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mock-possum | on: Only 5.3% of US welders are women. After years as a professor, I became one
Why would the risk of either being injured or treating injury require you to be the target of bullying or a bully?

Wouldn’t it be in your best interest to be kind and supportive to one another in such a dangerous / difficult environment? That way everyone is happy and confident and focuses on the stresses of the job, not the stress of being bullied or being cajoled into bullying for the sake of conformity?

What you’re describing sounds like it really only appeals to a certain kind of person, and I don’t understand how that kind of person makes a better welder.

AlexandrB | parent
On some level, you're describing a difference between traditional male bonding (joking and "razzing") and traditional female bonding (being kind and supportive). Both of these can be positive and both can be toxic - bullying is an obvious case, but just ask anyone who has been in a supposedly "supportive" environment filled with backstabbing and gossip how nice that is.

I don't know why there's a need to define either of these as inferior and wrong - isn't the point of diversity to allow people from different backgrounds to take different approaches?

To me, personally, the "kind, supportive" style often comes off as insincere. It's actually a barrier to me trusting someone. But I don't know, maybe that's just me.