Not a Prize to be Won

Appeared in the Idaho State Journal on December 20, 2020.

It’s that time of year for the annual performance evaluation. I’m asked to provide a self-appraisal before my manager writes my review. I should be working on that instead of this, but alas. Here I am. As I think back on this past year, thoughts drift into reflections upon my entire career.

When I graduated from college, I was one of two women in Idaho State’s College of Engineering graduating class. During my last semester, I got an internship at local semiconductor manufacturer American Microsystems Inc. (AMI). My semester’s task was to incorporate code into test programs to reduce part test times and ultimately save costs. That internship led to my first full-time job as a Test Engineer.

My mom convinced me to buy new slacks and blouses so I would look professional. What I experienced, however, was that among my team of a dozen male engineers, I was the one asked to make copies. I was often mistaken for the new secretary and wasn’t included in technical lessons that the male new hires were. If I was going to be treated like an engineer, I learned I had to start by dressing like one. Jeans, comic book t-shirts, and sneakers took over.

Within my first few months, I attended a staff meeting where a vice president (who left the company a few years after this) shared big news. We were awarded a contract with a prestigious tech company. He gave the customer presentation to our team to wow us the way he wowed them.  There were about 20 engineers in the room. I was the only woman at 23 years old.

As a rookie, I didn’t know the vice president well, but I knew who he was. I had been in a fender-bender with his daughter in high school. Jamming to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” and not paying attention, I hit her back bumper right in front of Big Gary’s snack shack in the after school swarm. When my mom and the VP talked on the phone that night to discuss insurance details, he insisted everything was fine; it was a “teenager car” and there was no need file a claim. As a single parent, she couldn’t have handled an insurance cost increase, so we were always grateful for his kindness.

Toward the end of his presentation, a slide cast on the wall showed a cartoon businessman in a blue suit next to a smiling dog. The VP said something like, “We love the past work you’ve given us but we don’t just want your dog projects. We want more. We can do more.”

He advanced the slide and the cartoon engineer had a bigger smile and was standing next to a woman in a red bikini on an awards platform holding a gold trophy. She was blond with a pageant-style sash over her chest, cleavage a-plenty and a toothpaste commercial smile. “We want your prize projects. Your top-notch ones. Our past work shows we’ve earned them.”

Even if it was a cartoon, why were we seeing so much skin in a staff meeting? Was the trophy supposed to represent the contract award or the woman? Or both together?

He was using a woman displayed this way to indicate an honor. A prize. Something beautiful that everyone valued and our company sought to win. While I grasped the intended honor of the imagery, this characterization of women in my workplace perpetuated a singular representation of all women. My every day had been an effort in demonstrating that women are technical counterparts - that I was a brainy equal who belonged there. The vice president’s unwitting workplace endorsement of women as a prized beauty sabotaged everything I was working toward. His framing of women and the ensuing cheers and whistles may have been a well-intended display of admiration of women, but in so doing, they were failing to see how women could be working right alongside them brimming with brainpower, and how this characterization was affecting me.

When the meeting concluded a colleague gave me an elbow nudge and said, “you’ve got to get yourself one of those outfits, eh?” I was still processing, but replied with a forced smile “Red’s not my color. Besides, there weren’t any pockets for my tools.” I learned to always bring the focus back why I was there: because I was a smart, capable, creative problem-solver – not a prize to be won.

My current company works to include and accurately represent women in all elements of the business –from external marketing to internal messaging; from hiring and recruiting to training and development. There will always be ways to improve and work to do, but to cultivate a collaborative culture where innovation can thrive, these efforts are vital.

Now to queue up some AC/DC and get back to my self-appraisal…