Role Reversal

  Treating men in the manner in which they treat women can be an effective response to poor treatment:

• One female computer scientist said:

  I'm much more often complimented for my dress, my hair, or my accent than for the content of what I say and do. So I just turn the compliments around and tell men how pretty their ties are, or how the cut of their jackets bring out their broad shoulders. They squirm under such scrutiny just as we do [Frenkel 1990, page 41,].

• When a group of men were unable to understand why women in the workplace were offended by posters of naked women, a woman put up a huge picture of a naked man. She was asked to take it down, communicating her point.

• Someone who does not understand why it is offensive to call a grown woman ``girl'' should be asked whether they would call an adult black male ``boy'', something that also used to be considered acceptable.
• A female computer scientist related the following story:

  [A few years ago,] I wrote to Time Magazine to register my opinion about a `humor' piece titled `Women Are Getting Out of Hand', which included lines like `Women are getting too big for their britches'. I suggested that they would not be likely to publish articles like `Blacks Are Getting Out of Hand' or sentences like `Hispanics are getting too big for their britches'.