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The original was posted on /r/twoxchromosomes by /u/Vintage_Alien on 2023-08-28 18:05:09.
Like many young girls, when I was a kid I went through a not-like-other-girls phase. I was a tomboy; I was vocal for my dislike of the colour pink, makeup, and actively disbelieved my mother when she said she experienced sexism in the military (ha, unheard of right?). Thankfully, I grew out of it. I entered a male-dominated industry and was slapped with the reality that outside my progressive family, sexism is unfortunately still a thing. Out of a desperate want to be liked and respected in my workplace I acted as “one of the boys” and laughed off every instance of sexual harassment and disrespect that came my way. I made sexist jokes about myself. I am forgiving of this era of my personality because it’s a survival tactic and it works. I am now much more confident in myself and don’t feel the need to be “one of the boys” to be liked or respected anymore. What I find depressing is that almost every other woman I meet in this industry still seems to be in this “one of the boys” mode of operating, majority of them being much older than me. You’ll never meet a more passionate defender of the patriarchy than a woman who has worked in it for decades. It’s almost like a form of Stockholm Syndrome. They dismiss and excuse it all: “Oh no he wasn’t sexually harassing her; she just doesn’t understand his humour.” “Oh yeah the company may be 99% men, but they hire solely based on merit so it can’t be sexism.” “Well I’ve personally never been mistreated so I don’t understand why you think there’s a cultural problem. I mean yes, I’ve been overlooked for promotion three times now despite being highly competent, but I can see why they’d hesitate after I took maternity leave.” It’s outside the workplace too. My own otherwise progressive mother, who has been a victim of patriarchy her entire life, refuses to call herself a feminist because “only man-haters are feminist”. Funny, I said a similar thing when I was 15. What made me grow out of it but not her? I guess I’m just tired because it’s makes me feel like there’s no allies around me. I mentioned to a female colleague that I’d copped a rude comment of “you were only hired because you have tits”, and she just laughed and said, “well at least you know he’s attracted to you”. I can’t be mad at them because I used to be them. At least I escaped it by my mid-twenties… I don’t know if they ever will.