Let's assume I need to find an employee to act as a middleman/ link between two teams: IT and my team.

Whereas my team (and most of the company) is quite a nice place to work in in terms of diversity, cooperation and lack of hostility, the IT at my company is the nightmare:

• There are no women there. I don't mean that women don't constitute 50% of the employees. I mean: there's literally no woman there. Not one.


• The atmosphere is extremely "testosterony". Jokes are told that should never be told in the workplace


• Women aren't treated seriously during discussions, their input is neglected.

I don't have any power over the other team and talks with their manager brought nothing so far. Their manager is part of the problem. I know them from projects we cooperated on. I've worked in enough places to say that the IT dept at my current company is worse in terms of sexism than... Probably all of them.

Now, I need to employ someone who will act as a link between the two teams.

I'm now about to interview a female candidate who seems smart and whose experience is ok. But I caught myself thinking: "If I employ a woman, it will be hell for her to work with the other team and the probability she will resign soon is high".

I know this thought is totally sexist, but I'm a woman myself and I know how super difficult it is to work in a team where everybody is against you just because you don't have the "right" reproductive organs and especially with this team.

So I'm wondering what the best way to deal with this situation would be. I know I could mention to the candidates that it's not an easy position and ask the how they tackled difficulties in the past, but I'm skeptical when it comes to their realisation of the potential difficulties of this position. It's just worse than what is accepted in most companies.

Please note that this person would need to work with both teams about 50-50% of the time.

Due to legal implications I would not let this factor into a hiring decision at all. I would, however, make sure that she knows that this should be a consideration in her accepting or declining. By not being open you would potentially set her up for a job she may be miserable at. Phrasing this is also kind of tricky so I'd suggest meeting both teams that she'd be working with as part of the hiring process.

You'll be spending about 50% of your time working in the IT team and 50% with my team. I'd like to book a couple hours of on-site time to meet with both to get a feeling for how well you'll click with them both. The teams have very different internal cultures and it's important to me that you are comfortable working with both.

This keeps you from saying anything that opens you up to legal issues while allowing her a chance for a peek behind the curtain.

If you're in the US, you are in very murky waters if you start treating applicants differently because of their perceived sex. According to the EEOC, that includes formal inquiries as well as informal. From the EEOC's list of prohibited practices:

Although state and federal equal opportunity laws do not clearly forbid employers from making pre-employment inquiries that relate to, or disproportionately screen out members based on race, color, sex, national origin, religion, or age, such inquiries may be used as evidence of an employer's intent to discriminate unless the questions asked can be justified by some business purpose.

I am not a lawyer, but I have some experience with laws around discrimination in housing, which are similar. In housing, having different pointed conversations with people according to a protected category is generally a giant waving red flag that you are running afoul of US law.

As someone who has been a woman in tech, though, it's a frustrating, no-win situation to be hiring people into a hostile workplace. So, what to do?

• Continue to ask your questions about how the interviewee dealt with challenging work situations in the past.


• If your HR department is halfway decent, they'll want to know about this behavior. If your IT department is so bad that you're considering not hiring women, they are likely creating a hostile work environment, which opens your company to a lot of liability. The HR department also may have ideas for how to conduct interviews without discrimination.


• On that note, ask experts in maintaining diversity in bad situations. AAUW, Hire More Women in Tech, and many other groups have come up with excellent suggestions for just this scenario.

But, again, the assumptions you're making are unfortunately explicitly prohibited by the EEOC. You cannot base employment decisions on assumptions that are based on someone's sex, race, national origin, age, and other protected categories. Even if your heart is in the right place.

First off, don't assume that the woman you intend to hire is too weak to handle herself.

We have two women working here, and I wouldn't want to take on either one in a verbal conflict. One of them could probably take me in a physical conflict too, and curses far more than I do.

Second, don't assume the team will react poorly. There is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Third, avoid sexism on your own part..... This line disturbs me a bit.

•The atmosphere is extremely "testosterony". Jokes are told that should never be told in the workplace

That's a rather sexist point of view that implies that there's something inherently wrong with male hormones. Honestly, if you were at my workplace with that attitude, you'd not be well received, principally by the woman I mentioned above. Also, if the behavior is unacceptable, why is it being accepted? Honestly, if it's that bad, it should be addressed before hiring ANYONE, male or female, to that team.

Men do not have a monopoly on bad behavior.
Testosterone is not inherently bad, estrogen is not inherently good.

You need to step back, stop making this men vs women, and make it about building a healthy team.

If you anticipate problems, you'll get them. IF you go in with the attitude that you're going to be building a healthy team, you will build a healthy team.

If any issues arise, address them as they arise, and don't accept nonsense.

Back to my first point.

Isn't your assumption that this woman can't handle herself a bit sexist on your part as well?

Step back, reevaluate the situation, make changes that need to be made, correct behavior NOW and THEN introduce the new teammate. But do not allow your own biases to creep in. Hire the person, and deal with any issues that arise swiftly, and harshly, with trips to HR if necessary.

You want to make the situation clear when you offer the position (if not in the interview before). There are some women who will decide the job isn't for them. But there are others who would be willing to take the job and that situation. You want to know before hiring this candidate which one she thinks she is, and let her decide if this is a good job for her.

If she decides this is a job she wants to take on, then you offer support and ways for her to mitigate the problem, perhaps by going above their manager when necessary. (As a women in tech, I still believe that most of the most sub-human of co-workers can learn to respect competence.) But for the actual figuring out how to make that happen - that will have to be up to the person you hire. They just need to know going in that that is part of the job, perhaps the biggest part.

If the best person for this job is a woman, you absolutely want to hire her. Because as long as the only people they need to respect and work with are men, and their manager supports them in that, they will continue their present behavior. If they must work with a woman, there is some hope that the right hire can start changing that dynamic.