The boys club

[EternallyBored]

Crazy idea...ask the women why they left. Hell, ask everyone. We can presume to know why people stop doing things, but it may not always be what we think. Ending sexism isn't having everything be half men half women, just letting people not be limited on what they do or want to do based on their sex (or gender). The thing of it is, men and women stereotypically want and prefer different things, and even without ANY sexism, things will naturally filter out un-evenly. We cant, or at least should not force people to do what they don't want to just to fill some quota of sexes. Some activities are just inclined towards masculine people, and masculine people will be more inclined to do them, and men more often are more masculine than women even without any macho BS.

Uh, hate to break it to you, but they already do that, asking I mean, and while not every woman leaves for the same reasons, there have been enough telling stories about the environment and being stifled by professions that don'tseem to want them there, enough to make asking about whether or not the environment is actively chasing people of a certain demographic away, a valid question, if maybe not one with a clear cut answer.

As someone who worked in a massively male dominated field in security and switched to a female dominated field in Social Work, specifically in child services, I can tell you that plenty of women left the former, and men the latter, because they felt unwelcome or faced unique hardships because people judged them based on their profession and their co-workers made them feel unwelcome.

50/50 should indeed not be our goal, but the OP doesn't seem to be about trying to attract more people that weren't interested into a field, it was specifically talking about people that wanted to get into the field but left for various reasons.

A lot of the women I knew in security, and the men in social work left because they felt they were being frozen out by a group that was dominated by a single gender, creating a culture that seemed to go out of its way to exclude them, from women facing harassment and flat out being denied jobs they were physically capable of doing in security, and men being frozen out of specific sectors or talked about negatively by female co-workers in social work. While we shouldn't assume that everyone that leaves a field does so because they were chased out or made to feel unwelcome, or assume that the mistreatment is universal or that everyone in the field is guilty of it, but there are enough stories of people in various fields or trying to get into them, of facing discrimination and hardship solely because of their gender, that I believe it is worth consideration.

There is likely more than one reason that each gender dominated field is the way it is, each field likely having different factors that influence why it attracts one gender over the other: physical, cultural, sexual, psychological, a "boys/girls club" mentality is something I would say is pretty easy to see as at least one potential explanatory factor, and fixing it likely won't create a 50/50 gender split in many fields, but its worth looking into if it is actively chasing away people interested in a given profession.

 

[Saelune]

Crazy idea...ask the women why they left. Hell, ask everyone. We can presume to know why people stop doing things, but it may not always be what we think. Ending sexism isn't having everything be half men half women, just letting people not be limited on what they do or want to do based on their sex (or gender). The thing of it is, men and women stereotypically want and prefer different things, and even without ANY sexism, things will naturally filter out un-evenly. We cant, or at least should not force people to do what they don't want to just to fill some quota of sexes. Some activities are just inclined towards masculine people, and masculine people will be more inclined to do them, and men more often are more masculine than women even without any macho BS.

Uh, hate to break it to you, but they already do that, asking I mean, and while not every woman leaves for the same reasons, there have been enough telling stories about the environment and being stifled by professions that don'tseem to want them there, enough to make asking about whether or not the environment is actively chasing people of a certain demographic away, a valid question, if maybe not one with a clear cut answer.

As someone who worked in a massively male dominated field in security and switched to a female dominated field in Social Work, specifically in child services, I can tell you that plenty of women left the former, and men the latter, because they felt unwelcome or faced unique hardships because people judged them based on their profession and their co-workers made them feel unwelcome.

50/50 should indeed not be our goal, but the OP doesn't seem to be about trying to attract more people that weren't interested into a field, it was specifically talking about people that wanted to get into the field but left for various reasons.

A lot of the women I knew in security, and the men in social work left because they felt they were being frozen out by a group that was dominated by a single gender, creating a culture that seemed to go out of its way to exclude them, from women facing harassment and flat out being denied jobs they were physically capable of doing in security, and men being frozen out of specific sectors or talked about negatively by female co-workers in social work. While we shouldn't assume that everyone that leaves a field does so because they were chased out or made to feel unwelcome, or assume that the mistreatment is universal or that everyone in the field is guilty of it, but there are enough stories of people in various fields or trying to get into them, of facing discrimination and hardship solely because of their gender, that I believe it is worth consideration.

