okay I don't really know how to say this, but in my limited and man-centric experience the sexism that I've seen has nothing to do with an ambiguous relationship or sexual tension and everything to do with toxic attitudes towards women. The guy who says "you should be making babies" to a woman engineer is not trying to avoid some kind of "gray zone" caused by getting too close to this woman and deciding between a professional or romantic relationship, he's just an asshole. The guy who says "I don't hire women" isn't doing this because he's afraid of falling in love with them, he's just an asshole.
I think that this idea gets dangerously close to an idea that men and women cannot be friends without romantic feelings spontaneously forming. I think that's crap. It might be true when you're a teenager, but when you grow up I don't think it's an excuse any more. I think that people use "women and men can't be friends" as a lead-in to "and that's why women should stay at home", and that's why it's super confusing to read about it from this perspective.
The kind of sexism you describe in your first paragraph is incredibly easy to see. It's the kind of sexism you'd see in a movie, and it does happen. But I think we have come far enough to know that if someone said "you should be making babies" seriously to someone else, it wouldn't be tolerated. In short, I think your experience is definitely "limited and man-centric". Talk to your female friends more and see if they agree with your experience.
I'm not a woman, but intuitively I would bet that the awkward gray zone stuff is a much larger part of what makes women uncomfortable in an office setting. In fact, I have seen the gray zone affect my girlfriends and close friends who are women. It's a much bigger problem than the few true misogynists out there.
I'm not sure I agree totally with you. I've talked about this a lot with my women friends and in 2014 consistent complaints I hear are people using diminutive or sexist language towards women in professional contexts. It's just that blatant and it's totally tolerated, across government, academia and industry. It takes a lot of effort to stick your head up and say "I'm sorry, I don't want that to happen" and some friends of mine have just stopped trying and go with it because fighting it and working professionally is just too hard.
I'd be interested in seeing if the gray zone exists in an office that's absent toxic attitudes towards women but in ten years of working I haven't seen such an office. The women are uncomfortable because John leers at them when they walk past his office, or everyone keeps asking Mary to take notes at the meeting and fetch coffee, or Joe keeps talking about porn on his lunch break. You should read Nancy Hauge's "Consulting Adult" series about life working at Sun - it was depressing how little had changed in a corporate setting with regards to the treatment of women! In my experience at least...
im a guy and apparently im cute enough so that i sometimes get "sexy jokes" from women at my office. Everyone sees it as good fun. Even me. It's not that bad, and if anything I suppose I'm a little flattered - even if i've ZERO interest in the person and I'm in a work environment.
I'm not making any joke back to them tho. It's risky, and I don't want problems with anyone, anyway, I frankly think it's not worth my time.
I however see posts, tweets, blogs etc from coworkers who blame other men.
Example: "we're going bro-coding tonight, anyone wanna join?"
To them that means "women not allowed". It says brothers. Some even threaten others of legal action and talk about it in public too, trying to shame people.
The disconnect is HUGE. To be blunt, I think they're fucking crazy.
It seems like there are two distinct problems, and the one Michelle is writing about involves all of the self-proclaimed "good guys" (myself included).
I'm of the opinion that some boys need to be taught how to treat women right, because it doesn't come naturally to them. I'm not sure how we're going to fix this, though, because integrating it into the church doesn't work, and it's too much of a political hot potato to integrate into the traditional school system.
I imagine that some people have to "grow up" too fast if their start-up becomes successful, and it wouldn't surprise me if some of the skills that they should acquire (like learning how to treat women in a professional but friendly manner) end up left by the wayside in the rush to grow the company. (I recall when Mark Zuckerburg had to do lots of public speaking training three or four years ago; he had just made a fool of himself on a late-night talk show and The Social Network was just coming out. Not a perfect analogy, but I can see the parallels of having training in this department, too.)
I think that this idea gets dangerously close to an idea that men and women cannot be friends without romantic feelings spontaneously forming. I think that's crap. It might be true when you're a teenager, but when you grow up I don't think it's an excuse any more. I think that people use "women and men can't be friends" as a lead-in to "and that's why women should stay at home", and that's why it's super confusing to read about it from this perspective.