It's funny that I was thinking about a big meeting I attended a few years ago since there is so little time spent being in person these days.
I was working for a small company and we were meeting with an engineering group from a much larger company. It was important, because we were the small team. The project coordination would do a lot for our company. The other team was more insulated from the financial risk that a big risky project brings to a small company just by being in a huge, well known tech company. So, there definently was a difference in dynamics. The meeting was onsite at our office and everyone on our team was invited. Just part of their team was there and we still were a smaller group. It was important and everyone dressed up and wore a nice shirt.
As I looked around the room, I was the only woman. This isn't a new thing for me. This wouldn't be a new thing for most female engineers. As I scanned the room looking at everyone in their nice dress shirts, the other differences made me chuckle. Looking from engineer to engineer, every single one of the male enginners had a standard button down shirt on. I must have missed the memo or the unwritten rule of the day. It was apparently plaid or check shirt day as there wasn't a solid shirt on anyone. There were at least 25 to 30 people crammed into that conference room. Green plaids, red plaids, blue checks, this continued as I scanned the room until I got to me in my favorite big flower shirt.
I was hearing that sesame street song in my head, "One of this things is doing it's own things, one of these things doesn't belong..."
As a woman in this field, you have to get past everyone's assumptions, including your own. You need to see yourself as belonging as much as you want everyone else to accept you, not talk over you and listen to your ideas. There's even a term for this, impostor syndrome. Twenty years in the field, and you still can second guess yourself.
When I got home that evening, I told Pete my little story. We laughed at the plaid shirt bragaude, logged onto Lands End and ordered a plaid shirt for me. It's a button down, it's a lovely green and now I will finally look like everyone else on the team in my Engineer camouflage.
