Member-only story
Sexism and Power in the Workplace and Beyond
Collective action to bring down the patriarchy.
This week I attended a community organising course on the theme of ‘power’. In order to effect change in our communities, we need power. The day-long event explored the ways in which we can build power, and how we can help others identify that there are ways they already have power even when it seems they don’t. At the start of the day, we each had to introduce ourselves (“I’m Katy, I’m a reporter for The Meteor”) and talk about a time in which we felt powerless. I chose to speak about my time working as a female engineer in a male-dominated workforce, and the overt and covert sexism and misogyny I faced daily.
It’s something I wasn’t allowed to talk about at the time; there was an unspoken rule, even among the few women in the industry, that the “s-word” was completely taboo. It was fine to make rape jokes, slurs against foreigners, gay and transgender people; never OK to question these collectively-held prejudices. The belief was that if we upheld the meritocracy myth, it would come true. Those unaffected by systemic biases would be deeply offended if we denied it was real, and so the only way to get by was to pretend we believed it as well.
It’s a peculiar thing, when women working in a field with obvious gender bias deny that it exists. A part of it is the knowledge that to say anything would mark one out as a troublemaker and trying to get ahead based on their gender (as if that would help), and the best defense is to identify, loudly, as One Of The Boys. Some of it is pride in their own abilities, which they do not want to be queried or lauded based on their sex. Their belief in their own competence is so strong that they cannot admit to the idea that they have gotten to where they are on anything but merit. Perhaps it is also easier not to think about how far they might get if they were judged solely on merit.
As a result it can be very lonely as a woman in STEM. Other women should be your allies, but often they are not. There might not be outward hostility (although sadly there often is) but empathy and solidarity are missing. The fewer women exist in an organisation, the worse it seems to be. The tiny female contingent has a greater reason to keep up the appearance of satisfaction with…
