Most writers would issue a plea to the public at the end of a convincing article but, since this is an engineering student newspaper, I think I might be better off putting my request at the beginning; next time you interact with a person (and all the times after that), give yourself a moment to reflect on whether the way you are acting is dependent on your perception of their gender.
Why am I requesting this? Have I lost you yet? No, well in that case, keep reading!
On most days, organizations such as Women in Engineering seem overly feminist. As a woman in engineering, I often get tired of the number of times I’m singled out for choosing a career that is supposedly more difficult because of my gender. When, in my English electives, the topic turns to “the author’s portrayal of women in yadayadayada,” I zone out. And when I get asked (yet again) about the ratio of men to women in my program, it’s tempting to roll my eyes. And yet, on certain, defining days, suddenly all those posters, scholarships, and special conferences for women make sense.
Let’s start with those jokes – the ones so insignificant and small that, most days, I don’t notice them unless their authors decide to pack a real punch behind them. On most days, I don’t even miss a beat and my life goes on. It’s the days where I’m already feeling the overwhelming stress of all those midterms, assignments, and projects and one of my classmates decides to throw a jibe. Imagine if, on top of feeling like you’d just been punched in the gut, your very logical brain decides to land an additional metaphorical upper-cut to your jaw by reminding you, that you just do not belong here because you will never succeed. Don’t get me wrong, I love my classmates most of the time, and as a soon to be graduated student, I will miss their presence in my life but they are not always helpful when trying to remind myself that I do belong here. All those little jokes that take a stab at people for their gender, weight, sexual orientation, and political views need to stop. So start thinking before you speak, and remember that rule we were told in kindergarten, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, just don’t say it.” I’ll make exceptions for anything that is positive or helpful criticism.
The jokes are mostly harmless and I understand the sentiment behind them is harmless so I’m willing to take them. Let’s pull up another example: I was presenting in a group which, aside from myself, constituted entirely of male students. At the end of the presentation, the prof asked questions. Typical right? Yet over the course of the questioning period, not a single question was directed at me. Even when all the other group members were being given a stab at answering, I was being skipped. Most people would jump for joy at not coming under the scrutiny of the prof. In this case, I specifically knew the answer to some of these questions and instead had to cringe while my group members answered them wrong. I had studied and worked hard for this presentation and yet it felt like my grade was plummeting because my prof was refusing to address any his questions to me. I shrugged it off. Maybe he thought that I’d already talked too much (not completely unlikely), or that I’d already shown enough of an understanding of the material.
My last example, is perhaps the most significant. Like almost everyone reading this paper, I applied to a co-op job on JobMine. I got an interview. The interview got moved, then cancelled. Why? Because I am a girl; the job was in Abu Dhabi, where they couldn’t provide residence for female students. It’s a reasonable explanation right? Would the job have changed my life? Probably not. Would it have been an awesome learning opportunity? Definitely. Most of the top positions in any large company require you to move. Senior management roles are only given to people who have been to multiple sites for the company. On a co-op level, this probably has not impeded my career path but how many other times am I going to be restricted from pursuing jobs just because of my gender?
Yes, it would have been a huge challenge (close to impossible) to find a place to live as a single female in Abu Dhabi but was that choice even offered to me? The biggest impediment to my career as an engineer has not necessarily been the open gender discrimination that was obvious in that last example; it has been the well-meaning advice of people who just want to look out for me. From advice like: “Don’t work for a small company, they won’t have a good enough HR department to protect you from sexual harassment” to comments like “Don’t work in remote locations, you might get raped,” these people are statistically right. However comments like those prevent me from pursuing many engineering jobs in Canada. And don’t even get me started on the “but you’ll never be able to start a family if you take that job!” Based on the well known idiom, it takes TWO to tango so make sure all of the young men in my class are also thinking about passing on their brilliant genes. So stop it! Instead of limiting my opportunities, give me the resources I will need to pursue them. Show me how to report sexual discrimination and how to defend myself if that’s what you think is necessary. Or if you’re lazy, donate to organizations like Women in Engineering, WiSTEM or WISE because they will organize workshops to give me the tools and support I need, even in cases where you can’t.
You (based on the fact that you are reading this), are probably part of the next generation of engineers. You are also my classmates, my future colleagues, my clients, the person who could be hiring me for my next job, and my potential future boss. So next time you interact with me, think about what you are doing. Would you judge my resume differently if my name was Kevin instead of Kate? Next time you are judging someone, stop and think for a moment, is the person’s skin colour, gender, sexual orientation, mother tongue, affecting the way you assess their capabilities? Is it stopping you from letting him or her undertake a difficult project or a leadership role? And is it because of those irrelevant traits that you are giving them more restrictions?
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