The first example, the HR one - where you just assume the women are the non-technical personnel and the men are the technical personnel? That one I believe because I know I've done it myself numerous times.
Too often this debate is painted as a battle of good vs evil, either derisively by its detractors or heroically by the firebrands. It's not good versus evil. It's just natural habits we've built up because technical women are really freaking rare. When I'm being interviewed by a woman, I assume she's HR and not tech because I think less of women... but because 90% of the HR people I've been interviewed by were women, and 100% of the technical people I've been interviewed by were men.
It's not some evil decision to keep women down, not even any kind of sexism of thinking less of women... just subconscious assumptions because we're used to the fact that the ladies in the room aren't really part of the technical side of the discussion.
Spot on about a lot of it being unconscious assumptions, not premeditated evil.
But that doesn't make it any different from the point of view of the recipient of such treatment. In some ways it's worse, because people don't even _realize_ how they're treating you, which they sure would if they were doing it on purpose.
This sort of subconscious cultural assumption is _exactly_ how discrimination can easily happen even when no one is explicitly out to get anyone else, and is one of the most important things to try to address...
Too often this debate is painted as a battle of good vs evil, either derisively by its detractors or heroically by the firebrands. It's not good versus evil. It's just natural habits we've built up because technical women are really freaking rare. When I'm being interviewed by a woman, I assume she's HR and not tech because I think less of women... but because 90% of the HR people I've been interviewed by were women, and 100% of the technical people I've been interviewed by were men.
It's not some evil decision to keep women down, not even any kind of sexism of thinking less of women... just subconscious assumptions because we're used to the fact that the ladies in the room aren't really part of the technical side of the discussion.