“Women are also more likely to care about what other people think, simply because they are more likely to be at risk if they piss off the wrong person. Men can usually be a bit more chill because less of the population can threaten them. So it’s entirely possible that those two men don’t care because they know no one is going to kick their ass, so there’s nothing to get upset about.”

This is an important factor, and not always a gender thing. I can be thick skinned at my work because I don’t care, if that makes sense. For whatever incomprehensible reason, management where I work thinks I do a better job than others in my department even though I give them all credit and make as many mistakes. So I say what I mean in meetings and the other ladies are amazed that I push so much, one is convinced she’s on the brink of being fired all the time, I have mostly worked at startups and never got in the habit of deferring to management and so I don’t.

That’s just work though. We don’t have much politics here. My one experience with a place like that, with complicated underlying relationships, cliques and people trying to undercut others, I was absolutely useless, no idea how anyone navigates all that. It did affect me, I did feel lost and upset and frustrated.