I am a grad student at a large state university serving in a relatively unimportant but public role within our engineering department that requires me to send emails several times a week to all of the other students in the department.

I try to be nice to the other engineering students in accordance with the desire for a professional working relationship and  polite departmental culture.

Yet – I get emails from other engineering grad students who I scarcely know, that are aggressive and generally inappropriate for a professional environment and relationship. See below for an example of such an exchange. I don’t think this qualifies as harassment, but it is definitely annoying. And I am still not sure how to respond!

It all started last May, when my name was sent in a departmental wide email after I won an award. I ran into this guy in the hallway and was briefly introduced – he took the initiative to find my email and send me this message:

Ann,
Congrats on your award! That’s awesome. What are you going to do with your proceedings?
I’m going on a mission to the farmer’s market tomorrow morning and you should meet me there. It’s going to be fun.
And if you’re so inclined, I’m playing a graduation gig in the afternoon at a house party. Also should be fun. Let me know if you’re interested.
[name redacted]

Maybe if I had replied to this initial message the rest of this awkwardness could have been avoided. But I didn’t want to write anything back to this guy, that I didn’t even know, that was sending me emails telling me what I SHOULD do. I really hate people who tell me what to do, so this totally set me off. I did not reply to this message.

He continued about one month later in another email message:

You were at 100 points in dorkiness level for not responding to my email.
We’ll subtract 10 just because you listen to Nicki Minaj:)

This one also annoyed me to no end. And now, this guy who I don’t really know, who already sent me a stupid message telling me what to do, is now JUDGING me?! And assigning points? WTF. I asked a trusted friend for advice, and he said to send back a short simple message indicating that the effort was nice though misdirected. I replied:

Good effort, thanks for trying. Better luck next time!

To which he said:

What?! You don’t make sense!
Have lunch with me this week. I’m going to [place name]. Have you been there? It’s good.

<–Orange Timberland Sneakers I purchased in 2005 in anticipation for my first ever real industry engineering job (summer internship), thinking I needed shoes that sent the message that I was tough and a valid presence in the machine shop while being simultaneously slightly hip, interesting, and youthful.

Now I’m a little embarrassed to admit I spent this much time thinking about my shoes on the first day of the job (full first day of the job outfit: mannish khakis, a mannish collared shirt, and a vaguely feminine necklace) – but it shows me how worried and nervous I was about fitting in the engineering world as a young uninitiated woman. I really believed these shoes would help, so I wore them tirelessly that summer until I realized a few things:

1) THEY ARE UGLY. And my feet looked gross in them. Weirdly lopsided yet unstable, pointy in weird places (what is up with those toes?!) and looked dirty as soon as I put them on.

2) I HATED WEARING THEM. Partially due to #1, but they became a symbol of me trying to dress/be someone I wasn’t due to the belief that I needed to change myself in order to be respected in engineering, that being myself wasn’t a sufficient condition to mandate respect within the organization and company culture. THAT IS SO MESSED UP that before I had even started working there, I had already convinced myself that I needed to be someone I wasn’t in order to fit in. What made me think that? How long did it take me to change?

3) I AM NOT A MAN and do not need to dress like one. During the first two months of that first summer internship, I have these vivid memories of commuting home after work and immediately stripping off all of the boring, drab, personality-less work clothes and changing into skirts, dresses, blouses while adding on earrings, hairbands, everything. As girly as I could get in the post-work hours! Reclaiming the personality that I could not express at work due to fear and confusion about what kind of image would be appropriate and optimally supportive of my developing engineering career. My roommate at the time, a male engineer in a similar first-ever internship experience, found my behavior a little hilarious and would frequently laugh at me as I emerged from my cocoon of mannish clothes every day after work to reflect my innate feminine nature. But I wasn’t alone! My other female engineering friends did it too! I remember another male friend remarking that the difference between male and female engineers was made clear in our post-work habits: women like myself got more dressed up after work to somehow compensate for the suppression of our inner selves during the workday whereas the men untucked their shirts, took off the collars, and generally cared less about their appearance to relax after work.

I donated the orange shoes away after that summer, I didn’t really want to look at them anymore and be reminded of my stupid thinking that these shoes could somehow be a magical talisman symbolizing my membership in the engineering brotherhood. It is hard to find a balance between wearing what you want and dressing appropriately for the workplace as a young female engineer! After that summer, I managed to stop wearing shoes that were downright ugly to the engineering workplace though the challenges of finding and expressing my identity as a female engineer certainly persisted.

I had another reality check a few years later when working in a Chinese toy factory as a manufacturing liaison to an American design company. In the factory, though I theoretically had freedom to wear whatever I wanted, I was reluctant to wear anything that would draw attention to myself. I stood out enough already as the only female engineer and the only Asian-American in the building – plus the few times I wore form-fitting jeans or even a V-neck I was on the receiving end of uncomfortable stares and gross looks from some of the male truck drivers and plastic handlers at the factory. So, I wore mostly company T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers just as my male colleagues did. That was fine and dandy for a few months until a close friend asked me, jokingly, “Well Ann, you’re basically a man anyway. When’s the last time you wore a skirt?”

Whoa. It had been months… many months… since I had put on anything but jeans. Work had been all-consuming and tiring, though I hadn’t realized to what extent it was completely taking over my life. I was shocked – I still thought of myself as feminine and somewhat fashion-conscious, yet it had been months since I had dressed in a way that expressed my femininity. How could I let that happen? Was that me letting being an engineer trump being a woman? Definitely a moment of self-reckoning and realizing – I am NOT okay with that! 

Anyway, the inner battle between the girly-girl and the tough engineer is ongoing and expressed in the clothes I choose to wear each day. There’s a greater balance now in finding a tough yet feminine edge, and while I’m not in love with my current “tough” machine shop shoes (see right) at least I don’t hate them, either.  At least, not yet…? They are not altogether different than the orange shoes – in fact, they look remarkably similar so I guess its primarily my reaction/interpretation of them that has changed.

I’d like to say that I’ve come a long way: Now, instead of racing home after work to change into clothes that make me feel like myself instead of a formed-in-the-mold engineer, I start the day with work-appropriate pieces that are feminine. I bring shoes and shirts with me, as needed, to change on the fly if I need to do some machining or working with dirty/greasy parts. At first I was self-conscious about the Mr. Rodgers wardrobe change at work, but after realizing how much happier it made me to not have to wear ugly shoes all day, it’s worth it!

Furthermore, on days when I know I will not be doing dirty work with heavy machinery and am meeting clients or presenting my ideas instead – it is a pleasure to choose shoes and clothes that are comfortable and reflective of my identity as both a woman and an engineer, simultaneously. And yeah…that’s progress, right? :)