As an engineer, my coworkers are overwhelmingly male. So overwhelmingly male, in fact, that I am only one of two women in my department. And to be honest, it’s what I wanted when I started studying Engineering.
When I was 17 years old, I bought into the “it’s better to work with men” stereotype. My head was full of misconceptions about career women: they are catty, gossipy, conniving, and shrewd (except me, of course!). That’s the thing about stereotypes, isn’t it? We never feel like we’re a part of them.
Getting into an Engineering program is difficult, but staying in it is the real challenge. My introductory courses were in a classroom with over 300 students. If I wanted to get an A in the class, I had to outperform at least 80% of my classmates. Competition becomes our way of life. As much as we want to get along and become allies, we have bigger goals. We want to be engineers, we want to work in a renowned company, and we want to make the big bucks. Yet we know that those coveted positions are not as readily available for women.
Employers hold many unconscious biases against women in science. Men are still seen as more qualified and more apt for the sciences. And in an environment already full of men, they just seem like the perfect fit. And that leaves us, women, fighting for what feels like one position. As babies, we are all belligerent. Who hasn’t heard of the “terrible twos?” But as girls get older, they are often conditioned to be nice.We have to play at being nice for so long that we hold our hostilities in and can become indirectly aggressive. As adult women, we rarely punch or kick, but we sure can sulk!