I laughed. I did!

Let me tell you a story about two women I know, Barb and Ellie, who are both engineers and both worked for the same firm. The male-to-female ratio is about 20:1.

They are both very good at their work. They are both professionally respected. They have both received merit raises and promotions in recognition of this fact. But one of them is deliberately isolated socially by the men and the other is not.

Barb was considered "one of the guys", except when she was everybody's little sister. She got asked to informal social gatherings, and was generally included in the fun stuff. She took all the sex humor in stride, though every so often she blew up. The guys got all bewildered and made remarks about PMS, but things would settle down pretty fast and everything would be OK again.

Ellie, on the other hand, never put up with any of the sex humor. She always made it plain that she considered it offensive, and that she would consider any repetition of it in her presence as harrassment. The result is, no one spoke to her about anything but business and buying Girl Scout cookies for their daughters. She only attended company social functions that were open to everyone. She was never included in the ordinary fooling around or the informal gatherings after work or on the weekends. She was treated with great respect in the office and on site, but was called "The Ice Princess" and "The Bitch" when she wasn't there. She knew this, but made no issue of it as long as she was treated professionally in her presence and it didn't impede her work in a way that was meaningful for her.

Guess which woman quit.

If you answered "Ellie", you're wrong. Barb eventually couldn't take suppressing her own feelings and swallowing things she hated so she could get some level of acceptance from the people she worked with, many of whom she genuinely liked. They liked and accepted a mask. The stress of maintaining that identity was too much for her, so she went to work somewhere else with stricter personnel policies, so she didn't have to deal with all the garbage and she didn't have to adopt Ellie's attitude either. They guys miss Barb, but they don't have a clue why she really quit.

Ellie is still at that company. She's risen high in the ranks. They still call her "Bitch", but they still don't do it to her face.

Thanks--
Mary Anne