https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGhe13nY2sg
This week is International Women’s Week, so you’ve probably seen and will continue to see many posts celebrating women.
And what a great feeling to be seen, empowered, and celebrated for one day or week.
But, to be honest, I have always had mixed feelings about Women’s Day/ International Women’s Week/ Women’s Day in Science.
Why?
While I understand the purpose and scope, and I see the benefits, things are becoming more complex and are constantly changing. As a consequence, also our message should be changing. Stop telling the same stories: the only woman that ran/ the only woman that entered a science school, the first woman that …, the first time we had 1 woman in the team, and how proud we are of her and how we should celebrate her.
Sharing and posting how women are still behind the salary gap, how we still suffer a lack of sponsorship, how we still don’t have enough representation in the parliament, the executives table, and the leadership team. How there is still bias, how enough is not enough: too quiet, too loud, too empathetic, too direct and intimidating, too ambitious, too aggressive, or not speaking enough.
Do you see where I am going?
How easy is it to put a label, to stand out, when you are the only one? No one asks you: do you want to stand out? do you want to be the only one? do you feel comfortable being a role model? Are you okay with the pressure of succeeding as the only one? Are you okay with standing the risk for all the women coming after you to be labeled based on your performance?
FYI, don’t worry, we will celebrate you!!! (at least at some point)
I can already hear you, come on it is not really like that.
Well, it is. You may disagree, but in my opinion, it is. When there’s only one woman (or two out of ten, or three out of fifty), they stand out. Whether intended or not, prejudice is inevitably created. I will talk from my own experience in IT, but how many times you’ve heard from a hiring manager, woman or man, saying they don’t have more women in the team because there are not so many women engineers to be hired in this domain, and anyway if there are, many of them are not Seniors enough?
I’m sure you’ve heard it at least once. Why do they say this? Maybe statistics, maybe some of the many articles stating that (same information copied and pasted in different formats), most of the time their own experience with that one 1 interview they had in the past year, generating the rule and expectation. Such an easy story to say, repeat, and believe, no?
You already have to reach team KPIs this year, hire more people, and jungle between the 100 things you have to finish until the end of the day, it is understandable.
Understandably, the easy way is to keep sharing the same (negative) message.
Now let’s imagine a different exercise. We start telling the stories where we have managed to be one of many.
We tell the stories where many of us succeed, where we are not necessarily the first, and where we share our successes without focusing on the negative.
I am not the best because I am the only one, I am the best because being a woman does not determine my success or failure.
And, speaking again from my own experience (because believe me, I had bad experiences, most of them coming from cultural and gender differences, most of them affecting me to a point where I was burnt out several times in my career), the moment I started focusing on what I can influence, the things started changing for me and success looked very different.
Perhaps an unpopular opinion, but I don’t feel the need for women role models in this context. Do you not find it limiting?
Because I do. I vividly remember when I was promoted to Lead Engineer. Seeking guidance, I approached my manager about finding a mentor. He suggested reaching out to the only woman in a higher role at the time. Do you see the limitation here? As a woman, I had only one option. Why? Such a big pressure for her, such a big pressure for myself.
As Stephen R. Covey says in his book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, we see the world, not as it is, but as we are. Or as we are conditioned to see it (ourselves, our paradigms, our perceptions).
Could we change the perception and paradigm about women, especially in the workplace? Could we focus on the things we can control?
I believe so. What can I control? What can I influence, if I want to do so?
Let me tell you my story. I am a Lead Engineer, leading a team of 6 engineers, with 2 pending to join in the next weeks. We will have in the team 8 nationalities, and most importantly the women — men engineers ratio will be 60% — 40%, with the Lead Engineer being a woman.
Did I influence this? Proudly, I can say yes, I did. Because I believe leadership encompasses more than just technical excellence, system design, and code reviews. It is teamwork, communication, and ways of working. It’s about growing people, exploring, and flourishing their skills. Diversity, cultural awareness, being comfortable with who you are, and not being the only woman on the team mattered a lot to me. It was something I believed I could achieve with some effort.
How?
By taking small steps, getting knowledge, learning, insisting, insisting again, incrementing, influencing, and little by little seeing the effects.
Changing job descriptions, hiring process, working closely with the HR team, changing the candidates’ approach, how we reviewed candidates and the beliefs on what means a good engineer. How we promote the open positions, making sure they reach different types of audiences, making presentations, writing articles, speaking in open forums.
By influencing my manager, the other hiring managers, and HR.
And, most importantly, I am being appreciated, rewarded, and compensated for these changes. I have advantages, I am sponsored, and I can enjoy the fruits of my work. I could even write a Medium article to share this successful work story with you.
Let me share another uplifting story. This morning, during my team’s Daily Pulse meeting, one of the women on the team shared the video you saw at the beginning of this article. I felt a surge of emotion, and the overwhelming feeling was one of relief. What a relief it was not to be the only one — to have more women in my team creating awareness.
What a relief to see this young female engineer, just 25 years old, thriving in a workplace with a different kind of normal. Here, we pay attention to the language we use, where our managers can be women or men, and where we openly discuss social styles and cultural differences. It’s a place where you can express yourself in a direct, frank way without being labeled as aggressive or lacking empathy.
It’s not unusual to share this type of video here, where team-building isn’t limited to topics like video games, manga cartoons, cybersecurity, crypto, or football games. Instead, we discuss diverse interests such as my favorite Beyoncé album, comedy shows we enjoy, and the trips or festivals we’re planning to attend next summer.
It’s a place where it’s comfortable to talk about your kid’s Christmas gift, where you take tennis lessons, or how enjoyable the Harry Potter exposition was.
This is what diversity brings, comfort — the comfort of not being the only one, of not bearing the sole responsibility for fixing or complementing others. Now that I’m experiencing this feeling, I’ve chosen to fully embrace and celebrate it, not just for one day or one week, but for as long as I can.
