HR is your Friend and the Stripper Thinks You're Cute
Tags: productivity, codenewbie, learning, design
Published: 2023-10-25 14:03:45

Twenty years ago, when I hadn't yet worked with another single female dev, my male coworkers took me to the strip club. A bunch of men and I watched the strippers and squirmed, uncomfortable at the sexual atmosphere created by our location. With my rubbish memory, I can't recall much else. Luckily, none of my coworkers fell into the fantasy of having caught the eye of one of the strippers. However, I have heard male friends (more than once) make this claim.

Though I haven't spent much time or money at strip clubs, I've been friends with several strippers throughout the years. In case you're wondering, they aren't interested in dating their patrons, but if they can make you believe they are interested, they've succeeded. Why? Because your wallet loosens. Yes, they will prey on your vulnerability to make money, because that is their job. In this mutual deception, both parties participate in the stripper fantasy. One side receives attention and daydreams, and the other receives money. I have zero problem with this. I support people's rights to choose what they want to do with their bodies.

I've been in the software industry long enough that I remember attending conferences where I was one of three females out of hundreds of attendees. Being a female in this industry for so long hasn't always been pleasant. I've been hit on and then mistreated when I didn't respond the way the guy wanted. Many men dismissed me. Others blocked promotions, and many more disliked me for being smarter than them. While I've met hundreds and hundreds of amazing people (mostly men) throughout my career, those few bad apples find their way into almost every dev shop.

Given all of this, I never reported anyone to HR. Instinctively, I knew going to HR was a bad idea. I didn't want to get branded as the woman who caused trouble for men. When I began my career in the 90s, many men believed that introducing women in an all-male environment was bound to cause trouble, and refusing to reinforce the stereotype was a matter of survival. 

However, at one particular recent job, the toxicity of the environment was bad enough to qualify as a superfund site. I was regularly condescended to. A female junior developer was told to choose a different career path, because having kids would prevent her from achieving success in Site Reliability Engineering. Yes, this was offensive, incorrect and illegal, but it was par for the course at this company.

In another instance, I was mistreated publicly by our vice president for asking for more resources to complete twice the work with half of the people. The condescension was so blatant and uncomfortable that multiple people (who were not me) reported it to HR. This is how I found myself in the center of an HR war.

Prior to that experience, I considered Human Resources my safety net. If anything spun out of control, I knew I could seek help from the HR department. After all, they wanted to keep employees happy. They issued rules about how employees were to treat each other. They planned celebration events for us and set up prizes to acknowledge people. They regularly sent out messaging to say the people who worked at the company were the real capital. I believed, if I were mistreated to the point where I needed outside help, they would see the situation for what it was and help me.

Boy was I wrong!

I won't get into the nitty gritty details about the fallout. I'll save those for my memoir, but I will tell you that every female I knew at that company was abused in some way, some worse than others. Due to my assertive personality, I received the brunt of the public mistreatment in the development department, though many others were abused in more low-key ways. Needless to say, the leadership team was all white men, and the men getting promoted always somehow managed to be members of the same church. This was the classic good ol' boys club.

People roll their eyes when I bring up the good ol' boys club. That's antiquated behavior, and we're modern people with a modern mindset, right?

I wish.

In the same way that institutional racism thrives in our systems, sexism also thrives. Men, in particular, refuse to address unconscious bias, believing they are open-minded and kind enough to not fall prey to misogyny. Unfortunately, they are lying to themselves. Being kindhearted doesn't prevent you from being a victim of culture. Utahns are raised and continue to live in a highly sexist culture where women cannot hold meaningful office in the dominant religion. 

Growing up in Utah in the 70s and 80s, I knew women were expected to stay home, birth children and take care of the house. No matter how many excuses people found for the reasoning, women in the religion in which I was raised have always been treated as servants to the men. Without unconscious bias training and a deep desire to eradicate the inequality in their own minds, it is virtually impossible for men to grow up here and believe women are equals. 

This is all to say that, by the time a woman turns to HR, she has likely suffered micro-aggressions daily, been treated like she's hysterical by being assertive and passionate and has had her work and ideas stolen and claimed by men. Ask me how I know.

Unfortunately, HR exists for one purpose in situations like these: to protect the company.

Let me say this another way. If you have been treated in such a way that you may have grounds for a lawsuit, you become enemy #1 to the company. Their image and their money is worth more than you. They are _not_ there to protect you. They are _not_ there to discipline abusers. They _are_ there to protect the company. At all costs. 

They will not help you prove equal pay for equal work. They do not want you to have a good reason to sue the company and will therefore do what is necessary to keep you appeased and quiet. They are sleeper snipers, because once you have been labeled a trouble maker, they will wait for the smallest mistake to discipline you. They need this "mistake" of yours in their arsenal in case you get pissed off enough to speak to an attorney. They are trained to put out small fires so they never grow into something bigger. That means, if there is something bigger, you will never see the full picture.

Until I experienced this myself, I believed in the ideals that Human Resource departments espoused, and it wasn't until afterward I realized I'd fallen prey to the stripper thinking I was cute. Of course, HR is going to protect the company. Duh. No way will someone in HR say, "I think you've got a good case here. You might want to talk to an attorney." They will do everything in their power to discount you in case the company ever finds themselves on the opposite side of a court room.

Does this mean there is zero protection for women in the software industry? No, but it might not be the protection you thought. These days, there are other women around, and they also work in a male-dominated field. Go to lunch with them. Become friends. You can also create safe spaces for fellow female devs.

There are also some men who have addressed unconscious bias in themselves. There are men and women who recognize talent in another person, no matter what resides between that person's legs, and there are teams where you can operate safely and be treated like a fellow human.

For each uncomfortable moment I've experienced through the years, there were a thousand laughs. Mutual respect on a development team is rewarding. Yes, I write about the pitfalls, but only as warnings, not stop signs. I've made many mistakes through the years. I'm only telling you where to be careful but live the development dream. Have fun at work. Solve cool puzzles and stay humble.

Just remember. If you ever find yourself on the wrong side of someone at work and think about HR, consider the power dynamics. One side holds all of the power and all of the money, and you are not that side. For all of the good intentions of the people who work in HR, no stellar personality with a good heart can win in a competition against the bottom line. That doesn't make any of them mean or bad people. It makes them people who have a job to do, like strippers.