Women in Engineering – Reality

I am feeling down today, so down that I decided to show some of the reality of being a woman in engineering to people who are reading my blog.

To those who have shown you the glory and rosy side of being a woman in engineering, science and technology field, I am here to tell you some of the experiences I had, which is the real flesh and blood, and not as nice to swallow.

You will have to deal with a lot of false accusation, my ex-boss, in my first job told me this:
“There are 99 men on the platform, you don’t need to work to get the job done. All you have to do is just sleeping around and the men will do the job for you.”

Sexual harassment is common, be it verbal or physical. And my ex-boss actually said:
“You are like a kid, and not attractive at all, do you think I will believe in what you said?”

When I went for interviews, people rejected me because I am around the age of getting married. In which case, it means that I will be pregnant soon, and the companies were taking that as a loss.

I was also once rejected by a company because I have long hair, despite me saying that I am willing to cut it short.

I was dumped by my first boyfriend, because
"Your studies have always been so good, do you think I would believe that you spent the whole of last night in their (my coursemates) house just for group studies?"

One of my suppliers in my current company tells me this:
“I think there is no point for you to study until doctorate, I am not an engineer and I can sell technical products to you.” (OK, this is nothing to do with gender)

“Why don’t you wear a skirt and climb up the building and let me see? I am sure if you do this, you will be promoted by your boss real quick too.”

One of my customers in my current company tells me this:
“Your company doesn’t have any dicks anymore is it? Why are you all appointing all pussies to serve me?”

“Your company are filled pregnant women, I bet you all just know how to sit there and being fucked by men, until your head can’t think anymore!”

My subordinate doesn’t like to listen to my comment just because I am a female, and it is humiliating to have female, younger than them, pointing out their mistakes.

I have male colleagues who think that I studied too much, and treated me like a threat and made a lot of rumours about me. They also like to make remarks like this:

“Actually, I think your doctorate doesn’t have much values when it comes to applications. Experiences still counts you know, you are lack of that.”

"Actually, it is kinda nice to be a woman in engineering. Cause you don't need to do any work, guys will always do the work for girls."

"Girls working in field will never get scolded, cause guys won't scold girls, no matter how bad it is."

"It is nice to be a girl in engineering, you don't need to care much. If you can't take it, you can always escape it by getting a husband to feed you."

My HR manager, who is a woman, doesn’t listen to any feedback from female; but she always favour the requests from our male colleagues. Examples are plenty, and I don’t want to mention here, as it will generate a couple of blog entries.

Most of the things I listed above, are of those rather major offences that I happened to recall while writing this blog, and are mostly gender discrimination due to inferiority complex.

I find that gender discrimination can come from female and male, superior, colleague and subordinates. Take example female discrimination, it can come from male bosses, colleagues and subordinates, so can it come from female bosses, colleagues and sub-workers.

Well, that’s all I want to say for today, just be prepared for the glory and the dirty part of the profession before you decided to march into it.