Gender Issues in Tech Communication

[Barbara Yanez <BarbaraYanez -at- cogentsystems -dot- com>]

I agree. And I am not an avid feminist - in fact, most of my views are quite
a ways to the right, in general. But I too have experienced this.

Ex: Recently we were coming to a proposal deadline. Many things remained to
be done - proofreading, as well as clerical tasks like making notebooks. I
was commissioned to 'work with the secretaries" to get the hole-punching,
coordinating the notebooks done. I was commissioned to help out with the
proofreading, as was the other writer, but no clerical tasks were given to
him. I am a nice person too, so I did it to help out. But still - one can
see that people tend to think of females in a certain way, regardless of
your title/background. 

And in my private life too this has happened. I have had people (usually
male - occasionally it has happened with women but mostly with males) pipe
up and start lecturing at length about something that I happen to know
extremely well - without asking first what I knew about it. Example: On a
first meeting with a man recently (my friend's boyfriend) I made a comment
about how there must be a lot of Irish in the neighborhood where we were
standing at that time (a small neighborhood in San Diego ). He misunderstood
me and thought I was saying that there must be a lot of Irish in the U.S. as
a whole (how he could have thought I would say something that obvious is
beyond me. BTW, want to know what he does for a living? He is a window
washer - and he is not from this country - he is from England.) At any rate,
he pipes up and starts preaching, borderline yelling about how many Irish
there are in the U.S., and how there are probably more here than there are
in Ireland. What he didn't know is that I am from NJ (a small town about
60-70% Irish) , went to school in Boston, and then Philadelphia, so I have
been around Irish people all my life. Plus I am Catholic and, growing up in
NJ, most of the priests were from Ireland Still, he proceeded rant and rave
like that. 

Another person recently started lecturing me about Atlanta (he had visited
there once of twice). His wife had to stop him and let him know "Dear, she
knows that better than you do. She lived there for 6 years."

So yes, I can totally understand women being more sensitive to these things
- because of our day to day experiences. I totally disagree with Dick. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Barbara Yanez
Sr. Technical Writer
Cogent Systems, Inc.
209 Fair Oaks Ave., 
South Pasadena, Ca  91030
(626) 799-8090 x 419
byanez -at- cogentsystems -dot- com
----------------------------------------------------------------
Manager - Public Relations
Society for Technical Communication - San Gabriel Valley Chapter
http://www.stcsgv.org/
----------------------------------------------------------------

Yes, I have definitely noticed women who discriminate against women
as well.  I have worked in several companies where I am the only female 
that
is not part of Human Resources, Marketing or an Administrative 
Assistant. I'm a pretty nice person and I don't mind taking on 
responsibility -
but, I was floored when I was asked to be in charge of ordering food 
for the
kitchen and then assigned the task of organizing the annual conference.  
	Anyway... I could go on again... but, I disagree with Dick saying
that it is just how we are perceiving these situations 

	I can't begin to count how many times I have had men tell me exactly
how to do something, when 
I
never asked for their input.  This has happened in the workplace and 
outside
of the workplace.  It always floors me when men do this about a subject 
they
know absolutely nothing about... as if being male makes them an 
authority on
everything.   I have witnessed this behavior 
over
and over.  

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