There is likely more than one reason that each gender dominated field is the way it is, each field likely having different factors that influence why it attracts one gender over the other: physical, cultural, sexual, psychological, a "boys/girls club" mentality is something I would say is pretty easy to see as at least one potential explanatory factor, and fixing it likely won't create a 50/50 gender split in many fields, but its worth looking into if it is actively chasing away people interested in a given profession.

I'm not saying blatant sexism is never the reason, but it isn't always the reason either, and if we treat it either such way then we wont ever truly fix the problem. Too many people who supposedly fight to end sexism do so in hostile or even ironically sexist ways that it doesn't fix anything and its tiring when people are so quick to assume there is some sort of conspiracy.

Sometimes water works to put out a fire, but sometimes its an electrical fire and water will only worsen things. Knowing how to deal with the issue and the real cause is just as important as fixing it.

 

[Zaeseled]

SNIP

SNAP

Pretty much this, I work at the local grocery store around the year, I'm pretty much the only guy there, during the summer we might have 2 more, but for every guy we have there's two women. And during the fall and winter I work at the local fish processing factory as well, fresh salmon is shipped here from a local breeder, we cut, gut, wash, clean, weigh and ship the fish forwards, and we have only 1 woman here, and between 7-12 men.
It's a dirty and exhausting job, so yeah of course not everyone wants to do it. But it's still a job and it needs to be done. And the pay is really good.
This is why I will never take anyone seriously when they complain that there are more men than women in the X line of work, or vice versa. Personally I think men and women are 100% capable of working in whatever field they want, but they just don't want to.

 

[Zontar]

Norway being the most egalitarian nation is not the same thing as Norway being a completely egalitarian nation. That the rest of the world is worse does not make Norway perfect in this regard. When the time comes when everyone alive in Norway was not only sent through these school programs and affirmative action, but were raised by people who were sent through them, then we can start thinking about Norway being truly egalitarian. Until then, it seems a bit odd to assume that the minute you institute some school program the entirety of society, young and old, will stop being sexist.

I think it's odd you assume that a society that would have such programs operating for about 30-40 years (depending on the specifics) would be one where we should assume everyone not raised by those raised in such a system are automatically sexist. I also have to wonder how such systems being in place so long many of those being influenced by the system who are younger of age where in fact raised by those raised under the system in question has somehow not led to any noticeable change in things. Adding another 20 or 30 years is unlikely to change things more then the past few decades have, especially when we remember that many of the things that are stereotypically more catching of interest for men and women isn't arbitrarily dictated by society but a natural outgrowth of our biology.

I also find it hard to believe that a system couldn't show any change after 30-40 years but somehow 60-70 year will, especially since the mentality behind the theory that drives it should have made a single decade be all it takes to at least show SOME change.

The Norwegian Paradox is titled as such for good reason: it is a paradox to the idea that moving towards an egalitarian society will lead to a 50/50 ratio in the work place, all evidence shows the contrary as people will naturally gravitate towards certain lines of work, not only when society does not socialize them to but actively works to prevent such socialization. Which isn't a surprise given how it's nature, not nurture.

It certainly does, but that won't stop people letting their ideology warp reality.

Exactly, which is why the nature vs nurture debate still rages on despite the fact the very work that started it all proved is it nature, and all subsequent work that has survived the riggers of falsification and peer review have as well.

Is this that one experiment where they took newborns and tested them without any control over how they were actually being treated outside of the experiment? Where people assumed that newborns simply live completely indifferent to the entirety of the world and are operating completely on inherent attention-priorities that have been coded in since birth?

No this was the experiment where a pair of twin boys had one of them accidentally have his penis cut off, and the response by the doctor was to use him as a Guinea pig to prove that gender is socialized, which resulted in him giving him a sex change operation shortly after birth and his being raised as a girl while his brother was raised as a boy.

Despite the fact that he refused to be identified and treated as a girl by age 9 (without being told of his birth state initially), his depression over his forced body change and eventual suicide, somehow the complete failure of the experiment and the fact it proved that gender is nature, not socialized, it somehow sparked a debate on the matter and has led to people genuinely believing that gender is a social construct when all evidence shows it's hard-coded into us.

Which isn't a surprise. After all if gender was actually a social construct then trans people could choose to not be trans. But such statements would be moronic to the highest degree.

