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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 | 2 comments | 06 Nov 24 00:24 UTC | HN request time: 1.225s | 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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dowager_dan99 ◴[06 Nov 24 16:31 UTC] No.42064775[source]▶
I'm now a soft-hands, academic-type but worked in a metal fabrication shop all through my schooling. Your read is very accurate. I still get her perspective though, because even as a male, white, straight, married guy in a shop full of the same I found it exhausting.
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DiggyJohnson ◴[06 Nov 24 17:11 UTC] No.42065489[source]▶
What did you find exhausting, specifically? Just trying to understand your comment.
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jvanderbot ◴[06 Nov 24 17:32 UTC] No.42065868[source]▶
Not GP, but I've made similar transitions:

> Shop talk and banter are fairly universal. Any difference is going to be a target.

Can be exhausting. You have to either join in, be a target, or both.

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ein0p ◴[06 Nov 24 18:18 UTC] No.42066704[source]▶
So can "corporate talk" at a white collar job. There are days where I want to vomit after hearing about "stakeholders", "action items", and "alignment". I'd prefer crude jokes to that, even if they were directed at me.
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jvanderbot ◴[06 Nov 24 18:32 UTC] No.42066987[source]▶
It's a little different when people are regularly talking about your genitals or sexual preferences or histories or your family reputation. And in public. And in team meetings.

That kind of thing rarely comes up in corporate america. In corp/academia people just like to imply you're lazy or unintelligent, subtly and frequently. But yeah, white collar jobs are annoying as well. That's why we all get paid to do them.

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1. DiggyJohnson ◴[06 Nov 24 21:19 UTC] No.42069577[source]▶
I think everyone else is assuming a different level and amount of personal insults when we discuss “shop talk”.
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2. johnnyanmac ◴[06 Nov 24 22:39 UTC] No.42070665[source]▶
Because I've heard different levels and amounts of insults. It can just be some harmless dad jokes and softball stuff you'd hear in white collar work. It can just be outright sexual harassment. It depends so much on your environment that it's hard to pin down a universal "standard" .