If anything, I think women generally have _better_ communication skills than men.

You do realize that we're talking in vast generalizations here. Engineers run the gamut; there will be sexist, racist and bigoted engineers too. But my experience in nearly 20 years of being in the field has been that engineers, _in general_, are more egalitarian. If someone comes up with cool shit, no one cares whether that person is a woman, or a man, or what color his/her skin is; if it's cool, everyone goes "oooh!" and s/he gets instant respect.

It's still status-seeking behaviour, just with different totems.

An alternative is being encouraged to go into product / management roles (read: out of engineering) because you've got "communication skills."

Yes! I can't tell you how many people have tried to steer me away from development because I speak human AND code, and can actually make eye contact.

What's eye contact for, anyway? I can read body language reasonably well, but I always feel like people are expecting me to do something with my eyes and I can never tell what, exactly, I'm supposed to do with them.

Basically you're supposed to look at their eyes for 5-7 seconds at a go. Then look away but not at their chest (regardless of sex). Flick to something behind and above them, glance at a window or clock or other feature in the area.

If you don't like their eyes, focus on the bridge of their nose, they won't be able to tell the difference.

For neurotypicals, it creates sensations of companionship and trust, until it goes on too long and then it becomes creepy and uncomfortable for them.

Some of us have significant hearing loss. Eye contact (better stated face contact) provides a lot of non-verbal cues as to what the %!*^&%! you're saying. It's not quite lip-reading, but I think it's getting additional information about where the syllable breaks are.

"The eyes of men converse as much their tongues." ~ http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/he-speaks-she-speaks/201...

Then you're safe! No management role for you!

Phew! :-P

I got used to it over time, but sometimes it nags at me.