I have two children who are very bright and also have some issues. They are twice exceptional and such people tend to read as average but find life very frustrating.
They are a mix of big strengths and big weaknesses. Their weaknesses tend to hold them back and mask their strenths. Their strengths tend to cover up their weaknesses and get them called lazy or similar.
To help them figure out how to live with themselves, I ran an email list for a time where we posted articles about research into brain wiring and neurological research and discussed it in terms of "If you have such issues, how does this impact your life and identity and such?"
If everything works more or less as expected, it gives the impression that humans do things they don't actually do. It makes people THINK that humans assess life, the universe and everything in a particular way and the fact is we mostly don't.
Instead, we sort of ASSUME we are living in a particular context and we ONLY need to track a limited number of things to figure out, for example, with whom we are speaking. For many people, this is no longer true and then you get funny videos like THIS ONE that show you just how little most of us REALLY pay attention:
I have come to believe this is how so-called sexism works most of the time with most people: We have certain algorithms in mind and we try to pattern match and women more often than men simply fail to match some pattern or other and get excluded on that basis rather than on the basis of gender per se.
Are there just blatant assholes who really think "Women should be barefoot and pregnant!" or "This is no job for a woman!" or similar? Sure, they exist.
I think much more commonly, women get excluded because a woman doesn't match some criteria that someone is using as a kind of shorthand. For example, studies show that a lot of stereotypically male traits, like having a deep voice, broad shoulders or being tall, are associated with being leadership material.
Last I heard, average height for military officers was something like 6'2" and even female military officers averaged something like 5'11". This leaves out a lot of capable men. It leaves out far more women without really being about their gender per se.
This is not news and some women wear high heels to try to seem taller even though high heels are really associated with walking sexy and may be counterproductive because of it. At one time, padded shoulders in women's suit jackets were common as well.
But I think if you want to make it in this world as a woman, you need to worry less about details like that and more about something more substantive. You need to pattern-match on something in terms of knowledge, skill, experience, confidence because you know the material, etc.
Do appearances matter? Sure, they do. They matter for both men and women.
And some of the people in decision-making positions of a sort that serve as gatekeepers will exclude you for shallow reasons of that sort.
But others got to where they are precisely because they aren't that shallow and they don't do that, or at least not nearly as much as most people. You want to know what THOSE people are going to judge you on and work on those areas and fret less about what you look like.
The people who are going to dismiss you because they are hardcore sexist pigs who think women just don't belong here will dismiss you no matter how professionally you dress or behave. Yes, you need to look professional but I think you probably need to worry more about the quality of your work, which seems to be what men do as best I can tell.
They are a mix of big strengths and big weaknesses. Their weaknesses tend to hold them back and mask their strenths. Their strengths tend to cover up their weaknesses and get them called lazy or similar.
To help them figure out how to live with themselves, I ran an email list for a time where we posted articles about research into brain wiring and neurological research and discussed it in terms of "If you have such issues, how does this impact your life and identity and such?"
If everything works more or less as expected, it gives the impression that humans do things they don't actually do. It makes people THINK that humans assess life, the universe and everything in a particular way and the fact is we mostly don't.
Instead, we sort of ASSUME we are living in a particular context and we ONLY need to track a limited number of things to figure out, for example, with whom we are speaking. For many people, this is no longer true and then you get funny videos like THIS ONE that show you just how little most of us REALLY pay attention:
Person Swap Prank
I have come to believe this is how so-called sexism works most of the time with most people: We have certain algorithms in mind and we try to pattern match and women more often than men simply fail to match some pattern or other and get excluded on that basis rather than on the basis of gender per se.
Are there just blatant assholes who really think "Women should be barefoot and pregnant!" or "This is no job for a woman!" or similar? Sure, they exist.
I think much more commonly, women get excluded because a woman doesn't match some criteria that someone is using as a kind of shorthand. For example, studies show that a lot of stereotypically male traits, like having a deep voice, broad shoulders or being tall, are associated with being leadership material.
Last I heard, average height for military officers was something like 6'2" and even female military officers averaged something like 5'11". This leaves out a lot of capable men. It leaves out far more women without really being about their gender per se.
This is not news and some women wear high heels to try to seem taller even though high heels are really associated with walking sexy and may be counterproductive because of it. At one time, padded shoulders in women's suit jackets were common as well.
But I think if you want to make it in this world as a woman, you need to worry less about details like that and more about something more substantive. You need to pattern-match on something in terms of knowledge, skill, experience, confidence because you know the material, etc.
Do appearances matter? Sure, they do. They matter for both men and women.
And some of the people in decision-making positions of a sort that serve as gatekeepers will exclude you for shallow reasons of that sort.
But others got to where they are precisely because they aren't that shallow and they don't do that, or at least not nearly as much as most people. You want to know what THOSE people are going to judge you on and work on those areas and fret less about what you look like.
The people who are going to dismiss you because they are hardcore sexist pigs who think women just don't belong here will dismiss you no matter how professionally you dress or behave. Yes, you need to look professional but I think you probably need to worry more about the quality of your work, which seems to be what men do as best I can tell.