 

[Autumnflame]

more often than not women are told to do " boys things" out of pc sjw narrative of take back " x "

and not out of any passion

many industries rely heavily on passion and dedication to drive them,

so they see things like science and such as too competitive and they opt out for easier less competitive classes.

its not a war on women at university,
its women choosing to pick something they are comfortable with instead of doing what their feminist overlords tell them to do

 

[Zontar]

I don't know which military you're talking about.

Canadian military, though in my time in the service I worked with a few of you Yankees and didn't notice anything. Unless it's part of weeding out the weaklings who can't handle a few words (something American society has a problem with, so I wouldn't put it past them that it would be enough reason alone) I can't say I noticed anything unusual in that regard. Your soldiers may be narcissistic, but can't say much else that's negative form the ones I've worked with.

You do understand that these are mutually exclusive insults, right? You can't insult a man by saying that he's a man.

Last time I checked outside of some parts of the fringe left no one used called a woman a women as an insult.

You mean challenging his presumably heterosexual sexuality, which occurs when you call them gay or even *gasp* a woman?

No more so then calling a straight women a lesbian or a man would, but real insults in that regard, the type that aren't thrown around as casually (because they're more likely to start a real fight) is insults about impotence. That's where the real insults start.

Thats not an insult. At least, not to him. Sure, its infuriating but its not a personal attack on one's sense of self.

I have no idea what gave you that impression, but for heterosexual men attacking the women they care about is viewed as a worst slight then attacking they themselves is. It IS a personal attack on one's sense of self when that sense of self holds up that person higher then yourself. Men overall do not care what other men call them as insults unless it harms their reputation. What we do care about, however, is the women in our lives being insulted. A mother, wife or daughter being insulted are fighting words for many.

Again, not a personal insult.

You've obviously never served in a Navy.

 

[wulf3n]

I suspect at one point that she gave herself the flu just to get a break from these assholes.

Why actually give yourself the flu instead of just faking it?

 

[Zontar]

I suspect at one point that she gave herself the flu just to get a break from these assholes.

Why actually give yourself the flu instead of just faking it?

Especially given the fact no one, not the teachers nor the students, will look into it to confirm she actually has it.

And how does one even intentionally give themselves the flu?

 

[Redryhno]

I suspect at one point that she gave herself the flu just to get a break from these assholes.

Why actually give yourself the flu instead of just faking it?

Especially given the fact no one, not the teachers nor the students, will look into it to confirm she actually has it.

And how does one even intentionally give themselves the flu?

Dunno about you, but I personally go to the nearest Children's Hospital and break into the ICU and rub the most infected child I see all over my face. Chances are Im gonna get something out of it!

 

[Silverbeard]

I.
That said, there are guys out there that do say something when someone is being a dick and saying some real sexist shit. Again, it's going to take some time, and it's going to be super painful. Also, I don't want for guys to interact with woman stiffly and feel like they have to censor themselves otherwise they get shit canned. If the woman on a job is okay with dirty jokes, tell them. If not, don't tell them when she's around. You know, common decency.

This does raise an obvious self-effacement: Specifically, how is one to know that a woman would be 'okay' with dirty jokes? I'd think that the only way to make a deduction would be to actually make a dirty joke and gauge the reaction- but by then the joke has already been made and if the woman in the example is not okay with such jokes then it's too late to take it back.
So... how is one to know?

In my own case for example, I work in a laboratory. Most of the women at my workplace are well-educated and many are much older/ have more field experience than I do. As a guy, I admit that I feel very uncomfortable talking with any of them. I feel like I need to constantly watch what I say or I'll end up annoying any number of them. I act much differently around the other guys at my lab; we'll routinely mock each other's appearance, job competency and indeed any number of things without a second thought and no-one holds even the slightest grudge.
I'm sure you'd think that I'm interacting stiffly with my female colleagues and I'll confess that that's probably true- but I don't know what else to say and I'd rather not stir anything up.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

I.
That said, there are guys out there that do say something when someone is being a dick and saying some real sexist shit. Again, it's going to take some time, and it's going to be super painful. Also, I don't want for guys to interact with woman stiffly and feel like they have to censor themselves otherwise they get shit canned. If the woman on a job is okay with dirty jokes, tell them. If not, don't tell them when she's around. You know, common decency.

