Saturday night seriousness. My theme this week is #Space4Women and while I've spent some time focusing on women in space, I also want to address the blokes about what they can do to support gender equity. #WSW2020

Perhaps I'll start with a story. One day (only a couple of years ago), I was one of 2 women in a meeting of 12 or so people. The other woman was the admin person, taking minutes. #Space4Women

She left the room for 5 mins, and while she was out, the Chair had an admin question. He looked for her, and then looked straight at me. For about 10 seconds, waiting for me to respond. 10 seconds is a long time. Eventually I shrugged. #Space4Women

He shook himself as if waking from a nap, and said, 'I'm sorry Alice! I don't know why I was looking at you'. Then W**** came back into the room and he asked her the question. The meeting moved on. #Space4Women

Some time later, I was in a meeting of the same organisation and we were discussing how to change the the gender imbalance in space industry. I referred obliquely to this incident and they all looked at me with blank faces. #Space4Women

'How', I said to them, 'can you expect your good intentions to change the situation of women's participation in space, when you don't even notice sexism when it happens right under your noses?' #Space4Women

They. Hadn't. Even. Noticed. What good does male bystander intervention do, when the blokes don't observe and understand what's happening? How can you stop sexist behaviour when the blokes don't realise they've been sexist? Intentions and good will don't matter a damn.

Then they all apologised to me and said they were sorry it upset me, thus missing the point by a couple of AU and making me despair! I wasn't upset, I was illustrating my point with an example - but by this time I was starting to get pretty bloody cranky.

So there's a lot to analyse about this incident. First: the assumption that women are in service roles, not making decisions around the table. This is why he looked at me, as the only other woman in the room.