It’s a big deal
I work at a fintech startup in the heart of Mexico City as a Business Intelligence Senior Analyst. I got here by studying Business Engineering at Mexico’s top business school, while simultaneously working on Corporate Finance at a Big Four accounting firm during the last two years of College, and for another year after graduation. In sum, since College I have studied and/or worked in male-dominated fields.
I quit my fancy corporate job and embraced the “startup life” after an incident involving my married Manager asking me out, and then refusing to speak to me for four months. I spoke about the incident to several Partners at the firm, and yet this guy didn’t only get away with it, he got a promotion after I left and is now Director.
A few exceptions aside; every single Associate, Manager, Partner, etc. I talked to said “It’s not a big deal, it’s not like real sexual harassment or rape or whatever”. I felt like I was losing my mind, had visible signs of depression and hated every minute of every day while working for this man; but maybe everyone was right. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal.
Yesterday a coworker asked me for my take on the Google anti-diversity manifesto. I simply replied I agreed the manifesto’s content was b.s. but I thought Google firing the author was unfair and went against his freedom of speech. After all it was NO BIG DEAL, it was just words.
As I reflected on my answer I realized how many times I had heard words similar to those stated in the manifesto. Before College I attended an all-girls Catholic school and was taught ideas like:
“Have a son and you’ll raise a man, have a daughter and you’ll raise a family”
Yeah, what if I don’t want to raise anyone? Why can’t a man raise a family? So much wrong with this one and yet it was an all-time favorite.
“Men and women have different roles in society because they were made different by God”
Sound familiar?
“Your virginity is a gift for your future husband, if you lose it you will have nothing to give him when you marry”
Nothing, huh? Poor fella…no personal choice for me to make here…
Anyway, the list could go on and on, but after years of this I finally graduated High-School and thought College would be different, only I now faced this kind of cr*p:
“Why are you going to such a difficult school, you’re pretty enough to get married”
Yeez, I guess since I have nothing to give the poor guy I marry (huge if/when btw), that option was out.
“Boys, the girl in class is the best student! How could you let this happen?”
I was the only woman in that class, and that teacher always made his son my partner for assignments, call it what you want. Also, I WAS the best student, but why did it matter I was a girl?
And after College came the corporate life:
“If you’re ugly the firm will employ thee”
Rhymes better in Spanish, but you get the idea, and adjectives in Spanish are gender-specific.
“I’m not used to working with girls because there are no girl Investment Bankers”
By the same pathetic dude that asked me out.
By now you may have guessed the point I’m trying to make. I was of course offended by the manifesto, but I’ve heard the same content over and over again, in different places and stated by different people. I’m used to it. I didn’t even reply anything to the people that said all of those things TO MY FACE, I even laughed at some of them.
I thought about my own experience. Even if a career change was for the best, I would’ve liked to stay at my job, to continue growing, to reap what I had sowed for three years; and yet nobody even considered firing a man that had made me miserable for months, even when I had proof of his wrongful actions.
Shame on me for thinking Google shouldn’t have fired the manifesto’s author, because the women working there deserve what I deserved and didn’t get. I deserved respect in my workplace, because respecting women and their decisions IS A BIG DEAL. And if by hard work we overcome all of the invisible barriers set out for us in tech, finance, engineering, math, etc. we deserve it even more.