This does raise an obvious self-effacement: Specifically, how is one to know that a woman would be 'okay' with dirty jokes? I'd think that the only way to make a deduction would be to actually make a dirty joke and gauge the reaction- but by then the joke has already been made and if the woman in the example is not okay with such jokes then it's too late to take it back.
So... how is one to know?

In my own case for example, I work in a laboratory. Most of the women at my workplace are well-educated and many are much older/ have more field experience than I do. As a guy, I admit that I feel very uncomfortable talking with any of them. I feel like I need to constantly watch what I say or I'll end up annoying any number of them. I act much differently around the other guys at my lab; we'll routinely mock each other's appearance, job competency and indeed any number of things without a second thought and no-one holds even the slightest grudge.
I'm sure you'd think that I'm interacting stiffly with my female colleagues and I'll confess that that's probably true- but I don't know what else to say and I'd rather not stir anything up.

I don't know about your female co-workers, but I'm pretty up-front when it comes to dirty jokes and how I feel about them.

If I hear it and they stop telling the joke because I'm in the room then I tell them it's fine. At that point I make a joke about it, and ask them to carry on. Then again, I say very questionable things at times, so that's hardly an issue.

If it's in a lab and they are older, then maybe...? I would probably ask, honestly. If not, then I would just wait until one of them mentions it. Not ideal, but it's better than getting yelled at. Fucking women, why do they have to go make things difficult?

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't give a shit about the labeling, lets just acknowledge there's a problem.

That's usually the first point of contention.

Back in my electronics courses, we were taught things like "Bad Boys Rape Our Young Girls, But Violet Gives Willingly," a mnemonic for resistor colour codes. People get offended, even hostile when you suggest this sort of thing isn't particularly cool. Just stating that there's a problem in itself generates antipathy. Because really, what are electronics and engineering without rape mnemonics?

It's difficult to address a problem people won't admit exists.

The only way to change that is to artificially suppress natural behaviours, which is very unhealthy and could lead to actual problems.

Yeah, except that's a pseudo-science argument that was used on blacks and gays, too. It sounds nice, except if it was nature, you would expect to see the same proclivities across cultures and time periods, you don't. It sounds nice, except we still actively discouraged girls from being assertive and rowdy. Except there wasn't an issue finding women in software and the like until they started actively precluding us. Except gender stereotypes change by the generation, and they're always somehow "natural."

It's the discouraging part that is against "nature." If you think that forcing people to act against their nature is harmful, then maybe don't do it. And don't support it.

 

[Something Amyss]

So because you can't lop off boys' penises and tell them they're a girl without some issues showing up, men and women are just hard coded to enter and excel at different jobs? All based on a sample size of one fucked up situation; the epitome of science that is.

It's also confusing "gender" and "gender identity."

Seriously, though, in pretty much every case where they've tried to raise a boy as a girl it's failed. this is still largely anecdotal, and with some really screwed up instances in terms of methodology, but we can't really test this on a wide scale without some ethical issues. But, I mean, you're talking to someone with gender dysphoria, and there are a bunch of others on here who could point to the fact that there is an issue when your gender identity doesn't match your body.

The pseudoscience, of course, is that if this is true it must extend to other elements. Like liking pink and cooking and...I don't know. My brother's "girlier" than I am, so stuff he does, I guess.

 

[DementedSheep]

if they do get hired to met the "gender quota" all the men unfortunate enough to be saddled with them will have to pick up their slack.

That probably stems from the fact that having gender quotas does lead to people being hired because of their gender and not because of their abilities. Which is probably why when the EU tried to force a 40% corporate boardroom membership quota for women there was an outcry from women working in the industry. Which makes sense because if someone genuinely thinks you're an affirmative action hire being present not because of your abilities but because of what's between your legs you aren't going to be taken seriously.

The idea of gender equality is just nice lie that gets striped away the instant you get out of school.

I think you're mixing up "equality" with "parity". Having the same opportunities will not lead to the same results. There are things that women are inherently better at then men and things men are inherently better at then women, and we are hard wired to try to exploit these traits we have other the other due to the fact not doing so led to death before we created civilization (and even for thousands of years after we did so).

You'll be hard pressed to find a job that naturally gets a 50/50 split because with the way men and women think and what we take interest in you're unlikely to find anything that grabs our interest that works with our abilities equally on the societal level.

I also have to wonder where your little rant about men and women both seeing women as inherently inferior comes from, because it sure doesn't stem from prolonged periods in North American English or French society, or West European mainstream society either.

