When I started working in industry as an engineer, I had a number of “Did that really just happen?” moments. Like you were thrown into an alternate dimension because things like that just shouldn’t happen in the real world of supposedly intelligent and reasonable people. Unfortunately, ridiculous, awkward, or infuriating things do happen. This was one of those moments.
Our company had a “professional development “course that all employees were required to attend. Pretty much everyone, including me, groaned at the thought of sitting in a room being talked at about something that only vaguely related to our jobs. However, I was reassured by higher-ups that the speaker was “highly recommended” and it wouldn’t just be any other boring training. I took this as a good sign and tried to be optimistic about the training.
The class I was in happened to be mostly engineers, and since I was one of the few female engineers, it was mostly guys. The one other female was our finance person and was only there for the morning session. The “highly recommended” speaker was a gangly middle-aged white guy and, initially, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Once the session got started, it was clear that this guy was energetic, loud, and obnoxious, in the rude and insulting kind of way.
Throughout the day, he kept making references to god and jesus, which I found completely inappropriate in a work setting, me being non-religious and all. He pushed his own strong opinions at every possible chance during his lectures, often going off on tangents about them. Every positive example he gave from his “many years of experience” were about men, but interesting how many of his negative examples of “people doing things wrong” were about women. I doubt this was purposeful, but it seemed like it was subconscious thing, not simply to be glossed over.
Even with all these signs of “this guy is a total douchebag” the “highly recommended” tag stuck with me and I kept giving him the benefit of the doubt. All these things he did and said just rubbed me the wrong way, but I kept thinking that it must just be me overreacting and that I would see why this guy is so great if I just kept listening. I kept trying to be attentive and find this great speaker quality, but to no avail.
Then, this happened: It was toward the end of the class and we were talking about reliability and the acceptable margin for error. Note that I was the youngest (at 23), newest (having only worked there about 6 months), and only woman in the room (the other woman had left after lunch). Since I started working I had been trying to do good work and make a positive impression as an engineer. I really wanted my colleagues to see me as a talented and hardworking engineer who happens to be female; I wanted to be known for my good work rather than just my gender. This “highly recommended” instructor decides he wants to use an example of how with some things any error is pretty much unacceptable, like, say in childbirth. He looks straight at me, makes a motion with his hands like he’s taking a metaphorical baby out of my metaphorical womb in front of the entire class of mostly older male engineers and says “Maelin, it’s a boy” and then pretends to drop it and says “Oops.”
Oh My Fucking God. Did that really just happen?! I was so shocked and embarrassed that I didn’t know what to do. I just kind of sat there and turned red, while people laughed uncomfortably. What in the world was this guy thinking? I’m young, unmarried, have no thought of children, trying hard not to call attention to my gender and this douchebag singles me out, creates this image of me giving birth in front of all my colleagues, and embarrasses me because I have a fucking uterus?! …Really?!
Thinking back, I should have flipped the table I was at, gotten in his face, told him off and left the room. Really, I should have. But I didn’t. I just sat there burning, angry, and confused, trying to figure out what just happened and what I should do. At the end of the class there was a feedback form and I probably could have told him face-to-face that I didn’t appreciate being used as an example like that because of my gender. But, I didn’t go off on the feedback from about what a douchebag this guy was and I didn’t talk to him after either. I was just too embarrassed and I even felt ashamed even though I didn’t do anything wrong. I wanted to pretend that whole thing didn’t even happen.
In my nativity, I wanted so much to believe in the good recommendation that I kept brushing off the clear signs that the instructor was actually not good (and in fact, terrible). It was easier to just tell myself that I was somehow wrong rather than believe that everyone else was wrong. But, when you’re coming from a different perspective, you will see things differently, and that’s ok. It’s tough being the minority opinion and even more difficult to speak up, but you shouldn’t try to hide it. A lot of times your gut feeling is right and if something keeps bugging you, it’s probably not you. Stick to your guns.
Addressing these kinds of problems is the harder part. What I should have done in this situation is in between all-out yelling at the guy on the spot and doing absolutely nothing. Confronting him in person probably would have been best, or writing candid, detailed feedback would have been maybe less effective but still good. A lot of times, it is best to call people out on something right after they do it, rather than waiting and bringing it up later. But it is also good to be calm and not angry when confronting people, so it is a bit of a balance. Confronting people about gender-related issues at work or school has been one of the hardest things for me to do and this is a skill that I’m still working on. But, I’ll be in engineering for a while (i.e. the rest of my life), so unless the gender ratio in engineering suddenly flips, I’m sure I’ll get the hang of it in time.
