Hermione Syndrome

“That is the second time you have spoken out of turn, Miss Granger,” said Snape coolly. “Five more points from Gryffindor for being an insufferable know-it-all.”

- J. K. Rowling, “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”

What do you think I mean when I write the words “Hermione Syndrome?”

This subject has been in my writing queue for years. Months ago, I finally decided to tackle it, and I scheduled it for the last week of June, coinciding with the publication week of the first Harry Potter book. But then I tried to structure the piece, and it is not easy.

The Harry Potter series of books and movies is about, well, Harry Potter, “The Boy Who Lived” and his war against “He Who Shall Not Be Named.” He is joined by his two best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, who refuse to let him tackle Voldemort alone.

Hermione is an eager, smart girl, who relishes learning and enjoys diving into books. She is annoyed by people who don’t take their studies seriously, and enjoys knowing what she knows. And she uses her knowledge and her ability to research to help Harry (and thus the Wizarding World) defeat the evil that is Voldemort and his allies/slaves.

Hermione is not some one-off invented character. She is not a unique type. How many of you grew up with (or were) girls who were smart, eager, “bookish,” confident in class, with neat handwriting and well-organized backpacks and notebook? Girls, in short, who were brilliant? They did their homework. Relished homework! They read books. So many books. As in the quote above, when a teacher asked a question, their hands were up first and they were aching to show their stuff. They knew how to spell. In my schooling years, they knew how to spell years before spellcheck was available. They just knew. They were not always as vocal as Hermione, but we all just knew that if we were to copy anyone’s test answers, it would be this girl’s. And they had a string of A’s on their report cards starting in preschool, they aced all the tests, and were always in the top tier of their classes.

These girls were not all nerds, although some were. No, they were girls who were bright, smart, and and knew their stuff.

Years ago, I typed up the following notes about Hermione Syndrome:

• Hermione is the star of the Harry Potter series

• She is brilliant and studious

• She can be strident

• She is fearless

• She is serious and sensible

• She ends up supporting some charismatic dude

• The charismatic dude is usually non-serious, does stupid things, and/or takes unnecessary risks

• The dude is usually brilliant in his own right, but relies on Hermione to get the details right.

• Why can’t Hermione be the hero?

In short, why is the series not called the “Hermione Granger” series?

And what happens to real-life Hermiones when they grow up?

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My working life spans four decades. At the beginning of my career, the entire working world was designed for men only. I’ve been in offices where women had space heaters and wore coats and blankets in their cubicles because the offices were cold. They were cold because these office buildings were designed for men. Heating and air conditioning systems were set to one setting: Man. You never saw a guy with a space heater, but women had them all the time. Corporate Facilities and HR departments would send out memos admonishing the use of space heaters, stating that they were fire hazards and/or drove up utility bills. It was the women who were in the wrong, not their employers. And many of the women apologized for using them. This, my friends, is a patriarchal environment. This is systemic Patriarchy. This was so systemic that I know a few men who, even now, will try to “call bullshit” on me. Sorry: this is true. This NY Times story is from 2015. “Woke America,” indeed.

I’ve been listening to an excellent podcast called LA Made: Blood, Sweat, and Rockets, where journalist and professor M. G. Lord goes deep into the world of aerospace. She covers the brilliant, eccentric, and crazy men who pioneered rocketry at the California Institute of Technology and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, and the brilliant and unsung women who supported them. Women could not even matriculate into Cal Tech until 1970. My mother worked as a “computer” at Space Technology Laboratories before I was born, where she crunched tons of numbers over and over again for the engineers (that they were men is a given) who were designing these systems. She loved it, but she knew she was just one of the girls. Women made huge contributions to the space program, but until very recently you would never have known. Who were these women when they were in school? Who were they when they were they coming up? Hermione.

In my early years, I did whatever job I could do to get me through my studies. I worked at recording studios, did some drywall, house painting, labor, delivery for a pharmacy, food service, duct cleaning, and door-to-door sales. In each of those jobs, if there were any women at all, they were in supporting positions, like bookkeeping, reception, or office work. The men had the main jobs. Construction jobs were were solely done by men, and it showed. Calendars with semi-nude women showing off building supplies and various tools were everywhere. On the job, sexist terms were used for every kind of measurement. Women were never considered for any of the actual trade work. This was the norm.

Women could be waitresses at the mid-range or diner establishments, but at the high-end restaurants, where the prices, and thus the tips, were higher, women could be hostesses, but only men waited the tables and got the bulk of the tips. The only exception I know of in Los Angeles at the time was Lawry’s The Prime Rib in Beverly Hills, and I remember that because it was the exception. Even the bus boys were bus boys; bussing tables was a job for men only.

