This week I’ve been reading a flood of responses to a survey I created for women in STEM. The stories that have been shared are both heartbreaking and inspiring. Responses range from women who are excited about their work to those who are utterly burned out.
A shocking number mentioned the continued level of sexism and lack of female peers or mentors as the “thing that surprised you most about working in STEM”. On a surface level, I already knew the statistics – half of all women in engineering programs, and half of all women in academia experience harassment – and that’s from a study published in 2018, not some outdated stats from the 80s. But a statistic is far different from a personal story, and somehow there was still a part of me that was hoping things were different outside of academia, that things had changed after I left to become a teacher, and now a coach. Once I was able to take a deep breath and express gratitude for the honesty and sincerity of the responses, I had to take a hard look at myself and the myths that I’ve been holding onto, along with many of my fellow women.
What resulted is a very raw post, folks. I’ve done my best to smooth the edges, but sometimes I breathe fire – it comes from being an Aries 3x over (Sun, Mercury, Venus – yeah, ouch). I’ll try not to torch the place too much. You may not like this post. That’s ok. I’m not here to make friends. I’m here to make waves.
If you’re looking for the short version:
I’m sorry. I’ll do better. And try to inspire others to do better also.
A word cloud from dozens of actual responses to the question “What frustrates you most about your work?” in my recent survey for women in STEM careers.
No, it’s not FINE.
Women, we have this folklore that we continue to perpetuate regarding what it takes to survive this world as a female. We have these “rules” that we’ve convinced ourselves are the reason we’ve found success or escaped harassment and assault. It usually goes something like this:
“Well, I’ve not had any problems at work, but you know I always wear pants and a turtleneck, so as long as you do that and don’t speak too loudly in meetings you’ll be fine.”
Another one says, “No, you’ve got to speak up for yourself, don’t take any shit and stop harassment in its tracks, then you’ll be fine.”
Or, “Work harder, be the absolute best at what you do and your work will speak for itself. Try to fit in with the guys, be tough, hide your emotions, and tell lewd jokes. THEN you’ll be fine.”
Plus a million other stories we tell ourselves about what it takes to succeed as women in STEM, to break through the male-dominated culture and be taken seriously, to be seen and heard.
Until the day it doesn’t work, and the shame monster immediately takes over. We KNOW it HAS to be because we broke our rule somewhere. We comb through the evidence searching for a clue as to why it’s not working anymore. Then we go into a frenzy – maybe we chose the wrong rule, maybe it’s speaking louder or more quietly or … or… or…
Then we decide it’s something wrong with US. Maybe we’re not cut out for this field, we’re not good enough, smart enough, calm enough, nice enough, tough enough… enough… enough…
Every time we try moving to a new company, or use a new strategy and still feel crushed under the heel of the patriarchy we pick up another layer of shame and the weight of feeling like a failure.
We’re talking about a lot more than just the overt harassment. Infographic – National Academies of Science, Engineering, Medicine
All Apologies
Stress comes from the friction between what we expect our reality to be and what is. We didn’t paint the full picture for the young women we raised in the hopes that just encouraging them to do well in math and science was enough, that the problems of the past would disappear. We all WANT to believe that inequality is in the past, that things are different and more evolved now. And now we are seeing a backslide in the number of women staying in STEM- “In the high tech industry, the quit rate is more than twice as high for women (41 percent) than it is for men (17 percent) (Hewlett et al., 2008).” Increasing the pipeline without preparing young women for the realities of working in a male-dominated field is not serving anyone. We’re adding stress to an already stressful field, and creating a whole lotta shame monsters in the process.
I also see the posts, often from women, that say: “ok this #metoo thing was great for getting rid of the really bad apples, but we’re done now right?”
We want to slip back into the fantasy that has kept us going for so long, that everything is just fine… as long as….
Trigger Warning
I remember when I was an engineering undergraduate, the last thing I wanted to do was join the Society of Women Engineers. Wasn’t the point to just be an engineer now, not a “female engineer” but just one of the guys? I didn’t want to be the top female student in my class, I wanted to be the top student- PERIOD.
I created my own folklore – do the guy stuff, play video games and drinking games with the guys in my class, wear baggy sweatshirts and jeans and no makeup. Laugh at crude jokes and make up my own, learn not to blush when the wallpaper on their computer screens were porn images, get them back by playing pranks like replacing their naked ladies with pictures of naked men. Then I’d be safe, one of the guys. So when one of those guys tried to put his dick in my face while I was passed out, I brushed it off, pretended it didn’t happen. Because to admit otherwise would mean that my rule wasn’t working after all. That I wasn’t FINE.
Then I think about the statistic again- half of the women surveyed reported harassment and sexism issues. But what about the ones who never reported a problem, or even registered that there was a problem like me? When we include the unspoken issues, what does that statistic become?
Collective Blindness
So we thought that all we had to do was get more girls to be interested in STEM. Every school program and Girl Scout troop went to work, myself included. As a chemistry teacher and science fair coordinator, I did everything I could to support the young women who showed a spark of interest in problem-solving and the potential to help the planet and her people. But we never prepared them for the reality of being the only woman in an office full of men, or a handful of girls in a classroom full of boys in a college engineering class.
To those young women I now say:
We didn’t want to discourage you.
We didn’t want you to give up, but we sowed the seeds of your disappointment when you got that shiny internship and were confronted with an office that treated you like someone who was there to make copies instead of solve complex formulae.
We sowed the seeds of your burnout when we perpetuated the folklore, the rules, and they didn’t work for you, because they never really worked for anyone in the first place.
Where do we go from here?
And therefore I offer you a heartfelt apology, and a commitment to roll up my sleeves and dive into the hard things. To do what I can with the life and power that remains to me to do my best to cut through the bullshit and make real changes.
Hang in there. I see you. I hear you. I’m not the only one who does.
And if you can’t hang in there, that is OK.
It’s ok to not be ok! You don’t need to martyr yourself for the cause. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure, or that you just needed to follow some rule, or that there’s something you could have/should have done better. You can ask for help, walk away, even. If you need a permission slip, you have it.
To my fellow GenX-ers, and my Baby Boomer mentors, please put down the folklore, the rules, the stories. It’s not serving anyone.
And if you truly have not experienced harassment or sexism at work, great! Can you also accept that just because YOU didn’t experience it, that doesn’t mean others aren’t suffering? Let go of the fantasy that the reason you were successful was because of some intricate series of rules you followed. Also, take a look at the iceberg infographic again and the harassment that is below the surface.
You were lucky.
Now turn around and help a young woman who’s suffering and lift them up. Be a mentor. Really listen and believe their experiences. Don’t offer up folklore and tell them it will all be fine if…
Let’s all do better. Please. Because it’s not about the clothes. It’s not about trying to fit in. It’s not about being perfect. The problem is inherent in the system and is so much bigger than any one of us, but together we can make real change.
This is complex and multi-layered, and we are collectively done with the surface-level changes and the pattern of washing our hands and saying “all done!” with social progress.
We’re at the threshold and it’s time to turn and face the painful reality, not with dread but with hope for a better future for our girls.