Have you lived my life? are you even female? no? then don't try and tell me what I have and have not experienced.
And gender quota was in qoutations marks because it doesn't mtter whether there was one or not. Thats the only way a lot of people can comprehend you even being hired

 

[Tsun Tzu]

120 students in first year, around 40 girls.

80 students in second year, about a dozen.

35 students in third year, 3 girls.

That's a loss of 85 males to 37 females.

Why did the guys drop? Not boy enough?

This is applicable to every single industry, hobby and community really. Everyone deserves to succeed based on merit and not feel they have to behave like someone they're not in order to hold a job.

I agree. Meritocracy = Best. However, I'd argue that everyone feels that way to a certain extent about any and every job they do. Hell, I do that every single day of my life because I'm not a people person, in the slightest, yet need to interact, pleasantly, on a daily basis in order to do my job (one I enjoy) effectively.

So...does this mean there are girls clubs too? Is that an issue as well?

I personally don't see a problem with either since, if you genuinely want to do a job you love, you suck it up and do what it takes to make that a reality.

Thats not an insult. At least, not to him. Sure, its infuriating but its not a personal attack on one's sense of self.

I have no idea what gave you that impression, but for heterosexual men attacking the women they care about is viewed as a worst slight then attacking they themselves is. It IS a personal attack on one's sense of self when that sense of self holds up that person higher then yourself. Men overall do not care what other men call them as insults unless it harms their reputation. What we do care about, however, is the women in our lives being insulted. A mother, wife or daughter being insulted are fighting words for many.

Family is a reflection of the self and vice versa.

It's not even an argument. It's an insult to him.

 

[TelosSupreme]

I don't give a shit about the labeling, lets just acknowledge there's a problem.

Here's a fundamental problem with trying to 'solve' this, you're assuming there IS a problem. Is is actually a problem, are people legitimately being driven away because of how people inside already act, or are they simply choosing not to partake in this industry (you said it yourself that first year was 120 students down to 35 by third year. While 91% of women left so did 75% of men). And even if people who aren't of a certain mentality and/or fortitude aren't making it in, is that due to the fact there is a problem in not letting people without what is lacking in, or is it a key to succeeding in the industry?

I work summers in a factory processing turkeys. I work specifically in the slaughter section, where there isn't a single women to be found save federal inspectors who come by one every few hours. It's physically demanding work, it stinks and you have to deal with pretty ugly sights constantly. Not a single women has even APPLIED to try and work in the section for the past 4 years, and I'm the only student worker, male or otherwise, who didn't quit either in his first summer or simply not come back when the contract came to an end.

This is something that ticks me and everyone else in my section off. Whenever someone complains about there not being enough women in "X", it's always (unless being used as a point against such complains, or ironically) either a glamorous, idealized, or otherwise comfy job, typically high paying. It's never the low paying, gritty jobs that keep your food on your table, your lights on and you toilets running. These jobs are done to the near exclusivity by men, yet you don't see anyone seriously making complaints about that.

Here's the short of it if we're being honest, the Norwegian Paradox has long made clear men and women overall want to do different lines of work, and no ammount of programs for schools or affirmative action is going to change that. Men and women act differently, think differently, overall want to do different jobs and as a result overall do different jobs. It's hard coded into us to want to do different things, which is why you'll never have parity for the gender ratio in many lines of work. People can say it's a result of socialization, but as reality has shown over the past 50 years (and hell, the very unethical experiment which started the debate in the first place itself showed if one actually looks at its results) that is definitively not the case.

Basically every bit of this. These kind of "gender roles" can also be found in nature. I've seen studies done on chimps where they examine what activities and toys the males and females naturally choose. Funnily enough, it's virtually identical to that of human children in the western world: Boys like to play with cars and girls play with dolls. Hell, even some of the girl chimps made their own dolls out of sticks. Obviously humans will have a much wider variety of activities chosen among children, but these "gender inclinations", as it were, are a lot more ingrained that most might realize.

Don't forget that academia is also ridiculously corrupt with people desperately trying to push identity politics on their students.

 

[9tailedflame]

If there exists an environment where a certain type of humor is expected, then i personally think that those who exist in the environment shouldn't have to cater to the sensibilities of others. I think if everyone had that mentality, the would would be a horrible place with no sense of intimacy anywhere.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

120 students in first year, around 40 girls.

