By: regan

This feels similar to my experience in a tech type field. I got a promotion into a position that was held by a man before and after me, so I could compare directly how much quicker those men were given respect and access than I was. I’ve had multiple men tell me to my face they won’t take my advice because they think it’s wrong, only to have them return when they realized I knew the software better than them (a requirement of my position at the time).

I ended up doing some of what is mentioned here. I switched my job to a new track in the same field – one far less interesting, but with decent pay and less overall responsibility. The sexism is still there, just less aggressive. But it has given me flexibility I wouldn’t otherwise have and is basically a shorter term fix that allows me time to focus on relationships/hobbies/non work and give me time to decide if I need to leave. I work less hours (from 60-80 a week to about 50 a week) as well.

A big thing I’ve struggled with is being comfortable being “loud” or “demanding.” I built up that kind of persona at an old job because I really only got power or access to upper management by being a bitch. And it allowed me to stand as a buffer between the people I supervised and our demanding bosses – which gave me a small space to improve some stuff when I could. But it made building useful relationships with more senior people pretty much impossible and took a ton of energy. I had to really run on rage for years and that had a long term negative impact. I have not done this since, but that also made it easy for people to take advantage of me and pretend they had no way of knowing I was being overworked. I do think being “loud” was ultimately better for my career than being “calm” and accommodating even though it was worse for my mental health overall. I’m at a new job now so hoping to maybe figure out what kind of balance works for keeping boundaries but also building relationships.

Another thing I’ve hit was a team that enforced a kind of toxic positivity, which really allowed the men to avoid accountability when they took on less but made it harder for the women to talk to each other truthfully about what was happening. I wish I knew to take the step of saying directly “hey, this seems wrong” back then because, even if we couldn’t change things, I think the women on my team would’ve left sooner and felt more validated.