Katie Bauer!

People in tech hate the waterfall project management model until it comes to treating women as peers.

Some folks love to mentor women, but hate listening to women, much less following them. I’ve even asked men or people w/higher titles to repeat i say (sometimes literally giving a script) because I am not being heard/respected as an expert.

I sometimes change clothes for particular meetings because I know that with that audience, I won’t be taken seriously in, for example, a colorful dress or “fun” jewelry. I also have to not over do it, bc being too formally dressed can also signal you are new/don’t belong.

This isn’t new to me: at smith doing math research, I was cautioned against wearing too much makeup or a suit b/c “the work should speak for itself.” Of course, the way women are treated goes beyond what we wear, I mention it as one of the many dances we do to be heard/respected

I once had a manager tell me this almost verbatim. It put me on the defensive for YEARS and taken me so long time to get to a place where I feel comfortable with my presentation in a professional context

What really pisses me off? They aren’t wrong - while it IS bullshit, people really do treat us differently based on how we dress, and there are times when I resist that through my appearance, and times where I conform to the BS because getting a thing done is too important