It's A Man's World (Cue James Brown)

At seventeen, with no other job experience, I enlisted in the military. You would think that after six years on active duty that I would be well accustomed to working in a man's industry. I'm not sure that is the case.

After the Vietnam war, the draft was suspended in 1973 and women made up 2% of U.S. military's enlisted forces. 2020 stats put that at 16%. For relevance, the year that I joined, it was 14%. It's almost odd. In reflection, I feel that the military was more accepting than the civilian world. In six years, I only remember a handful of men that decided to treat women differently. That includes unwanted sexual innuendoes and sexual harassment. Let me be clear, I am in no way attempting to claim that those things don't happen; they definitely do. I am speaking for my personal experience.

When I did come across the rare man that wanted to make sure the women in the shop knew that they were less-than, it was swept under the rug. I had a friend that was brutalized by a male superior on a daily basis, for every possible inappropriate thing that could be said. No matter how much she reported it, it went no where. Most of the men were amazing. We cussed like sailors, we drank like sailors, and we made dirty jokes like sailors. Sailor was a sailor was a sailor. Dirty jokes didn't wear off though. Don't take me bowling. All your get is dirty jokes. For the most part, gender didn't create a divide, rank did. I guess some would say that rank is supposed to divide us but I would think that is also the difference between a leader and a manager (that's a whole other post).

IBM Floppy Disk (1.44MB)

After being honorably discharged and a few bumps in the road, I finally decided on a career in IT. My father was a computer programmer and my mother worked as a Network Administrator (plus other roles) in the IT industry for twenty-five years. It seemed the natural choice to follow in their footsteps. I think I was just born with a mind for technology. I remember my grandmother telling me stories about my interactions with technology before it was really considered technology. She has described that when I was two to three, I would pick up every controller looking for one to use to commit an auditory assault on my parents. My parents would constantly remove the batteries from every controller in the home to stop my advances. I would realize the controllers weren't heavy enough to have batteries, therefore understanding they would not assist me in my goals causing me to check the next one. My father had IBM personal computers (if you didn't know, that's what they were called 'back in the day', "personal computers" because it was odd that you could take them home), hundreds of floppy disks (depicted above), and computer parts in the garage. It's funny that I wouldn't learn to understand the parts that make a computer function until I went to college. I didn't know anything about them at the time but my interest was always there. It never dawned on me that IT was a male dominant field. It didn't dawn on me but any field would be male dominated.

Even today, women only make up 26% of computing-related jobs. I'm a strong woman that uses direct statements. I don't sugar-coat anything. I don't lie. I don't scoot around a subject. In my opinion, that makes me the minority of that 26%. I don't intend to imply that women are docile. Far from it actually, but most women aren't as.....let's say as abrasive as I am. Most people, no matter male, female, white, brown, purple, or anything in between, are as abrasive as I am. Also, yes, I literally imagine myself as a rough piece of sand paper, rubbing up against people the way Baloo loves trees in 'The Jungle Book ™'. I imagine the roughness of my sandpaper personality is not well received by others. I got side tracked, where was I?........oh yeah. After transitioning to the civilian world, I soon discovered it was not the same as my military days. Those same dirty jokes would get me a trip to HR for being inappropriate or into a misunderstanding with a male associate thinking that it was meant as something more than a joke. Civilians don't like you to say the F-word in every phrase or even cuss in general. It somehow displays unprofessionalism. That wasn't even my hardest battle in the civilian world. Women in corporate America have so many stereotypes. I'll list a few for you.

1. Too whiny

2. Not strong enough for leadership

3. Too bossy

4. Should always portray the Susie-Homemaker attitude

5. Not competent enough for the job

6. Always thinks they are in control

7. Over emotional

8. Must be PMSing

If this is the way that we are going to pre-classify all women, across the board, without even the slightest chance to show their individual strengths, then equality will never be achieved. I tried to explain some of these things to my husband a couple of weeks ago. Even though he was a late-bloomer (joined the military at 27 y.o), he has been active duty for the last seventeen years. When I explained these concepts to him, he almost wanted to label me crazy. Not because he didn't want to believe me but because he doesn't see if as often in the military. He thought I must have a skewed view or that something did me wrong but didn't happen to others. I went on to explain that women still don't receive equal pay. We don't receive equal hiring opporunity. We don't receive equal trust in our ability to do the job. The equal pay idea really left him dumbfounded. That didn't make sense to him either. Military personnel are paid by what's on their shoulder (or collar), not what's between their legs. This isn't totally true since women are not promoted at the same rate as their male counterparts, according to the RAND study. This conversation with him continued over the next few days but I still wasn't sure that he was grasping the importance. I was proud of him when he started talking to people at work about the concepts I was conveying. It proved that even if he doesn't see it, he was capable of doing his part in stopping it.

