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

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254 points Michelangelo11 | 1 comments | 06 Nov 24 00:24 UTC | HN request time: 0.374s | source
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naming_the_user ◴[06 Nov 24 01:47 UTC] No.42056718[source]▶
What comes across from the article to me is the class barrier more than the gender one - basically it's a posh person finding out what the "real world" looks like.

Shop talk and banter are fairly universal. Any difference is going to be a target. Thin bloke who doesn't look strong enough? Ginger hair? Tall guy, short guy? Weird tattoo, etc. Definitely the one black guy or the one white guy is going to get shit. But is it malicious? Almost certainly not.

The other thing, which in my experience is relatively common worldwide, is that working class communities are more accepting of male-female dynamics. In academia and in highbrow society the tendency is to basically sanitise every social interaction. When you're in an environment where that isn't happening then you can't suddenly ignore it any more.

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esperent ◴[06 Nov 24 04:11 UTC] No.42057157[source]▶
> But is it malicious? Almost certainly not.

Honestly, it often will be malicious, or will quickly become malicious if you don't take it graciously. And why should you? It's not acceptable to make fun of people for being skinny, ginger, shy, black, white, female, or any other things that the in group considers non-standard for whatever weird reasons.

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1. wruza ◴[06 Nov 24 19:10 UTC] No.42067631[source]▶
It’s not just fun, but the least offensive way of establishing hierarchy, which is required to form a group, in men. They ask you who you are. A reference to some rule (e.g. what’s acceptable) is by definition a confrontation. A refusal to position yourself in a group, which is tested/offered by poking a person, makes you a questionable element in it. Yes, all this is mostly pointless in a modern life. But that’s how an average hunting-age male works.

The attributes and reasons do not matter in isolation. They will find where to poke even if you’re a twin of one of the group members. Red hair is just the obvious one to use.

The alternative is going to the office, filtering thoughts in your mouth and reporting slight misspeaks and inappropriately timed eye contacts to a special manager who then decides who’s higher in hierarchy according to some rules.