Kate Hackett
Sexism in STEM fields is well acknowledged and rampant. Yeah, workplace sexism can absolutely happen anywhere, but in these male-dominated fields there’s a whole other level to it.
It’s pretty unbelievable that a boyfriend would refute it when his girlfriend says there is sexism in her workplace, especially when it’s a field like engineering, but that’s exactly what u/challengingsexism did, as he explained in a recent AITA reddit post.
OP explains that both he and his girlfriend work in STEM fields; he has had several promotions while she has only had one.
My girlfriend and I both work in the tech industry and both have 5 years of experience. I have a CS/math degree and she has an electrical / electronics engineering degree.
I have been promoted to a senior level at my company and she has been promoted only once and is still a junior at her company.
OP’s girlfriend is unhappy with how she is excluded from meetings and not given equal opportunities. She also doesn’t like how her peers talk about their wives and partners.
She always complains about how things are unfair at all jobs she had (3 so far) and how she is not given opportunities, supposedly excluded from meetings (while still claiming she gets asked to take notes in meetings) and decisions. She judges her coworkers for things they say that have nothing to do about work like when they talk about their wives and partners.
Even an HR complaint went nowhere. In a recent performance review, she was told to take on more. Buuuut her workplace keeps taking projects from her.
She and another woman once complained about a coworker for being rude in meetings and HR (which was dealt with by a woman) did not find anything wrong and dismissed their concerns.
She recently had a performance review and was not promoted and told that she needs to take on more challenges and told me that she does but is always told to hand over projects to other people when she starts them and excluded from the meetings.
OP thinks that not everything is sexism here. The girlfriend thinks raging sexism is exactly what’s happening.
I do believe that there is some sexism in the industry but I think she cannot blame everything on sexism and recognize that perhaps she has room to improve. She thinks that because she graduated with honors with a 4.0 that translates to industry performance. Her degree is also in electronics and more hardware focused. I expressed this to her and suggested she follow her manager’s advice to grow and she got upset with me and called me an AH. I get her disappointment but I don’t think it is fair for her to expect me to just agree to everything she says.
Fortunately, after many, many YTA comments, OP capitulated.
EDIT: Ok I think I might need to do more research into this, some of the comments seem concerning, this honestly sounds like 1950s level shit to me and it is hard to wrap my head around that it could be so brazen in 2023.
One user wrote, “YTA, you aren’t a women in tech, you wouldn’t get it. The reason tech is such a male-dominated field, despite all of the outreach to get girls in stem is because there is a lot of sexism in the industry. Many women study for years for the tech industry only to quit in the first year because of the issues that your girlfriend is currently facing.”
“She had a 4.0 GPA, but is invited to meetings to take notes and expected to hand off challenging work assignments to male colleagues? Dude, come on. Actually read what you wrote. YTA,” said another commenter.
“YTA. Acting like you know her job and her experiences better than she does is an example of the very sexism she’s complaining about,” said a third person.
