There are no angels and demons here

A friend pointed out that with all this STEM stuff, when I ranted on facebook, I'm getting angry at the wrong people. I'm getting angry at the people who encourage girls to go into STEM without realising the huge emotional cost this could potentially be to those girls personally, even if it is to some greater society benefit.

She points out that the people to get angry with are the perpetrators. But it's just not that easy.

Sexism in the workplace for the most part is like the death of a thousand paper cuts. You barely realise it's happening - either to yourself or to others. Most of the time it is the sum of many, many little things. Perpetrators and the managers and organisations under which this happen quite rightly see all these things as very minor. Because they are.

So I'm still at this job where all this stuff happened that has made me take this stance - things having settled down as everyone is polite to one another now and I'm respectfully given separate types of work. We have a reorganisation coming up though which means I should be given exactly the same type of work as my colleagues. Should be an interesting comparison. But anyway, I was chatting to one colleague in my team, and she mentioned a slight annoyance that she says happens from time to time but most times she can just laugh it off, and this particular annoyance she mentioned to anyone who hasn't been through this may have seemed like absolutely nothing.

But my blood ran cold. What she said is exactly the kind of thing that happened to me.

And it's happening to her. Right in front of me. She gets the top rating in performance reviews and it's still happening to her.

For the most part they are all nice people. And this is no big deal. You can't demonise these people, and there are many good things about them. But this is why people don't understand how sexism happens here.

My facebook friend says I should write about it. Still thinking about this. Because frankly even if I give you a lot of examples you, dear reader, will tell me that they are minor and nothing. And for the most part I will have to agree with you.

So why am I in tears? Why am I ripping myself apart over this stuff? Why am I trying to tell the world (and girls in particular as more and more I suspect this is gendered), if you are in a workplace or industry like this, GET OUT.