What it’s like to start a job as a female engineer

When I tell people that I’m an electrical engineer, I typically get a reaction that is a delightful mixture of skepticism and shock. I’m not surprised by this reaction because, frankly, women aren’t all that common in my field. I also don’t really look like an engineer. I don’t want to perpetuate stereotypes about what the typical engineer looks like, but rest assured that the typical engineer is not an attractive American woman in a Kate spade dress and Jimmy Choo heels. Most engineers probably don’t even know who Kate Spade and Jimmy Choo are, and that’s perfectly all right.

While skepticism about my career from the general public doesn’t surprise me, I am quite shocked by the amount of skepticism that I’ve had to deal with at work over the years. Let me walk you through what it is like to start a new engineering job for me. I walk into the team staff meeting on my first day, eager to meet my new co-workers. With rare exceptions, I’m greeted by a room full of looks that say, “Oh, great, another diversity hire.”

This reaction drives me crazy. I like the concept of affirmative action, but I think that most companies struggle to find the right way to execute affirmative action. I have never worked in HR, so I honestly don’t know exactly how companies handle this. I strongly suspect that in many cases, there are corporate quotas for the hiring of minorities. This implementation of affirmative action invariably casts a shadow of doubt on every qualified minority in my field. I have personally worked with plenty of people who were under-qualified. Those people usually aren’t minorities, but occasionally they are. Nobody seems to notice the under-qualified non-minorities, but they sure do notice the under-qualified minorities. Therefore, about 95% of the people I meet at work assume up front that I am an idiot, and that’s pretty clear from the way they treat me.

I inevitably end up expending a great deal of energy to hasten the process of convincing everyone I work with that I’m not an idiot. While they would eventually figure this out in the natural process of working with me, I prefer to expedite this so I can spend less time being treated like a damn fool. Ironically, I’m smarter than most of these people. It’s ridiculous, but eventually everyone comes around and figures out that I’m smart. What happens after that is slightly less predictable.

A small percentage of people are absolutely delighted at this discovery and regard me as some kind of wonder of the world who can surely solve all of their problems. I do my best, but I’m no all-knowing oracle. Give me a break, guys.

An equally small percentage of people are pissed off when they figure out that I’m not a brain-dead moron, and proceed to treat me like shit. This includes all kinds of abusive behavior that would be considered inappropriate in most environments, but is absolutely unthinkable in a work environment. I’ve had people do everything from sabotaging my work (yes, intentionally deleting test programs that I stayed up all night to write) to physically backing me into the corner of a conference room and screaming in my face to intimidate me. I have no idea what is wrong with these people, but they obviously don’t like me ruining their stereotype of what I should be. I welcome assessments from the social scientists out there.

A vast majority of people start to treat me with respect upon realizing that I’m smart, qualified, and good at what I do, yet they continue to keep me at a distance. When I approach them on Monday morning to ask how their weekend was, they’re perfectly nice, but they keep it short. When they all get together to go out to lunch, they don’t invite me. I’m stuck eating lunch with the other attractive, American, female engineers. Oh wait, that’s usually just me, so I eat lunch alone. I’m actually a pretty nice person most of the time, so I don’t really understand this behavior. People have tried to rationalize this to me by saying that my co-workers may be a little unnerved by how different I am, but I’m really not all that different from my co-workers. We have the same educational background. I like sports. Oh, you don’t like football? Well guess what, I like video games too. You don’t like Zelda? I like action movies. What? You don’t like Indiana Jones? Really? Ok, I like beer. You don’t enjoy a nice oatmeal stout? Now I know you’re lying, because there can’t possibly be a wealth of dudes out there who don’t like sports, video games, action movies or beer. Yes, it may seem like I’m stereotyping the guys now, but I have a lot of other gender-bridging interests that I’m leaving out, so I don’t feel like I’m too far off base.

Granted, not every one of my co-workers is a dude. A few of my co-workers are Indian or Chinese women, and they’re actually much nicer to me than the dudes. However, they do have their little cliques, and they often speak their native language in their cliques. I don’t speak Hindi or Mandarin, so I’m kind of screwed. I also don’t always have a lot in common with these women, although I really admire a lot of them. Many of them are working mothers, and understandably, they want to talk about their children. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, but I don’t have children, and I don’t really want to spend my entire lunch hour hearing about your infant’s bowel movements. Yes, I do want to hear that your kid won a spelling bee, took a first step, or scored a goal in her soccer game because that’s cool stuff. However, I don’t need to talk you to about it for an hour. I can get a good download on that stuff in 2 minutes.

So, where does this leave me? It usually leaves me in a job that I excel at and possibly find intellectually rewarding, but with very little connection to other human beings. Although I’m an introvert, I do need a little social love from time to time. Experiencing this social dilemma in every engineering job I’ve ever had is one of the things that drove me into marking (oft referred to as 'the dark side' by engineers). It certainly wasn’t the only (or primary) factor in that decision because if I had loved any of my jobs, I probably would have tolerated being treated like a leper.