<story><title>Leap: An Online Community for Women</title><url>http://blog.ycombinator.com/join-leap-an-online-community-for-women/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fruzz</author><text>I really wish your experience was unique.&lt;p&gt;A colleague was groped. She didn&amp;#x27;t report it. It would have likely diminished her future prospects. A friend was asked out on dates, unsolicited, multiple times by coworkers. She just had to laugh it off. Women at a previous employment reported not being taken as seriously as men in meetings, and being passed over for promotions in favour of less qualified men. A friend reported sexualized posters of women up in the office. In the chat of my company, a sexualized video of women was passed around.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m trans, so my challenges are a bit different. I try to hide the fact that I&amp;#x27;m trans during interviews. A lot of people are uncomfortable with trans people (26% of Canadian men are uncomfortable moving next to one), and with interviews to see if I&amp;#x27;m socially a good fit, that can end it. I actually changed my name to an androgynous one as to not out myself. I get misgendered at work by people who do it on purpose. I also get touched inappropriately by a coworker.&lt;p&gt;In all cases, what can you do to challenge these things without being seen as &amp;quot;the crazy one&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;too sensitive&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;party pooper&amp;quot;, or whatever? Without hurting my finances?
It&amp;#x27;s shit.</text></item><item><author>turinapple</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a woman that&amp;#x27;s worked in tech since 2011... at times the discrimination and treatment I&amp;#x27;ve faced has made me want to quit the industry all together. But every time I reached that point I thought - no, I&amp;#x27;m not the one who should have to leave, it&amp;#x27;s the people -- usually men -- who have not shown empathy, kindness or compassion. The ones who have bullied me and harassed me and made inappropriate comments or advances. So many of these experiences I just buried inside until I was in the company of other people I trusted and felt safe to share. There hasn&amp;#x27;t really been an online forum where I felt safe to have these conversations until now. Now that Leap is here I have other people who &lt;i&gt;get&lt;/i&gt; me who I can talk to about the stuff that is bugging me. With their help I can treat each day as new and keep moving forward with my career. If you don&amp;#x27;t understand why this community is important perhaps it&amp;#x27;s because you have had the privilege of never feeling like a second class citizen in the industry you work in.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>fortythirteen</author><text>Disclaimer: not in any way attempting to diminish your experience. Only adding my own, to broaden the conversation.&lt;p&gt;It can be a similar experience for men (although it&amp;#x27;s definitely not something talked about). I&amp;#x27;ve had a female coworker walk up behind me repeatedly and give me unsolicited back rubs and ask me if I wanted to go to an empty office. I&amp;#x27;ve been flirted with and hit on repeatedly. I&amp;#x27;ve had a group of women at work, some of whom were in positions of power, socially shun me because I wasn&amp;#x27;t romantically interested in one of their friends, another coworker.&lt;p&gt;Most of this happened when I was younger, and I probably would respond differently now that I have more experience (I just kept my mouth shut back then). But, I still can&amp;#x27;t help but feel that I wouldn&amp;#x27;t be taken as seriously by HR, because I&amp;#x27;m a man.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d like to see us move past the current narrative of &amp;quot;Men do this to Women&amp;quot; and get to a place where we recognize that &lt;i&gt;People shouldn&amp;#x27;t do this to other People&lt;/i&gt;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Leap: An Online Community for Women</title><url>http://blog.ycombinator.com/join-leap-an-online-community-for-women/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fruzz</author><text>I really wish your experience was unique.&lt;p&gt;A colleague was groped. She didn&amp;#x27;t report it. It would have likely diminished her future prospects. A friend was asked out on dates, unsolicited, multiple times by coworkers. She just had to laugh it off. Women at a previous employment reported not being taken as seriously as men in meetings, and being passed over for promotions in favour of less qualified men. A friend reported sexualized posters of women up in the office. In the chat of my company, a sexualized video of women was passed around.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m trans, so my challenges are a bit different. I try to hide the fact that I&amp;#x27;m trans during interviews. A lot of people are uncomfortable with trans people (26% of Canadian men are uncomfortable moving next to one), and with interviews to see if I&amp;#x27;m socially a good fit, that can end it. I actually changed my name to an androgynous one as to not out myself. I get misgendered at work by people who do it on purpose. I also get touched inappropriately by a coworker.&lt;p&gt;In all cases, what can you do to challenge these things without being seen as &amp;quot;the crazy one&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;too sensitive&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;party pooper&amp;quot;, or whatever? Without hurting my finances?
It&amp;#x27;s shit.</text></item><item><author>turinapple</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m a woman that&amp;#x27;s worked in tech since 2011... at times the discrimination and treatment I&amp;#x27;ve faced has made me want to quit the industry all together. But every time I reached that point I thought - no, I&amp;#x27;m not the one who should have to leave, it&amp;#x27;s the people -- usually men -- who have not shown empathy, kindness or compassion. The ones who have bullied me and harassed me and made inappropriate comments or advances. So many of these experiences I just buried inside until I was in the company of other people I trusted and felt safe to share. There hasn&amp;#x27;t really been an online forum where I felt safe to have these conversations until now. Now that Leap is here I have other people who &lt;i&gt;get&lt;/i&gt; me who I can talk to about the stuff that is bugging me. With their help I can treat each day as new and keep moving forward with my career. If you don&amp;#x27;t understand why this community is important perhaps it&amp;#x27;s because you have had the privilege of never feeling like a second class citizen in the industry you work in.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>turinapple</author><text>Thanks for sharing. Everytime I&amp;#x27;ve tried to challenge others&amp;#x27; behavior towards me, I&amp;#x27;ve ended up the villain...</text></comment>