What It’s Like Being Gaslighted in the Workplace — From the Experience of a Millennial Asian American Woman
“Gaslighting” is defined as a reference “to a specific type of manipulation where the manipulator is trying to get someone else (or a group of people) to question their own reality, memory or perceptions.” (NBC News)
As an Asian American woman working in tech, I’ve experienced gaslighting of my reality, emotions, & trauma. Here are a few examples from my professional career.
Salary negotiation
Having been a career-switcher, I was incredibly thrilled when I had received an offer for my first role as a UX Researcher. I had worked so hard to translate my skills from academic research & museum evaluation to the world of tech, and was jumping up & down in the hallway when I received the call.
I knew what salary range I should be expecting from the extensive market research I had done. But when I received my offer, I noticed it was $20k lower than market-rate for my skills, experience, and location.
I mentioned this to my recruiter and she made several defensive points: this would be a dramatic increase from my current salary (I had made the mistake of giving a range of my then-current salary early on), they actually base their salaries on their headquarters location & not on the location of the office I’d be working at, and what I was asking for was wildly unreasonable. She implied that I should be grateful for the opportunity.
I stood my ground and insisted. She reluctantly relayed the message back to the hiring manager.
Recognition for my work
6 months into my first UX Research job, I ramped up very quickly. In that time span, I learned about the new business processes, learned what the heck a sprint was, conducted my first usability test, and was not only conducting research but also was creating tools & educating my UX & Product team on how they could conduct their own research. Then, my manager went on paternity leave.
I had warned him in advance my anxiety of temporarily being a 1 person research department. He dismissed it, saying that there wouldn’t be a difference in workload while he was away.
Then, BAM, on his first day of paternity leave, I am pulled left and right into meetings he had been a part of and was expected to play his part. My inbox and Teams messages were filled with questions from across the org about research tools, protocols, asking for consultation on business-wide questions, etc. — all things outside of my original job description. My manager’s manager began cc’ing me in every email and asked for more & more work. I knew it. I was right.
But I was a team-player and stepped up to the plate. As my parents had taught me, “Work hard and you’ll be successful.”
I advocated for the UX Research vision across the company and produced twice as much work as 2 people could in the span of 1 month. When my manager came back from paternity leave, I printed out a spreadsheet that listed out all the work that I had done. It was ignored. I received no recognition, except a shoo, go off to your original work now.
My anger grew as colleagues commended my manager for something I had done, not himself. I finally mustered up the courage to bring it up to him during our next 1-on-1 and said I would like to be recognized for the work I had done.
He immediately became defensive and took credit for the work — he nitpicked apart every project and listed his contributions, often aggrandizing his role. He added question after question to my reality.
So I lost it and cried in front of him.
2 jobs for the price of 1
My manager ended up stepping down from his position to focus more on individual contributor work. His previous manager became my interim manager, but because this interim manager was so far away from the ground work, he ended up being a figurehead while I assumed back the role of doing the work of both manager and researcher.
I did everything from setting up the team with tooling, managing a part-time contractor, conducting research, advocating for research roadmaps & priorities, and get this, editing the job description & hiring my own manager.
While interviewing candidates for the role of my future manager, multiple colleagues had asked me why I was not being considered for the role. I relayed the answer I was told — I was not experienced enough. But forget the experience I was getting doing the actual job for months at this point.
Dangling promotions over my head
I repeatedly advocated for myself and aggregated data about my work & impact to my interim manager. I aggressively pushed for a promotion that I knew I deserved. But I was continuously told that promotions rarely happened out-of-cycle and that it was out of his hands. He promised we would have the conversation again if I kept up the good work — the work of 2 people for the price of 1 at this point.
In the meantime, multiple colleagues were promoted out-of-cycle.
When the time came, I had a positive performance review and my interim manager said he would recommend me for a Senior Researcher role. I asked about a compensation adjustment to reflect my new role, and he assured me he would be as collaborative as possible when the time came.
After a month of silence from his end, I pushed him to actually schedule the compensation conversation. When no action came of that, I began documenting every email and noted how often I brought it up during our 1-on-1s. But his inaction also prompted doubt in myself.
I began to question if I was annoying or if I was reversing any good will that earned me that promotion. He then finally scheduled the compensation conversation 2 months later.
During the conversation, I could tell he intended to keep it short. He stated at least 5 times that compensation adjustments were out of his hands, even though he had previously stated he would be as collaborative as he could be.
But I asked questions about what I should be expecting and how compensation adjustments had worked in the past. He responded, “Big adjustments rarely happen and aren’t up to me.” When I asked what a “big adjustment” would look like, he gave me a percentage. I responded, “I appreciate that info. But even with that big adjustment — that is also rare — , that isn’t enough money to stay on par with market rate for my skills and experience.”
His eyes got wide. He immediately responded, “You’re young. You need to think big picture. You will not get the experience you get working here anywhere else.” Then in almost rapid fire, he began naming every tech company in Boston. “These places — you will not get there what you get here.”
Gaslighting happens most often when I am the most brave
In all these professional experiences, anytime I have pushed back a little, stated facts about my work & myself, or bravely advocated for myself, I am told lies, that I should be grateful, that my perspective was invalid, that I’m not experienced enough, and that I’m too young to know any better.
These professional experiences happen so often that I can’t help but question, was it because I was the only woman of color in the entire Product department? Having been the only one of anything, I can’t help but wonder if it is that othering that permits & makes this kind of treatment acceptable.
Was it because I am Asian American? I am nice to others, smile often, and take my time to formulate thoughts during a meeting. Was I expected to be quiet, passive, & grateful to have a seat at the table? Because anytime I break that stereotype, I am gaslighted.
Was it because of my age? Instead of being recognized for and celebrated that I was stepping up to responsibilities of a manager & senior role at my first UX Research job, I was reminded at every turn that I was young.
I’ve cried in the workplace a few times. A couple times in front of colleagues or managers. Many times in private in the office bathroom.
What people don’t recognize is that frequent gaslighting at mass and scale have an emotional & psychological toll.
When I experience conflict in the workplace, I still question my reality of the situation and ask myself, “Did I miss something? Am I wildly off?” And it takes every bit of strength in myself to take a breath and realize that my emotions & experiences are true and valid.
When it gets to be too much and I make the mistake of crying in front of others, I am told I need to more mature and professional. I’m seen as not having thick enough of skin and am seen as being mentally weak, even though I’ve taken in jab after jab everyday.
And because of these experiences of gaslighting, I am conditioned to be extra hard on myself because I know the world will do it for me anyways.
Steven Yeun said it perfectly, “Sometimes I wonder if the Asian-American experience is what it’s like when you’re thinking about everyone else, but nobody else is thinking about you.”
In light of the onslaught of hate crimes and attacks to the Asian American community, I felt it was important to speak up about my experience as an Asian American woman and to make damn sure that people are thinking of it.