I started my technology career in the mid-’80s doing programming and system maintenance, and the transition of women entering the professional world was just starting. I worked with some amazing women, but there were not a lot of them, and it was difficult for them to navigate the baseline of institutional sexism. There were men who flat-out felt that women should not be in these roles. I remember going to lunch in the early ‘90s with a colleague who asked me what I thought of these women working for my client. I of course answered that I thought it was great. He shook his head and said “well, I don’t think it is right. Women shouldn’t be in the office.” That was the last lunch I took with him, but, this attitude was not uncommon.

I worked with engineers who thought that women should not and could not be programmers, and their attitudes showed it. The were condescending assholes, and questioned the very existence of these women, let alone their work. Now, sure, sex is a protected class under the Civil Rights Act, but there was no enforcement, or even acknowledgement that this was a real issue. Let me just say, as a quick aside, that women can not only write code, but that some of the best programmers in existence were women, starting with the very first programmer, Ada Lovelace. And yet, this attitude still exists among certain males.

I witnessed this first hand. The transition of women entering a world that was completely male-dominated was not smooth. Women were frustrated to tears at the condescension they received, at being ignored, at being passed over, at men literally not even hearing them, and at men appropriating their ideas and contributions as their own. I’ve worked with women who struggled with how to act at work. “If I’m direct, these guys will think I’m a bitch” (and yes, many did think that). “If I’m accommodating, no one ever hears me.” (they were right about that too). “Who the hell do I have to be to get through to these goddamned men?”

Let me say, it is getting better, but we are not there yet. Sexism is still alive and well in the workplace. It is a disgrace that we all, and especially women, are still dealing with this. This has been around so long that we are in our fourth wave of feminism. And we still have guys giving women crap.

So, what exactly is the problem here, and what can be done about it?

The problem is men.

Women are doing all they can to break through, but it’s men who stand in their way.

And men must change their minds.

There is a huge difference between how women view their entry into the workforce, and how typical males viewed their entry into the workforce. From the male viewpoint, these professions were their domain, and women now wanted to come into their world. From the woman’s point of view, being human is a fundamental human right, and humans have rights, including their right to make their way in the world, to pursue professions, live their own lives, and be independent of and not subject to men, or anyone else for that matter.

We use the word privilege. Regarding male privilege, men viewed women entering the workforce as them granting some of their privilege to women. “We’ll deign to let them in. Maybe some of these girls will work out.” It was always men granting women some of their privilege. Not all, mind you, but some.

Women view this as a right. They have a right to be there. They do not need permission from anyone.And they are correct.

Being able to apply yourself and contribute to the world is not a privilege. It’s the way things ought to be. In other words, it is a right. It is a right for every human being on this planet.

Men need to stop acting like they are the gatekeepers of who gets to exercise basic rights. They have no role in this. We all need to recognize this, and men need to in particular.

Men also need to recognize that they have no right to define the space. For example, there are still controversies about women becoming firefighters, and how some men believe they have to lower their standards to allow his to happen. But the standards were designed by men for men, and don’t necessarily define the actual space of what it takes to be an effective firefighter. Spaces are broader than they have been defined in the man-only world.

Men need to realize that they no longer own the work environment. They no longer get to have “team building” events at strip clubs, or festoon the break rooms with pin-ups, or tell off-color jokes at the expense of their (now) colleagues. Some men still consider this an imposition even though the law on this has been clear for decades. No dude, do your damned job. Be professional. Be a jackass on your own time.

But the bottom line is that men have to change their minds and default to, “your right to exist in this environment is absolute.” And go from there.

What are the challenges? There is a lot of brouhaha about DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programs in America. In other words, there are people who object to the very idea that this is a problem. Part of many DEI programs is a discussion about unconscious bias. “You may not know it, my friend, but some of your actions are guided by biases you don’t even know you have! It’s okay, just recognize it.”

Let me tell you something: Men do NOT get to hide behind “unconscious bias.” They know what they are doing. They need to change their minds, and man up, and treat every single person as a human being with a right to be there, not a privilege that they bestowed. If men manned up, we would never need DEI programs. It truly is the men who need to stop it. I frankly think DEI programs don’t go far enough. Fire them all, and let them reapply for their own jobs, like they do to others when their management failures require layoffs. It is so much easier to just realize that people are human.

We need to recognize and not hamstring the heroes of this world. Every star has a right to shine. Real-life Hermiones are stars. Men need to stop blocking them.

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Thank you for reading Things to Realize. Please let me know what you think and tell us about real-life Hermiones and heroic women in your life. I’ll start with my friend and mentor, Katherine “Kee” Robinson, who is the most brilliant software engineer I have ever worked with.