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<p>I just know I won’t be able to quite say what I want to say very well … It’s hard to be concise and yet effectively explain how deeply I relate to sentiments like these. It’s always validating to see them in print.</p>
<p>I’m in my 50’s. As a much younger woman and young girl, I was VERY aware of how ‘soft and sweet’ I was supposed to be. I don’t know that I was routinely TOLD that, but it was definitely transmitted through society at the time.</p>
<p>I tried hard to be what I was supposed to be, while at the same time pursuing my traditionally “masculine” (and genuine) academic and extracurricular interests. (I had traditionally “feminine” interests too, but somehow they weren’t problematic for me, lol.) By the time I entered the very male-centered college I attended, I was well aware of how difficult it was to balance my natural curiosity, assertiveness, and drive to learn with my desire to be socially acceptable and soft and sweet. I became socially anxious over the whole thing, which took some time to sort out.</p>
<p>To this day, more than 30 years later, and still in a very male-dominated field, I find myself keenly aware of the average 60-year-old man’s expectation that I be “sweet and docile” while performing a job that’s much better suited to “assertive and smart.” In fact, that’s why I was hired – just like them – because I’m good at the assertive and smart part. (I’m kind and sweet enough, but not “demure.” It’s the assertive and opinionated part that gets their goats. My co-workers and bosses are pretty much ALL assertive and opinionated – but they’re ALL men, too, as in 100% of them. Assertiveness is so much less “attractive” on a woman … and we women should always be “attractive.” :))</p>
<p>There are a few big differences between “now” and “then.” First of all, I’ve noticed that the men I work with who are, say, about 8 or more years my junior seem to generally have fewer biased expectations than men my age and older. Is it because the younger men have “grown up” with more enlightened attitudes as society has changed? And secondly, I no longer care (much) if my co-workers, bosses, and subordinates don’t see me as “soft and sweet.” Soft and sweet has NOTHING to do with my job – and nobody I work with is soft and sweet! I must allow their bias must be THEIR problem. When they confront me about such a thing (generally in a friendly and “helpful” way, because they DO like me … they just expect me to be a “woman” first and a competent employee second, in some strange way, while at the same time holding me to a very high standard of “competency” – it has the potential to be confusing!), I make this clear to them: I’m different, and I’m not bothered by the fact that you’ve noticed. I’ll continue being myself, and you can continue to “evolve” along with me.</p>
<p>As a very good (male) friend says of my predicament, “For over 30 years now … training them one man at a time.”</p>
<p>I have definitely, at times, felt the disappointment of my peers, my bosses, and my subordinates, because I wasn’t fitting into their expectations, in terms of my demeanor. Many times I have been aware of the “narrow personality range” that has been set aside for me. It has not always been easy to resist responding to their expectations, even though I find their expectations to be unfair. It’s easy to be suddenly too much of a woman in one circumstance (applying lipstick or filing my nails unexpectedly; being “too social” with other workgroups), or too little of a woman in another (giving a directive to a co-worker; speaking with confidence), while all along, I’m really just being myself!</p>
<p>I have slowly but surely made my own way and been true to myself, allowing the men who don’t understand me to grapple alone with their own lack of understanding. My field is SO homogenous (pretty much all white, conservative men with very similar backgrounds) that they don’t find themselves with “diverse” people very often. After a very short while, almost without exception, they come to appreciate me and treat me with a great deal of respect, probably much more than if I had tried to please them by fitting into their narrow range of expectations. And I have preserved my integrity. Everybody wins.</p>
<p>All this to say … I can relate to the women faculty who were interviewed and to the researchers’ findings. I do think these attitudes persist in some measure. But there has been much enlightenment, and there will continue to be improvement. Some women love math and science, or other traditionally male-dominated fields; for them, there’s really no alternative … they need to pursue what they love. If they find that people around them hold them to some sort of impossible standard (be sweet and demure AND assertively, commandingly good at what you do), they should remember who owns the problem and let THOSE people live with the problem.</p>
<p>I’m a huge fan of “diversity.” And that’s one of my very favorite things about MIT – their pursuit of diversity, and the fact that they manage to pull it off! As in my own personal story, I believe that when we’re exposed to somebody new and different, we all win! :)</p>