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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think Microsoft Teams is a sexist load of male wankery

218 replies

GetUpAgain · 04/05/2020 13:09

Maybe it's just my experience, I work in STEM, but I fucking detest Teams. And now Zoom has bad press I'm being pressured into more and more Teams wankery.

In a meeting, you only see the faces of the most talkative people. As men tend to dominate meetings this makes women (who are already less-heard) less visible.

The facility to share documents and collaborate in changing them just leads to 50 million wrong versions of the almost same thing. With, ime, men cocking up what is meant to be finished, because they want the last word.

'I will share my screen' = I didn't prepare properly and will now waste your time mansplaining shit you already know.

And then Microsoft sends me this emails telling me how smart I am working. It can get to fuck. That's not how you measure productivity.

Can someone please just hack it, let's have a scandal that means we don't have to use it anymore.

OP posts:
HunterHearstHelmsley · 05/05/2020 20:44

I hate that I get constant chat notifications for meetings I was invited to but didn't attend. Fuck the fuck off! I liked Skype, you only get the chat when you are in the meeting.

I stay logged out unless I'm on a call now.

Pluckedpencil · 05/05/2020 20:50

I hate this "feature" of teams. We are an all female marketing team but it still bugs me that only loud people can be seen. In most meetings I'm mainly glancing at the people keeping quiet. You can literally get through a meeting and see only the same four faces. Why?!?! Also think it encourages people to be silent if they don't want to be seen.

FredaNerkk · 05/05/2020 20:58

I agree with OP, and all the other people who've said that they hate M Teams. Meetings are abysmal when you can only see 4 faces at a time, but there may be 7, 14 or 20 people in the meeting

ErrolTheDragon · 05/05/2020 20:58

Anyone else hate the term 'mansplaining'?

Not as much as I dislike the phenomenon.Grin

Washyourhandsyoufilthyanimal · 05/05/2020 21:07

Massive chip on your shoulder?

TheBoots · 05/05/2020 21:14

I (a woman) use Teams every day...it's not sexist. Your team is sexist. The dominating of male faces sounds like you don't have a someone competant chairing the meeting. And as for version control on documents...well my colleagues and I seem to manage perfectly well with multiple people working on multiple documents. Because we are competant.

NotTerfNorCis · 05/05/2020 21:16

I work in STEM and use Teams several times a day - never once occurred to me it was sexist!

ehtelp · 05/05/2020 22:01

In my experience (STEM academic) the people who dominate in face meetings are more likely to dominate video meetings, and this is worse in teams than zoom. And those people are more likely to be male than female.

Pluckedpencil · 05/05/2020 22:05

It is shit though in general. I much preferred HCL sametime.

RabidChinchilla · 05/05/2020 22:22

Anyone else hate the term 'mansplaining?

I certainly roll my eyes at it.

I actually bet my friend that it wouldn’t take long to be accused of mansplaining on here if I posed as a man - she thought I was exaggerating. After changing my profile name to a masculine one and reentering a thread I’d just been on, it took about five posts before I was accused. 😂

I’d even made a point of continuing my previous stance and had actually started by quoting my previous post (under former name) and saying “I agree with this because...”.

I had never been accused of mansplaining prior to that, despite having had similar discussions for several months under a more feminine username.

winniestone37 · 05/05/2020 22:31

It’s not the software it’s our society and culture !!

glennamy · 05/05/2020 22:32

Uh-ho, I think next time you should switch off and remove your vibrator before posting on Teams or MN...

EBearhug · 05/05/2020 23:16

I haven't used Teams, but I regularly use WebEx, Zoom and Skype (though not Skype for Business) and I hear around the workplace we're likely to have the option Bluejeans soon.

For me, good video conferencing software has the option of showing the full participant list without needing to scroll through photos. It will have the option of focussing on the speaker or a grid view. It will have the option of pinning some speakers (I think there's usually a maximum of 4.) It will have the option of the host being able to mute all. And it will allow only competent uses to share slides/screens. (Some of that is a host/user issue more than the tech.)

I would not allow anyone to use their camera if they don't look at their own image to ensure they aren't looking up their nostrils. I have also seen about a million ceilings in the last couple of months. You can check your image, and you can put your laptop up on books if that helps the angle, and usually you can move your camera angle (which is usually somewhere around the screen these days, so move the screen) so that it's looking at you straight on. Actually, in most meetings, I don't turn my camera on - there are certain ones I do, but it's an active choice, not default. I also prefer people to mute unless they're speaking, because keyboard sounds are annoying, and because if they're on speaker rather than headset, there's usually some feedback as it picks up the audio again, and because too many people have been caught out saying ... untactful things when they weren't on mute, but weren't the focus of the meeting, and people clearly need to think more actively about it.

Meetings, in whichever format they take, be it physical, video, or only audio, need a good chair, and there are not enough of those in business. A good chair will make sure everyone gets the opportunity to speak. If you're a woman in STEM, you do need to learn to be assertive and thick-skinned, but it can be difficult, especially on virtual meetings.

My employer has been good at ensuring all the managers have training around unconscious bias - IMO, they need to ensure everyone else gets it, too. Culture may be set from the top, but the bulk of people (and thus those who really affect it) are not at the top, so they need awareness of it, too. Although in my 20 years as a techy, I've seen plenty of conscious bias as well as the unconscious type.

Here's one example of sexist AI - and that's from Amazon, who must be one of the major users and coders of AI that currently exists. There are plenty of other examples if you google.

EBearhug · 05/05/2020 23:26

Meant to add - I'd make all my managers read Invisible Women if I could. I don't seem to have that power, though it turns out I did have the power to allow some budget to be sent on a number of copies for the office, so at least I am enabling them.

75daisies · 05/05/2020 23:38

You can see more than 4 faces. They amended this about 2 weeks ago.

Lovely13 · 05/05/2020 23:44

When you have time, read Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez. It’s nothing to do with software, but a lot about how our world is run. 😡

CherryPavlova · 05/05/2020 23:52

Isn’t it about proper chairing? We have a system using the comments facility where the chair calls people who have typed their name, put in a thumbs up sign or a comment to speak in strict order.
If someone wants to comment but not speak, they type their comment with a x at the end.
At intervals during the meeting we invite anyone who hasn’t spoken to do so and hold a silence briefly to give the quieter people opportunities.

If someone needs toshare a presentation the chair or another designated person still monitors the ‘want to speak’ messages.

EBearhug · 06/05/2020 00:17

It’s nothing to do with software, but a lot about how our world is run

How is how the world is run nothing to do with software?

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