That sounds like you're saying the supervisor didn't do anything wrong, but rather that your coworkers took a reasonable gesture the wrong way? If so, that doesn't really jive with "One day, one of my supervisors jumped to my defense at a team event, in an awkward display of sexism"
I'm really not trying to be confrontational, just trying to understand. Is it that the "jumped to defense" thing was clearly sexist? Not asking for a direct quote, but what was the basis of the defense...something gender related, or the high quality of your work, or something else?
But the way you talk about him totally is. You shouldn't defend people who give you undeserved favors at the cost of others, if this is what he did. And you absolutely shouldn't be surprised by the consequences, if you do.
Your coworkers may have felt equally threatened by this supervisor as you did by them. Associating yourself with people like him will do you no good.
> I feel like you are totally missing why I wrote this piece by focusing on one sentence.
No doubt. People have their own agendas to play, not everybody will support yours.
that's called "blaming the victim". how do you not "associate" yourself with your own supervisor ??
And maybe my yesterday post was too harsh. I take your word that you don't want favors. But be careful with how you present this guy - I doubt that he was exactly awkward, sexist, equal and fair all at the same time :) And you wouldn't want to give appearance of rationalizing somebody who actually happens to be unfair to others, that's what I wanted to say.
Personally, I don't just take someone at their word. As they say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, in this case you seem reluctant to give any evidence. Can't you see how that might make some people a little suspicious, especially if they've observed this sort of thing before?
Providing detail would actually advance the cause of fighting harassment. It would better help everyone identify its specific forms even at companies that have diversity programs in place. In light of that, absence of detail should absolutely warrant inquiry.
That's fair enough. For what it's worth, I do have sympathy, and I do believe that some people treated her in a sexist manner.
I disagree, and that's not what I intended with my use of the word "just". It seemed to me like the poster was saying "look, no sexism here in this sub-incident" and I meant that your post wasn't just about sexism, it was about harassment.
> One day, one of my supervisors jumped to my defense at a team event, in an awkward display of sexism.
He was treating you with respect and you think it was sexist? As a male manager of female employees, what am I even supposed to do?
Extracting information from self-contradictory accounts is a bit of a black art, but this being said my guess is that he actually did something to deserve these labels just the OP isn't comfortable discussing it in detail. So calm down :)
I have to say, if the OP is comfortable in making these very grave accusations but not comfortable enough to explain what happened but just to give her assessment of the situation; it doesn't do her credibility any good.
There are a number of red flags noted throughout the comments, and much of this criticism has been met with "omg so horrible you have to believe the victim". This is a very worrying trend that will only lead to polarizing individuals into either of the hate camps; where those that rush to sympathize will create fertile grounds for false accusations and those who feel are being deceived are going to be desbelieving of actual victims.
It seems to me that the OP deliberately avoids naming concrete people and publishing whatever paper trail she has. Which is probably a good thing, after some known cases of one-sided accounts published completely with details and real names resulting in lynch mobs against the accused and sometimes also against the victim. Discussion forums are not a court, which is where you submit this kind of papers to "prove" things to one another in slightly more civilized and controlled conditions.
If you read the previous comments, she brought it up as proof that her statements were sincere.
And this is very much the "court of public opinion", which is why the author wrote this post and chose to publish it here. People will make their own judgment with direct consequences. For an accusation of this level when the story has many holes and all we have is one side, some proof is needed. If anyone's reputation can be trashed forever with an improbable accusation, any civility you speak of is doomed.