Yesterday, Kotaku published a piece by Rachel Edidin that went by the title "She Was Harassed By A Games Reporter. Now She's Speaking Out." While it was structured around telling the story of Alice Mercier (not her real name) a female member of the video games industry who recently anonymously publicized her sexual harassment on Facebook by a male peer, the piece also focused on how infuriatingly, personally familiar Mercier's story is to many women working in video games and the wider tech industry. Even so, despite the the entire article clearly laying out the reasons why women find it socially difficult and professionally dangerous to speak up about sexist behavior in the tech industry, it left lots of people asking why all of these ladies didn't "shut him down," "complain to HR," or "go public."
Folks banded together with the #thatwoman hashtag to point out that one of the reasons is that pushing back against harassment or biased treatment, no matter how clear a case, can and even tends to follow and negatively affect the victim just as much as the accused. Nobody wants to become that woman.
To survive in a male-dominated workplace you ignore so much lowgrade harassment/sexism or you're #thatwoman and you won't have a job anymore
— Shanley (@shanley) January 28, 2014
i sometimes worry that my opinionated outbursts come across as hysterical or emotional. would i if i were a man? #thatwoman
— Duana Saskia (@starkcoffee) January 29, 2014
I was once repeatedly called "team mom" by a coworker, and I told him I didn't get a master's degree in CS to be his mom :) #thatwoman
— Kate Heddleston (@heddle317) January 29, 2014
To be #thatwoman: being told at many jobs that my tone should be more demure, a word that literally describes only WOMEN’s behavior.
— Aki Rose (@gesa) January 28, 2014
Friend interviewed @ a startup, they gave her a lowball offer, she negotiated, CEO wrote back saying he was "personally offended" #thatwoman
— Katherine Elliott (@kelliotttt) January 28, 2014
@shanley Even outside corporate world, terrified to discuss darkest experiences. Being marked #thatwoman permanently takes focus off work.
— Allison House (@house) January 28, 2014
This article originally published at The Mary Sue here
The Mary Sue is a Mashable publishing partner that hopes to be a place for two things: highlighting women in the geek world and providing a prominent place for the voices of geek women. This article is reprinted with the publisher's permission.