(TLDR: I scolded a female employee that caused a serious problem and was told I should have treated her differently because she's a woman having a hard time in a male industry)

(TL;DR: I scolded a female employee who caused a serious problem and was told I should have treated her differently because she's a woman having a hard time in a male industry)

I've a very direct style of dialog and until this day, I always people that I don't care if they make a mistake, I'm just interested in how we're going to fix it. At the same time negligence has always been a pet peeve of mine. Since we built products that, back in those days, couldn't be updated, being very rigorous was very important.

Every now and then, when we discuss work situations this one comes to my mind but I never made peace with it.

I've a very direct style of dialog and until this day, I always tell people that I don't care if they make a mistake, I'm just interested in how we're going to fix it. At the same time negligence has always been a pet peeve of mine. Since we built products that, back in those days, couldn't be updated, being very rigorous was very important.

Every now and then, when we discuss work situations this one comes to my mind but I never made peace with it.

Edit:

With 20+ more years of experience, I know that public criticism wasn't the right way to do this and it should have been taken into a private discussion. At 50, I hopefully learned a great deal more about people than I used to know back then (I believe I was 26-27 when it happened).

But the question hinges on the Male vs. Female issue since the criticism was in essence that it was harder on her, as a Woman, than if I had issued the same criticism to a Man.

For this reason, I can't accept as answer the otherwise valid points that suggest this should have been handled in another manner since they do not address the core question.