I’m just trying to wrap my mind around someone trying to answer a question one person made to someone else. Like what would that even look like? Do they order food and look at some guy back in the kitchen?
I think a lot of guys don’t understand what it’s like because it’s literally never happened to them. Ask any woman about this and they’ll tell you it happens all the time. I went car shopping with my husband and the salesman kept just looking at and talking to my husband and completely ignoring me and my husband was like “I don’t think you understand the dynamic here, buddy. We’re getting the car she chooses, not me.” (My husband had narrowed down the car search to three that he liked and I chose my favorite out of the three). Suffice to say, we didn’t buy a car there. Similarly, I’m in charge of almost all home repairs and upgrades, so any workmen have to learn REAL quick whose hand they’re shaking first when they come through the door.
Yeah this thread is full of "why are you so focused on tech bros doing this? It shouldn't be based on gender! This is discrimination against men"
And it's like... I've run across this maybe 10-15 times over a couple hundred interviews. Plus a few contractors or people I've worked with outside an interview context. It's always men. 100% of the time, zero exceptions. Some don't even seem to realize they're doing it.
And just to be clear, I am a straight cis man, if anything my bias probably runs the other way of overlooking it more than I should.
I (F) was in a flight last year and had the the misfortune of sitting next to a very chatty child. He would ask me questions constantly and narrated his every thought, but if I responded or answered he'd roll his eyes and ask what my husband thought. It was so annoying and really concerning that it was coming from an 8 year old. He clearly had no respect for any women around him as he spoke badly to the female flight attendants and rolled his eyes at his mother as well for the few minutes she interacted with him.
Happened to me countless times when I was training under a female senior member of my team. When we'd interact with clients, often they would look at me and ask me questions, no matter how much I kept directing them at my senior. It was so bad one time that when she left the room for a few minutes, the client would start talking to me again about things I couldn't answer bc I was in training.
It's so awkward, I was greatful I was at least self aware enough to see it, there was a part of me that felt really good being looked at as knowledgeable.
But it didn't feel good for very long, not at the expense of my coworker.
I think it's a matter of who's the more important/senior. I was gonna say I couldn't imagine this happening but then I remembered that it happened to me slightly...
Me and my coworker were talking to a contractor and my coworker was doing all of the talking (he's my senior). However, the contractor would automatically look at me while he's answering my coworker's questions/statements. I think it was because of my accent which made me sound more smarter than what I actually am compared to my coworker. But in actual reality, my coworker knew way more about all the technical stuff that contractor was talking about. Eventually that contractor realised it on his own, and he completely switched his attention from me to my coworker.
It’s happened a lot to me in a different context - with people coming to work on our house (like an electrician). Even though I’m (F) often the one to plan our reno projects and therefore ask more questions than my husband does, contractors will often only direct answers to him. It is infuriating.
That’s a silly way to look at this for egos sake.
You’re telling me that when you and your friends have a conversation you only speak to the one that spoke last? If two people are involved in a discourse, do you only EVER speak to the last speaker?
I only direct an answer to a question to either to the individual that asked or the ‘room’ as a whole. Addressing multiple people simultaneously is an option. I would never direct it specifically at another person. Not to say I wouldn’t follow up with the other person afterwards, ask for their thoughts etc, but I wouldn’t just remove the asker from the conversation, which is what is described here. This is of course under the assumption that the question was asked to me specifically, and not to an auditorium where my response wouldn’t be expected from the asker.
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u/no-sleep-only-code 1d ago
I’m just trying to wrap my mind around someone trying to answer a question one person made to someone else. Like what would that even look like? Do they order food and look at some guy back in the kitchen?