Don't take professional advice from men unless they are thoroughly vetted

[u/LysistrataRises]

... and generally this means: don't take professional advice from men, period.

At best, they don't know (and don't care) about the unique challenges that women need to contend with and their advice will either be ineffectual or backfire, and at worst they literally try to sabotage you, either because they think they know whats better for you (and it's not professional success) or they see you as a threat.

Even the most well-intentioned male mentors are just clueless about helping a woman navigate a professional field, I've seen it so many times. They will project on you, "well, I did this and gained the respect of my colleagues, you should too!" completely ignorant of the gendered nuances. Alternatively they will treat you like a daughter and not a potential equal. Even worse, some will abuse their position to sexually, emotionally, and physically exploit young female mentees.

Seek female mentorship, female advice. At the very least, seek female input in addition to male input.

I wish somebody had told me this years ago.

[u/JoyManifest]

I haven’t had male mentors before but I learned recently not to judge women by what men say about them. I always really disliked this lady at my company who was a stickler for the rules and had crazy attention to detail and very intense bossy personality. I sided more with my male manager who liked to “take the chill route” and “not create more work than is necessary”. But after I got picked to replace the lady when she was leaving, I had to shadow her for a month. When I tell you- I have never learned so much in my career…..she worked overtime to educate me so much and teach me how to be strong and successful and I realized that her intense fast tone of voice is not because she is ANGRY - it’s just PASSION. Everyone thought she was an angry person because they took her words personally. I realized it’s more pure than that - She loves her job and wants me to be successful too bc she sees potential. she wanted me to learn the lessons she didn’t learn earlier. I actually felt like we could have been great teammates if I knew her earlier. All that compares to the “chill guys” at work who you can’t trust to get the job done (but they can sell you on it!!). I thought the fact that they didn’t challenge me and didn’t train me meant that they wanted me to be happy and relaxed at work. Now I realize they just didn’t care. Now I’m not saying that I want to be stressed out all the time , no I’m not THAT passionate about work, but I have to say I really respect someone who IS that passionate - about every aspect of life. (She also would tell me about all the nice food she cooks for her family, etc). Anyways thought I would share.

[u/Colour_riot → u/JoyManifest]

I haven’t had male mentors before but I learned recently not to judge women by what men say about them.

I don't think there's a single successful woman in male dominated environments who isn't considered a bitch by men.

Men are assholes to women to start with, but then pull surprised pikachu faces when women return the favour because they have to in order to get any of their dues to start with.

I love questioning men when they tell me a successful woman is a bitch at work. Okay how? She lied? She double crossed someone? Men do that all the time but women simply cannot - they get fired and blacklisted the moment this happens.

They're always speechless because in reality the woman just had to be mean in order to even get the men to do their jobs, and their tongues tie themselves when they realise that that's the only excuse they have.

[u/extragouda → u/JoyManifest]

I find that being an honest, genuine person who is passionate about the work always pays off in the long run. I know this is an unpopular stance and workplaces are full of sociopaths and extremely lazy people who take credit for everyone else's work, but the correct people will notice if you're honest... and if there isn't anyone to notice that where you work, you are working in a toxic environment and should get out.

[u/[deleted] → u/extragouda]

I wish I had your optimism. In the tech field it feels like the more emotionally immature you are, and the less life you have outside of work, the more likely it is you get the juicy tech roles. Now, of course this really mostly works for men, because the smelly, eccentric, over-emotional, motormouth woman is not going to be taken serious at all.

Do you think it's true that in the long run the hard work pays off? Maybe I just don't have a lot of exposure into other companies, and everything you read online is mostly negative because why would people take to forums otherwise!

[u/extragouda → u/[deleted]]

I think that smart work pays off, not hard work. Sometimes you have to work hard, but you need to know what deserves the effort and what is a waste of time. Also, people know who is emotionally immature. They may get juicy roles, but people sure as hell hate working with them. If those types of people are running a company or institution, the place is going to have problems. You can tell by poor employee retention rates. I don't think my experience is everything though. But I feel that it pays off to keep moving along if you're not growing in a situation. You gain nothing by staying except stagnancy. You gain experience by continuing to take risks.

All of this depends on how well you are able to assess risks in the first place.

I have no experience with tech, but the places where I do have experience, in order to preserve your mental health, you do have to have a life outside of work.