How long must I continue to endure everything from incredible acts of rampant discrimination, "I need to speak to a technician not you" to the more subtle ones - where I'm held to a different standard and if I once let that standard slip...Oh, boy...
I am not alone, yet, I am alone. So many women go through this but really the public, the majority (the white men) are still not accepting or acknowledging this. Oh, I know it's not all the men out there. Sometimes, it's even women!!! But there are far too many white men in power to ever let this situation change. Let me share a few articles with you:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-silicon-valley-so-awful-to-women/517788/
https://medium.com/the-mission/i-thought-discrimination-against-women-in-tech-was-bull-shit-then-it-happened-to-my-wife-c4cf434e72bd
"...described a kind of gaslighting: They find themselves in enviably modern workspaces, surrounded by right-thinking colleagues and much talk of meritocracy, yet feel disparaged in ways that are hard to articulate, let alone prove."
"The real reason we’re a long way from solving the problem of discrimination against women in tech is many men like me don’t want to believe it’s happening."
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/08/style/ellen-pao-gender-discrimination-silicon-valley-reset.html
"In written evaluations and performance reviews Ms. Pao was given high ratings, yet she was passed over for a senior-level promotion. She was criticized both for being too passive but also too pushy; for not speaking up enough but also being too opinionated."Been there...done that!
I wish I could read more articles like this. Instead, I find men commenting on articles about women being discriminated against — and what do they say? "The wage gap is a myth." Wow. Really. Is this the best you have? Discrimination exists — the reason why it’s so hard to prove is because of exactly what is said in these articles.
I work at a large company that supports other large companies. You name the large company — we’ve done work for them. My first 2.5 years working for them was to go to new sites and “commission” equipment with the software. I was constantly humiliated by either my own fellow employees or the customer’s. All of which are male dominated — in mine, it’s because it’s technology, on the customer side, it’s because it’s logistics and warehouse.
Long story shortened, it wasn’t working out and I wound up working on the Customer Support side. I loved it. Never have I worked with such a supporting group of men. I don’t know what I did right to get their respect and affection — but whatever it was — I actually don’t think I was doing anything different — you know? I refused to change who I am.
(p.s. one of the reasons I am able to recognize all the bias is because I have experienced non-bias. When I joined the USAF: I knew nothing — I was a small town girl — just 18 years old. I was pushed, encouraged, coached, mentored and I don’t know what all else to do things I didn’t think I could do — in short, I was amazing. I loved my time in the service. I foolishly got out at 14 years because the man I married didn’t want to be a dependent spouse. How wrong I was to marry him.)
Back to the story — now I get humiliated all the time on the phone and this is one area where most of the guys are not as supportive — they claim it’s because I don’t show enough confidence or that I’m just imagining it. It is what it is.
So last week, I had taken all the abuse I was going to take — a manager of one of the sites I had been emailing to for support rebuked me for being “unprofessional”.
I had said in a reply: “Lastname, I’ve given you my findings, I’ll have to ask SoftwareDeveloper tomorrow.”
I addressed the guy by his last name because, yeah, he was getting on my nerves calling me by my last name, while calling my other co-worker by his first name. He also got on my nerves because he responded to a lengthy email I sent (my findings) within almost a minute after I sent it. No way did he read it. And he said, “Linden, like I told you…” so yeah, my response was curt — but I don’t know if it qualifies for a public tongue lashing from his manager.
Not only did the manager send that email to all my co-workers, he added several people way, way, way above me. In short, he did not use the chain of command.
I saw red — crimson vermillion carmine RED. I wrote back to the manager and the manager alone. I apologized to him and said I was sorry that he thought I was being unprofessional but that he had maybe read too much in my email. And that he didn’t know me well enough to know my intent.
That should have been enough but the red curtain had not lifted. I also asked the manager if he had skipped management 101 while he was in college because surely they still teach that when you rebuke an employee — you don’t do it in front of their peers and you start with the persons manager not the director — several levels above. Then I went on to say that I felt his real problem was not that he didn’t know professional when he saw it, and not that he didn’t know how to manage but that he was personally upset because I am a woman.
It was a CLM, as my friend, Jerry used to say. Career limiting move. I didn’t not care at the time. Not only did I click the send button. But I decided as one last stab — I would forward my email to the director he sent his complaint to — and I said, “Oh, Whoops, I should have included you on this email — you’ll hear about it soon enough.”
Needless to say, my boss talked to me — and for the most part he was in agreement that I was not imagining things — however — this customer was flaming angry at me now — and the director it was sent to was also flaming angry at me — how dare some pissant woman talk to him like that, right? He escalated it up to the CEO of the north America branch.
I’m still waiting to hear what will happen next.
Bear in mind there is a lot more to my own story — such as my inability to keep my temper in check may or may not stem from my diagnosed condition of PTSD and depression. That I had lost my most wonderful therapy dog this past April and I still couldn’t think about it without crying. My boss also knew this.
Now here is the real kicker to the whole story. I can’t really prove any of that right? That maybe he was right and I was unprofessional, right? Well, just a few days prior — I had engaged with a huge, huge, huge customer (bigger than this one) and the issue was elusive. I finally decided to engage another co-worker because his expertise was in another area that I thought might need some digging at. When I called him — I put our customer on mute and then hold. I told him that the customer was getting anxious and annoyed with me and was joking around and saying “they hate me”. Well, 'chivalrously' he said, "I’ll cuss them out." And then gave me a demonstration. Pretty sure he used every swear word in the book. I laughed as he meant for me to laugh. And then I said, Ok time to talk. Only he didn’t hear me — and started giving me part 2 of his cussing out, except I had added him to the conference call and I was still on mute so I couldn’t interrupt him to stop him from the crazy talk. I tried to hang up on the customer put them back on hold anything…too late. They said nothing. They acted like it didn’t happen. I wasn’t even sure if they heard. But they heard. They called his boss — his boss called him that night. And gave him whatfor and told him we were idiots for playing around on the phone. Boss was right about that…:-) but nevertheless…
Here is my point. The customer did not escalate this to the CEO of the north America branch like my customer did with me. Oh, yes, sure rationalize all you want to — try to make sense of it — the truth is — I should not have sent that email if I wanted to keep my job and keep the customer; but I was 100% right. And it’s been like this since I left the Air Force. And that is one of the ways I know there is discrimination. Because I have something to which to compare this treatment.
Not long ago, I was reading about another woman who underwent the same type of treatment. I cannot for the life of me think of her name — but she sued the company and lost. Listen to her story and it’s the same one. She was held to a different standard than the other men, and of course, the standard was so much higher she could not meet it. Just like I can’t.
I’ve been working in technology since 1989 — since about 2009 — I have lost all interest in it and want nothing more than to get out of it — but the job market isn’t interested in a middle-aged woman with the only job skills that are current is in IT.
Now I’m practically elderly by IT standards — I hit 58 in few days. I just long for the day I can collect SS and stop doing this. Gentlemen, Mission accomplished. You have proven I am not right for the job. Go figure…
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