My position with my current employer is considered an 'engineering' position. Our company has almost a dozen employees with 'engineer' in their title but I am the only female. I would like to caviat that in this case, it is not the fault of my employer. They are absolutely amazing at looking for women to hire women and pay them equally when at all possible. You can't hire somoene that doesn't exist (remember that 26% I told you about.....). Also, most of my coworkers are great too. This makes sense based on my company's rigirous recruiting process (I'll tell you another time about how it took me six interviews and lunch with the CEO to get this job). They are looking for a specific caliber of person with a specific skill set. We have endearingly labeled ourselves 'the band of misfit toys'. I've never had any of the men that I work with sell me short, imply that I was less-than or incapable, or that I don't deserve every inch of the position that I've been given. That doesn't stop me from worrying about the other stereotypes that I haven't ruled out. What if I come off bossy? What if they think I'm trying to take control? Did I say that right? Did I offend someone? Do they feel like I'm overstepping? Now I've never been a man but I would take a bet that the majority of men don't ask themselves these questions at the end of every work conversation or meeting. I'd also take that same bet that I am not the only women that has these thoughts. It's extremely exhausting. Every statement is considered and reworded in my head at least 10 times before it leaves my mouth. Even after I've gone through all that just to say a singular sentence, I still back-pedal and worry that it came off wrong.

I experienced something a week ago that is the perfect example. I was in a meeting with a senior engineer, another engineer at my level and our clients. Although my coworkers are both new to the company, they most definitely not new to the task at hand. This particular senior engineer (male) is really good at over-complicating things and getting wrapped up in his thought process. During this meeting, the client requested clarification on our concept, process, and execution. The senior engineer verbally dances around the questions with no answers in site. Not because he doesn't know the proper responses but because of his over-complicating cycle. The other engineer (also male) attempts to answer the questions. This second engineer's response includes a lot of 'um' and 'uh' and 'maybe', only leaving all of us confused. I promise I'm not here to talk bad about them. This all has a point and I'm not judging them for their thought process. He eventually steps down. Now we are 0-for-two. I step up to the plate. I need to loop back to the beginning of the conversation. I can't answer the clients concerns without some follow-on questions so back to the beginning we go. I explain to the client that I'm not sure that we closed this loop and I'd like to discuss this again. They are enthusiastic to return to the topic and my questions are answered. I am then able to answer the questions already laid out by the client. After spending a short five minutes providing the answer, getting a little more information, and a short Q&A, we all agree that we know the path forward and are satisfied with the outcome of the conversation. After I hung up from the meeting, I talked to my manager because I was concerned that the senior engineer would call him complaining that I butt in where I don't belong and I'm overstepping my bounds by taking over a task that is assigned to his role. My manager....actually let's call him what he is. My leader knows what I'm capable of and knows how things operate on our team. I am always, and I do mean always, stepping in when there are questions on the table because for whatever reason, it is hard to coax the answers out of my fellow engineers. My leader shrugged it off, encouraged me to shrug it off and then said, "That is exactly what I am hoping for. He needs someone to keep him on track. If he wants to be upset about it, then he will have to learn to keep himself on track." I wanted to be offended. Why is it my job to keep the others on track? Is it because I'm female? You expect me to just take care of everyone? He of course didn't mean any of those things. but I still end up chasing my tail for a half hour with these thoughts. He only meant that I have s strength that my coworkers haven't gained yet.

I know someone is thinking, "Not every woman feels that way. Not every male thinks like that. Not every manager sees females as the lesser species." You're right. But don't you think that it occurs often enough that we should talk about it? What do we do about it? How do we fix it? I'll tell you my suggestion. It starts at the top. Employees need to observe every level, from manager to the CEO, showing women equality. No more snide comments about PMSing. The more that management is able to display this, the other employees will start to trust women more. Ultimately, that is what it comes down to. Men don't trust us to be able to carry out the duties required or perform on the same level as them. This is especially frustrating when the field of expertise is not based on physical abilities.

I think that all of the private sector should alter their hiring process. I have an idea for this. It's going to sound extreme but hear me out.

1. Company posts a job posting

2. HR collects all formal applications and resumes

3. HR removes the PII (like a name) from the resume and sends it to the hiring manager

4. The hiring manager has a bunch of nameless resumes so the only thing they can go off of is the skills they possess

5. Hiring manager has to coordinate the call so that the prospective employee can use a voice masking device, still not allowing the manager to assume anyone's gender.

6. No in person interviews

7. Selected new employee shows up to work on the first day and now you know their name.

So how can you help in our current society norms? If you're male, don't sell your female counterparts short. If you see something unfair or out-of-line, report it. Stand up for her pubilically in that situation. If you're a manager or an executive, work to display trust in your female employees openly. The others need to see how to treat us. Similar to the way a child's first idea of how to treat a spouse is how their parents treat each other. If you're female, keep fighting! Don't let them stifle your voice. It has power. We get closer and closer with every generation. I have faith that this will be resolved. Maybe we can achieve equality in time for my child's children to see it.

Repeat after me.

I am kind.

I am smart.

I am important.