dear man who's speaking to a room full of women

[spacefem]

I have been in rooms full of women engineers where area business sends one of its leaders to address us as part of the event. They sometimes send a man, which is fine. Sometimes the man proceeds to do very cringeworthy things in his speech. I don't want to incriminate anyone, but I want to get the word out to every man that if you're ever invited

Comments

[lepid0ptera]

ouch

[sandokai]

hah, you should totally send this to him anonymously ;) Well maybe not. Or maybe...

[slemslempike]

Yeesh.

I used to go to women in SET conferences as part of an old job, and the twin things that annoyed me outside speeches were a) men joking about feeling "outnumbered" and b) women saying how nice it was that there were men there, and that it would be nicer if there were more. I can think of almost no situations where it would be nicer if there were more men, and an event where there are already a disproportionate number of men speaking is certainly not one of them.

[mrs_dragon]

"a) men joking about feeling "outnumbered" "

God yes. My response to that in the past has been a cheerful "welcome to my world!". That usually shuts them up.

[anais_pf]

Holy moly. Say, if you have any influence at all over the powers that be in that women engineers organization, ask them if they will send this in advance to the speakers they line up for your conferences.

[sidleypkhermit]

auuuuuuuuugh D: