Washing away apparent gender bias conveyed in an original poster’s question?

Question

I'm a little disturbed by the edit history of and comments on the question originally titled Male seinor [sic] architect bullying junior female developer. What to do?

Edit #4 has the comment "Took out gender from the question. Based on quotes given, no basis for the assumption that it is a sexism problem." However, the questioner clearly felt strongly enough that this is a gender issue to put that in the title, and which is absolutely basis for assuming that it is a gender issue.

To put it bluntly, it looks to me like: a junior female developer came here for help addressing a workplace problem she perceives to have a component sexism as described, and then people showed up and said "that doesn't look like a valid description of your problem from here, so we're making it into a different question and answering that instead". And, while I'm not saying that the people making the edits and comments to the same effect are doing so from intentional sexism — it does seem relevant that they have male names and avatars.

How disheartening for the questioner! Not only is she experiencing a problem in the workplace, but when she asks for help, her concern is dismissed like that.

Answer 1

I made the edit to the question. Here's my viewpoint.

If it's a sexism thing, show evidence. As a result, the question will be closed because it's an HR concern, which is out of scope of The Workplace.

If it's not a sexism thing, take gender out of the question, since it will only muddy the results.

It was a simple change, I specifically mentioned it in my edit to the question. It's definitely worth discussing, though.

Answer 2

My answer to that question unequivocally states that I did not—and do not—see any gender bias in the meat of the question.

That said, I do not believe it is anyone’s role but the original poster to address that issue/discrepancy. The reason being that there might be some gender bias but in the desire to post the original poster forgot to add those details. So comments encouraging clarification are worth making.

But the idea that someone else—and let’s face it, mostly men—would take it on their own to wash away the gender aspect without true consent from the original poster is past face-palm-worthy. To attempt to bring “balance to the force” so-to-say, I re-edited the question to bring gender back into the mix.

I believe the title as it stands now works to focus the issue on the conflict with the added “icing” of the potential gender bias mixed into the whole thing.

And in general I believe that when it comes to claims of gender bias—or any race bias—we all need to assume good faith and trust the original poster might have a good reason to mention such a detail unless they prove otherwise in comments or replies.

And again, I do not believe that the issue is gender biased based on current evidence prevented, but just jumping in and wiping away gender from the question is a slippery slope that none of us should be on.

Always assume good faith and always be faithful to the original poster’s intent; washing gender away conflicts with the original poster’s intent.

Answer 3

Don't jump to conclusions please. Sexism in the workplace is an insidious and pervasive problem. But suggesting that the Patriarchy is trying to hide the problem by "washing away gender bias" is ludicrous. Stack Exchange has a policy of editing questions, sometimes drastically, to focus them on a core question, clean up the language and cut out fluff. The OP identifying the gender of the people involved and even her mention of his comment on wishing "there were more women in this industry" is not at all an indicator that there's a gender issue at play.

There is no reason to believe that the gender of the individuals involved contributed to the problem or is in any way relevant for potential answers.

As BlueRaja says, including gender, especially so prominently in the title (which I've since edited again), risks making it a red herring.

If sexism is truly relevant, then that should be clarified in the comments. The OP can provide more detail and that can then be worked into the post. In the absence of evidence that gender was really important for the question, these edits are perfectly fine because they make the post easier to read and cut out elements of the story that aren't truly relevant to the situation. These edits should be made quickly and drastically to ensure that we don't leave poorly formatted or ill-defined posts on the site. As expected this ended up on HNQ and I would much rather see a polished question with a clear scope there instead of yet another poorly written, unedited mess that every answerer interprets differently.

All this in mind, I've reverted JakeGould's edit. And please remember that the OP is a woman or female but she's not "a female".

Edit (2015-12-11)

The OP has been active on the site but has so far not truly commented on whether sexism is at play here. The fact that she actually uses "lol" in her comments alone is enough to assume that her word choices in the original version of the question are not well thought out and should not be taken as gospel that she feels discriminated against. Besides that the only gender-related comment I've found by the OP is here:

When a man is rude to a woman of course she will think it has to do with gender especially if it's an irrational reason to be rude.

People are rude. Sometimes irationally so. To ascribe sexism to a person just because he has a short fuse or is growing annoyed by a junior hire's constant questions interrupting him is downright foolish. Given that the OP has no actual sexist remarks to reproduce and has, in fact, not made any allegations of sexism in her post, I'm going to assume that sexism is not a factor here.

Edit (2015-12-12)

The OP has just updated the question herself to remove all references to male/female from the title and added an edit to explain that gender bias was not part of the issue. Given that she accepted an answer and took the time to return to the question with an edit I'm assuming that she didn't feel "disheartened" by our supposedly callous removal of gender from the question, but I can only imagine what she must think of the resulting edit war and bickering on meta.

Answer 4

All our work relationships are modified by social context. Gender is not an arbitrary piece of irrelevant information: in many human contexts, it has real effects on how we interact even if we'd like it not to.

The question could equally have been edited to remove the reference to the technology industry and make it a question purely about seniority. But it wasn't, and the job titles etc were rightly left in.

The question was about how to deal with condescending behaviour - which could plausibly be attributed in part or in full to a sexist attitude on the part of the senior developer; in practice, most of the answers attributed the behaviour in part or in full to the inclinations of senior developers (although the interaction between male socialisation and developer culture might be worth pondering, it's perhaps beyond the scope of a useful answer here).

We should welcome OPs providing potentially relevant contextual information, and leave it open to answers to identify the crucial pieces. We certainly should not be removing information the OP thinks is relevant without very good reason.

Answer 5

I can see where Garrison is coming from. I don't believe that her question adequately explained why she believed it to be a case of sexism. Everything in the body just indicated that it was a condescending senior developer. She never said anything about him making sexist remarks or him acting differently toward her compared to her male coworkers.

That said, I disagree with the edit on the grounds that it removed something from the question that OP felt was important enough to include. Comments and/or answers should have been used to address the issue, not an edit.

Answer 6

When a person perceives behaviour as sexist, this perception is relevant regardless of any evidence of sexism. Sexism is not a black and white issue. The OP is not required to provide statistical evidence that her colleague is statistically significantly more condescending toward young females than toward young males. Her perception of sexism does not mean the colleague is guilty of sexism. Even if she perceives sexism where there isn't any, her perception affects the workplace. Therefore, her perception alone is enough to make it sufficiently relevant for inclusion in the question.

The Workplace SE is not a tribunal. If the OP believes sexism is relevant for the situation then it is relevant for the question. Xe is not obliged to provide evidence at this point.

The same applies to discrimination based on race, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation, neurological configuration, etc.

Answer 7

Edit: The OP has now edited the question, so this answer no longer applies. The OP gets to make these decisions; I just don't think the rest of us do.

(I am speaking as a user with editing privileges, not speaking for the mod team. I haven't consulted them.)

This edit made too big a change and we have no evidence that the OP approves of the change, so I have restored the original title and the sentence about possible gender motivation.

Whether we think there is gender bias does not matter. The OP perceives possible bias and made that part of her question. It's fine to challenge the premise of a question in an answer, explaining that that doesn't look like bias because (reasons) and maybe instead it's (alternative interpretation). And of course it's appropriate to ask clarifying questions in comments (e.g. asking if he does this to everybody or just her). But deciding that we know what the OP should have asked and rewriting the question to ask that instead goes too far.

I have not reviewed all the answers to see if my edit invalidated any of them. Since the edit should not have been made in the first place, I'm willing to live with that. As it turns out, nothing was invalidated.

Answer 8

This happens all the time on every SE site. Someone comes in and asks:

I want to clean my toilet with my toothbrush. Should I use cleaning powder or gel?

And he will get answers revolving around cleaning options out there, but none of the answers will really tackle the original question, because it makes no sense: it's unhygienic and impractical. Eventually the original question may get edited to reflect the actual problem the OP is facing, not the one he asked about.

It's up to the OP to argue and prove that his original question makes sense, if he wants that exact question answered. For example, he may state that he's trapped on an isolated island with a toothbrush plant and a limited stock of cleaning products, so answers about cleaning companies in NY are not helping him. But unless a reasonable explanation is given, none of the questions' statements should be considered set in stone.

Should we decide that questions are sacred and should only be answered as is, the whole SE network will soon be busy figuring out how to install Windows 10 on EXT4 partition, power up a laptop using hamsters, or where to download a compiler which can solve the halting problem.

Accepting without proof that the OP suffered from gender discrimination would lead to terrible advice, like filing a complaint to HR or starting a lawsuit. It's just like suggesting that someone should soak their toothbrush in Domestos and rub his toiled with it.