Last week, in hiring committee, we're reading a packet in which a female interviewer Mary described a series of actions by the candidate, which left her feeling subtlely but definitely slighted. (
This is vague on purpose, to prevent any sexist bastard readers from gaming the system during interviews!)
Me: [reading the description] This is pretty bad. If this is true, I don't think we should hire.
Recruiter #1: Well, I spoke to Eleanor (senior recruiter) and apparently this happens every time we set up an interview with a female interviewer in this particular format.
Brandon: Yeah, we probably already hired a bunch of people who would've shown this kind of sexism, except we didn't put them through this setup.
Me: That's ... probably true. [becoming depressed]
Recruiter #1: Yeah, Eleanor said not to set them up in this way in the future, because it always happens.
Me: That's not true. I did one exactly like this on Monday, and the candidate was perfectly respectful and didn't do any of [waving the packet] these things.
Martin and Brandon: [simultaneously] That's because it was YOU, Niniane.
Me: Are you saying that I look like a man?
Martin and Brandon: [still in unison] NO.
Recruiter #1: Okay, so it might just be that Mary (the interviewer) made the candidate nervous. That could explain his actions too.
Recruiter #2: Yeah. [turning to me] Niniane, a bunch of candidates told me you made them nervous.
Me: What?? I make such a big effort to be friendly!
Recruiter #2: Sure, but they walk in there, not expecting to have a senior engineer interview them who's ... pretty. They're expecting ... one of these guys [gestures toward Martin and Brandon, who are surprisingly unoffended].
Me: Okay, so to test out this theory, we should have an attractive female engineer re-interview this candidate. I suggest Wendy S.
Everyone else: [complete silence] ... [crickets chirping, tumbleweed, etc] ...
Recruiter #1: Uh ... anything I say in reply to that might end up in a lawsuit.
...
There are a bunch of things screwed up about this. The part that bothered me the most was the idea that perhaps in comparison, I actually have it easy. Perhaps other women deal with a lot more sexist crap. I know this is true for China and other countries and other companies, but maybe it's true even within Google's primary-colored walls.
sigh.
I'm already annoyed at the subtle (and
not so subtle) sexist jabs that I have to deal with. So if other women have it worse, I'm amazed we have ANY women in computer science.
I guess if women can push watermelons through straws, then they can deal with anything.