Only 5.3% of US welders are women. After years as a professor, I became one

If people think this is harassment, no wonder people experience a lot of harassment.

Unless there was more to it the correct answer is along the lines of "yes thankfully" and then a laugh.

I'd recommend a good look in the mirror when looking for the problem in such situations.

Same goes for the thing about trying to discreetly notifying that someone has dirty hands:

Yes, I don't know what is up with Americans and demanding everyone has clean hands at all times, but as long as that is a thing this probably is meant as a favor. Maybe clumsily, but still.

More generally the saying: "when you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras" comes to mind:

If you expect things to be meant funny or helpful (and give people some slack) maybe life becomes a lot less stressful than if everything has to be seen through a lens of gender dynamics.

And if one is known as a reasonable person, I guess people will also take your side if you have to be loud and clear about something, e.g. if it turns out someone wasn't just clumsily trying to be nice or funny.

Why do men think sexism is symmetrical? The reason sexual overtures from men are a problem is because they are usually serious and they are statistically threatening, because men often hurt women who don't respond to them in a way they deem appropriate. You would never fear this woman.

Using verboten words as an example, I'm often willing to stop using words that others don't like. The harm to me is low (english is a big language, there's plenty of other words left), so if there's any harm at all to another it's reasonable for me to stop using the word. Assessment of harm will vary, as will harm to me from loss of words - which is why I stand my ground on some technical words.

My line is, n* - Not even going to type it pronouns - Whatever floats your boat master->main - Sure. Fine. I guess. Stop coming in my room and messing with my stuff. master/slave->controller/peripheral - Really? I'm going to say no for now, but work on brevity and check back later. MOSI/MISO->??? - NO.

Does drawing the line there make me a bigot? Where's the cutoff?

Ask your female friends if it's ever happened to them. I expect a large majority of them will be able to tell you a story.

Here's the best way I've been able to come up with, to get a feel for it. Suppose you have a nice watch. When somebody says, "Nice watch!", you say, "Thanks". But when you start meeting more than one person who won't stop talking about your watch, you get a little antsy. When somebody follows up with "Give me your fucking watch!" you start to think about leaving it at home some times.

Except that when you're a woman, you can never leave that at home.

This experience really isn't just about her. It's something practically all women experience. She seems to have just assumed her audience would share that context -- perhaps a side effect of being in academia.

I expect variation in the women I meet, some will be scared of me and some have much bigger balls than I do. If I calibrate my banter such that 1% of women are scared, am I in the wrong?

This article is talking specifically about the ways in which it is detrimental to be a tradeswoman. So in this context, being a woman makes it more difficult for this person to their job.

Looking at another example of something that would make being a tradesperson difficult: Would you call it harassment if customers were consistently making flippant remarks about a co-worker that was missing a hand?

Actors get their famous catchphrases thrown at them consistently as well.

That's just the way it goes.

People who are not women have to deal with such things as well, as a sibling commenter pointed out. Short guys, fat guys, skinny guys, they would all get picked on (in a friendly way or otherwise). The difference is that society will not tolerate them whining about it. Women won't care and men will laugh at them. So they suck it up.

It's frustrating when people say "just talk to a woman", as if all women have the same perspective on this, or women are the only ones who experience it. It's itself a sexist thing to say. I know women who don't have this kind of victim mentality and they're happier for it.

Yeah, harassment is is part of life. Just accept it, right!?

WTF? How low should our standards as a society be!?

It is hard to be funny without referring to anything about the current situation.

This counts as an inflammatory statement. Even thinking this is beneath a person of fairness. Those are people too. And you may not like the era they were in and you may want to redefine the era of today to some lala make-believe, but at no point should you disrespect and denigrate the people who don't buy in to your redefinition.

It is like saying: Windows developers are stupid and stuck in the past because they cannot get in line with programming on a mac. come on! they don't have to. And they don't want to.

Especially seen that people pushing for this to be considered harassment are the exact same demographic closing their eyes when it's pointed to them that number of actual rapes are going through the roof in Europe.

White men joking about a woman looking good: harassment. White women getting raped: eyes closed, don't want to hear about it.

And of course the overlap between polite people complimenting women that they're good looking and actual rapists is approximately zero.

Priorities, priorities.

Did I cry like a baby, no. I made jokes about their looks and mannerisms. It's called banter.

There is a line that should not be crossed, but someone making one off comments on the out of the ordinary shouldn't be classed as harassment.

I actually think humans will never be able to achieve a utopia where no one will ever be made uncomfortable for who they are. One problem is that some people are more sensitive than others. Put another way, someone will always get offended at something. At some point you have to draw a line and say everything on this side of the line is fine, and if you get upset, it's _your_ problem.

Many years ago, I used to take this advice seriously.

The feedback I got was generally along the lines of "what are you talking about?" and implications that it's weird to ask, so I stopped.

>It's something practically all women experience.

It's strange to me how so many people believe themselves to have this insight.

It is if you get leverage from it. There is a perverse incentive to have thin skin - in fact, you can get flak for not having thin enough skin, these days. I once heard someone call it "reverse CBT". I invented a game called "Take it Personal" to demonstrate how easy this is, where the participants say anodyne things to each other and are tasked with taking offense. It is an easy game, if an unhappy one.