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.
