On the contrary. See below.
If you’re comfortable in your skin, you don’t have to keep stressing it is your skin. It just is, and you don’t have to strengthen your commitment to it by wearing it not only as a fate-assigned skin but also as an identity.
If you’re comfortable in your skin, you don’t have to keep stressing it is your skin. It just is, and you don’t have to strengthen your commitment to it by wearing it not only as a fate-assigned skin but also as an identity.
Precisely. Gender/sex/whatever is secondary to who I am not because it’s uncomfortable, but because it’s just a part of me that just happened automatically that I don’t feel any need to think about. Same as my blood type, or my hair colour - I don’t care what it is, and it doesn’t define me, but neither am I uncomfortable with it!
It’s great that no one ever says or does anything to remind you that you’re wearing the “wrong” skin. You’re never interrupted in meetings, your ideas are considered seriously and credited to you, you get the promotion instead of some guy less experienced and skilled than you. That’s wonderful. It’s also very rare.
The problem isn’t how women imagine or present themselves, as I’m sure that’s true for lots of women who are engineers. The problem is in how others - especially people in positions of authority over you - view you. It’s possible to break others stereotypes of you, but it can be a pain, and then not always. There are going to be some guys who will always view you as a woman first, and engineer second. I’d like to think that those folks are getting fewer and farther between, but they still exist. Ignoring them is not going to make them go away. Doing good work helps, but not always.
Holy shit, yes. Wear a scrap of cloth the wrong way and suddenly people will assert their right deny you everything from employment to your humanity. Often justifying it without a trace of irony under the heading, “religion is bad.”
The article is good, but it doesn’t change the fundamental reality that people won’t see what they don’t want to see.
I’m a human being first, and someone who exchanges services for money, like… twentieth. I encourage others to feel the same.
Just last week, a senior colleague asked if I would be at a board meeting he thought he wouldn’t be able to attend, because there was a new board member and he wanted my opinion. Turns out he was able to go and I wasn’t, so he reported back to me. Apparently what he wanted to know was if she was married or not (and he was basing this on what her surname was, because as we all know once a woman marries she NEVER keeps her original surname) because that would somehow inform him if she got the job on her own merits or because her spouse was the real “catch”, and also if she was going to take her position seriously. This is someone I’ve been trying to gently educate for 25 years now.
So yeah: they’re still around, they’re still obtuse, and they’re still in positions of power and influence.
There are more humans out there than you can shake a stick at. As a basis of identity it is somewhat… underwhelming.
Oh, no. A tie. How horrid. That was the worst example as a white male you could come up with? I think you’ll be fine.
It’s not about identity, but the weird and stupid way we rank these features as if it’s meaningful to put one in front of the other. As if being a physicist keeps you from being a part of the population that makes conscious decisions about whether to wear lipstick. But if we are going to be obtuse and meaninglessly rank our attributes, I’m going in ascending order of essentiality.
I am happy that you’re happy, but to be successful at this profession is there something that you inherently must reject and leave behind once you enter the office?
Why is the author so troubled when she comes to this conclusion as well?
It was a little over a year ago when I started to speak very quietly, very pragmatically about the experiences of women in game development. The backlash was clear and immediate. Those discussions were unwelcome and were met with open hostility from some colleagues. At one point, I was told directly that any discussion of women’s experiences in game development was like debating religion and politics–it wasn’t just divisive, it was “off topic” in a game development group. I said in response that I thought of myself as a game developer first and a woman second. When those words left my mouth, I was stunned: not just because I’d said them, but because in that moment, I meant them. I felt gutted, by the clear exclusion of my colleagues and by awareness of my own complicity.
It’s still hard for me to talk about now, because this rejection came from people who were my peers–my friends–in those social circles for ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty years. It made me think about how much I had unconsciously decided what aspects of myself I was willing to expose. I hadn’t talked about being a woman. I hadn’t talked about other things, too. Over time, not showing or discussing those aspects eroded them until they ceased to exist. The years had gradually worn away my unique shape, and turned me uniform, logical, round, the correct shape to better fit into the hole of “game developer.”
Yesterday I was at a big meeting of our entire company. It gave me a chance to see how people dressed. Here’s my report:
The guys wore mostly either khakis or jeans and a polo shirt or a button up shirt. There were also some dress slacks with a button up shirt. No one wore a sport jacket except the CEO and top Execs there for the meeting. There were no ties, even on the CEO.
The colors for men were what my daughter used to call “boy colors” - blues were the most popular. Browns, greys, sage green were also popular. There were several people wearing a soft rust color. Few and far between on men were brights of any kind - usually a polo shirt.
For accessories, the company lanyard was popular (we are required to wear ID cards). A few of the old engineers still wear the “bling” from the old company that indicates their patents and years of service. Being New York, a few men wore chain bracelets or necklaces.
I saw a few tennis shoes but most men wore loafers or a comfortable riff on a dress shoe.
Women wore similar colors but would add a pop of bright color to the neutral palette, usually a sweater or unstructured jacket. So, for example, the woman next to me wore a black shirt, white pants, and a fuchsia bolero. Another woman wore all black with a purple soft blazer. Most women wore pants but skirts also represented. A few of the women in from headquarters wore dresses (top marketing execs, a new person who is working on our company culture), otherwise there were very few dresses and the ones I did see were simple, like knit sheaths that fit somewhat loosely. In general the shapes were not body conscious.
None of the women wore suits, even pant suits.
Women mostly wore low heels or wedges. There were a few high heels. I rarely see the high platform heel that is popular in magazines at work. No one was wearing them yesterday.
There was only one person wearing yellow. The emerald green that’s been in the past few season I didn’t see. Very little of the royal blue. Purple was popular.
Women had their nails done and wore modest accessories, usually necklaces on chains and small dangles.
There are a few women that dress like the men and wear short hair and comfortable shoes.
Most women have their hair dyed and wear it mid-length.
Okay? Not sure what your point is.
This topic made me think about how women dress in tech, and since I had the opportunity to really see everyone in my company at once, I thought it’d be a great time to actually observe what people were wearing rather than just going by my memory.
That made me laugh! Clearly she hasn’t quite gotten a handle on your current culture yet.
We were recently bought out by a smaller company that has a more informal culture. I notice that when women come from HQ they are more likely to wear dresses. The good news is they seem to have several women in leadership positions. I’m hoping some of what they have is going to trickle to us.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever worked anywhere that had an explicit cultural fit standard in the hiring process. I did work one place that had the official policy of “We don’t hire assholes.” That standard is subjective enough that it can be interpreted as a kind of cultural fit metric - it ended up producing a pretty excellent working environment though
I wear dresses sometimes. I’m not exactly super feminine, either. I find them comfortable, and it’s sometimes easier to find a dress that fits than it is to find pants that fit properly. Like, I know Kohl’s has dresses that will fit me and I can afford especially on sale. Certain styles I can even order online without trying on and feel pretty confident that they will fit (I don’t have a car so this is a huge plus). Pants, maybe not so much. So I wear a lot of dresses (and skirts).
I’ve been wondering why I seem to have a hard time finding pants/jeans that are comfy on me. I tend to skirts/dresses for that reason.
Dresses are so much easier to wear than separates.
