A colleague was groped. She didn't report it. It would have likely diminished her future prospects. A friend was asked out on dates, unsolicited, multiple times by coworkers. She just had to laugh it off. Women at a previous employment reported not being taken as seriously as men in meetings, and being passed over for promotions in favour of less qualified men. A friend reported sexualized posters of women up in the office. In the chat of my company, a sexualized video of women was passed around.
I'm trans, so my challenges are a bit different. I try to hide the fact that I'm trans during interviews. A lot of people are uncomfortable with trans people (26% of Canadian men are uncomfortable moving next to one), and with interviews to see if I'm socially a good fit, that can end it. I actually changed my name to an androgynous one as to not out myself. I get misgendered at work by people who do it on purpose. I also get touched inappropriately by a coworker.
In all cases, what can you do to challenge these things without being seen as "the crazy one", "too sensitive", "party pooper", or whatever? Without hurting my finances? It's shit.
I’m a geek and don’t know the first thing about dating, but doesn’t at least one of the parties involved need to receive an unsolicited request? Isn’t that how it works?
Just asking cold calling style is not the only option for approaching such things.
This is cultural, no? I mean, I have a personal rule of never dating coworkers, but I have friends elsewhere in the world where this isn't such a strange notion.
And tech has the additional problem that women are under-represented so they get propositioned a lot.