80 students in second year, about a dozen.

35 students in third year, 3 girls.

That's a loss of 85 males to 37 females.

There is a smaller class size in the program as the years go on. Some of the girls and guys didn't place but a lot just didn't return for various reasons.

 

[Wrex Brogan]

...as important a question to ask, I can't help but think this probably isn't the forum to be asking it, given we've already had the 'Women don't want certain jobs, it's not our fault' and 'It's only natural' arguments rear their ugly heads already. Good to see the usual excuses are trotted out despite a woman saying 'yeah it's a thing and it sucks' literally as the first reply.

But anyway. It's largely a result of weird cultural gendering that gets ingrained into things - i.e. why people find it strange when there's a female engineer or a male nurse (and why there's often mockery of those kinds of things), because over the years we've just ingrained assorted assumptions about 'which gender should play which role' out of an assortment of shitty reasons. It sucks and it's hard as hell to shift people out of that kind of thinking, since it's not really something people actually... think about. They just kinda go with it because it's what they've grown up with, and people suck at addressing their own biases.

To answer your question though... well, just include them. Don't make weird gendered assumptions about them, and call people out who try and pull that shit. Encourage people to stop thinking about people as 'That gendered role' and just as 'that role'. So instead of 'that female director' she's just 'the director'. Treat people with respect, and don't treat women with kids gloves to make them feel 'welcome'. Just treat them as people, and support them as you would any other co-worker.

As Fiz said in the first response, it's a long and painful transition. My advice is, as a man to other men? Be the change, support your female co-workers, call your male co-workers on any sexist/racist bullshit they try to pull and generally just try and encourage a shift towards respecting everyone for their ability rather than making weird assumptions about peoples gender.

If there exists an environment where a certain type of humor is expected, then i personally think that those who exist in the environment shouldn't have to cater to the sensibilities of others. I think if everyone had that mentality, the would would be a horrible place with no sense of intimacy anywhere.

...the thing is, is it really humour? I'm a gay man, and I've had numerous work places where other employees have made gay 'jokes'. Except they're not jokes, they're either broad-brushed harmful stereotypes or slapping 'gay' onto something and complaining about it being broken as a result. Like... if that's the standard of humour you're wanting to preserve in the workplace, you have some pretty low standards.

And I like gay jokes. I love 'em to death. They can be light-hearted, they can be dark, they can be rude and crude, whatever, I'm down with it. Just... include me in the joke. Don't make jokes about stereotypes or shitty assumptions, make some real proper gay jokes! Trust me, it's so much better to make a joke that actually includes gay people than just throwing out a 'lol homosexuals'. And if educating yourself on some good quality gay humour isn't up your alley - then just don't make 'em! Simple as that, don't make shitty jokes about a subject you know nothing about, make shitty jokes about things you're educated in (like, say, shit everyone at the job has to deal with), that'll go over much, much better than low-quality humour around terrible stereotypes.

In my personal experience, calling people on their lack of thought in regards to jokes doesn't result in some warped, horrible place where everyone treads on eggshells and there's no sense of community. It often results in them going 'oh, shit, really?' because they just never thought what they were saying was negative, and then putting in the effort to stop doing that and include me on the joke. No drama, no 'woe be to the office', just a moment of me going 'Hey, mate, could you not? I'm quite gay' and then them going 'Oh, shit, my bad mate' and it's all hunky-dory.

Granted, I could just be lucky since I've heard some horror stories from some fellow gay/lesbian friends in this regard and getting an overly dramatic response from whomever they're asking (people often assume 'what you're saying is hurtful' actually means 'You're a sexist, homophobic prick', which is dumb), but still. Going 'Uggh people not wanting to be made fun of by the expected humour is going to ruin the sense of intimacy in the workplace' is just... well, wrong. It isn't a bad thing to want to be included in the workplace humour, and it'd serve people a hell of a lot more if they actually included the 'others' rather than making fun of 'em.

 

[Phasmal]

Well I see the lady-issues are alive and well. Jesus christ dudes. Just.... fuckin' yikes.

OT: There's tons of reasons women don't feel welcome in male-dominated environments. It can be big things like a dude flat out telling you you don't belong there or little things like the guys around you constantly making jokes like 'hurr hurr woman interested in [x]'.
And an environment where people seem to have zero empathy or even misplaced anger towards women due to their own baggage.