place.
I was talking with Ma the other night, and I ended up (man)splaining to the gallery that I was likely only allowed to be a scruffy Peelist Spod because bloke and that sort of behaviour was expected/tolerated.
That's a hard one. Back in the days when people still cared about such things, I got away with having purple hair and facial piercings in the workplace through being bloody good at what I do.
Or so I tell myself, I suspect being white and well educated and otherwise well presented helped a lot.
I'm also going through it a bit lately and have discovered that if it's bad being 30-something in this position, it gets worse when you're repeatedly sidelined because you're older and no longer conventionally 'attractive'.
I'm always excluded from answering technical questions nowadays because, as stated in my 1-2-1, 'people forget that I might know'.
I am repeatedly elbowed out of our stand up meetings because the lads need to see the latest picture on my colleague's girl-a-day calender and I was feeling sorry for myself until I read this.
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2013-11-15 08:47 am (UTC)I cannot even stomach what it must be like for women at these events without such privileges.
Not that I do tech events, but I feel this way in a lot of sitautions, especially when people are having a go because I fail to live up to some metric of class and am buying or eating something they think is "chavvy" or "so council house". All I can think is, if they can't accept the level of difference that I represent, what do they do when presented with people who are less privileged than me? And less able to stand up for themselves.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-15 02:11 pm (UTC)The article on having to work for free to get paid work isn't just applicable to the tech world. It's rife in culture and publishing, and always has been. And as long as there's upper middle class women (and it is almost all women) graduating with arts degrees whose parents think subsidizing them for an extra year or two after uni is just fine, it's going to continue.
And following on from my comment above, if someone with my level of privilege was unable to do a media or publishing internship due to the love of eating and living indoors, what chance has anyone from further "outside" got?
Speaking of unexamined privilege, there's a commenter there who is stubbornly determined Not To Get It who beautifully illustrates why the article needed to be written in the first place.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-15 03:06 pm (UTC)I was talking with Ma the other night, and I ended up (man)splaining to the gallery that I was likely only allowed to be a scruffy Peelist Spod because bloke and that sort of behaviour was expected/tolerated.
(Maybe/I dunno)
no subject
Date: 2013-11-15 03:22 pm (UTC)Or so I tell myself, I suspect being white and well educated and otherwise well presented helped a lot.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-15 03:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-15 03:58 pm (UTC)I'm also going through it a bit lately and have discovered that if it's bad being 30-something in this position, it gets worse when you're repeatedly sidelined because you're older and no longer conventionally 'attractive'.
I'm always excluded from answering technical questions nowadays because, as stated in my 1-2-1, 'people forget that I might know'.
I am repeatedly elbowed out of our stand up meetings because the lads need to see the latest picture on my colleague's girl-a-day calender and I was feeling sorry for myself until I read this.
It was ever thus and always will be so.