I think this womans advice is superb...enjoy itNaeema
Women In the Engineering IndustryWomen In the Engineering Industry
Copyright 1994
Kaitlin Duck Sherwood
Disclaimer:
This article descends from a talk I gave to the Society of Women Engineers
at UIUC. I have tried to translate from the spoken word to the written
word, but some things may not have made it over properly.
Being a woman in engineering industry is different from being a man in
engineering industry. Not better, not worse, but
different. I'm going to
try to talk about the things that are going to annoy you and help you when
you get out to The Real World.
Please note that not everything I am going to say will apply to everyone
here. (Many of them don't even apply to me, as a relatively
tall women with very masculine speech patterns.) These are
rampant generalizations, but I can't talk about anything interesting if I
don't generalize.
Physiology
Men and women have physiological differences, as you may have noticed.
You would think that this shouldn't make any difference in the workplace,
but it does.
Temperature
Women, prepare now for being cold at work for the rest of
your life.
Those of you who have taken thermodynamics know that heat production
is a function of volume (radius cubed), while heat dissipation is a function of
surface area (radius squared). So the generation to dissipation ratio goes
as the radius, and so
the smaller you are, the colder you will be. Furthermore, because women
menstruate, they are more prone to anemia, which can also make you cold.
I've also read that women have much tighter tolerances on their core
temperature regulation, to provide for a better growing environment for
potential fetuses. So when a woman's core temperature drops by a little
bit, all the blood gets sucked back from the extremities to the core.
When men's core temperature drops by a little bit, and it just sits there,
no problem.
Toss in that the ultimate control over building thermostats usually
lies with large, well-fed men in three-piece suits in south-facing
window offices, and you're going to be cold a lot. When I was working,
I would always bring a coat to work with me, even in the height of summer.
Now, before you run and slap the next guy you see for being so insensitive,
note that men are frequently hot - especially in a tie and a nice wool
suit! Furthermore, I've seen some things that lead me to believe that
part of why women live on the average eight years longer then men
is their superior
temperature regulation system. I don't know if this is true or not, but
believing it gives me great comfort. On bad days I can sit there and
think evil thoughts about the men in charge of the thermostats: "I may
be freezing, but you're going to die!"
Carpal Tunnel
In addition to being colder, women in my experience seem to be more prone
to carpal tunnel syndrome. I have a friend whose theory is that because
men's shoulders are wider and their handspand greater, they don't have such
a big excursion when hopping from keyboard to mouse or reach for funky keys.
My anecdotal evidence is that the Sun keyboards with two keys between
semicolon and return are the worst, by the way.
It may also be that tables and chairs are the wrong size for people who
are substantially bigger or smaller than the average. This can lead to
neck strain, back strain, eye strain, brain strain, whatever. If you
start getting any of these problems, deal with it right away. Repetitive
stress injuries don't go away with time, they get worse. Ask for a monitor
stand, a different chair, put your computer on a box, the floor, get a new
desk, whatever. And don't feel bad about asking for this: a new desk and chair
is cheaper for the company than two years of physical therapy.
(See also
Computer Related Repetitive Strain Injury.)
Language
You do need to be careful about
how you ask for a more suitable
workspace, and this brings me to
the other major difference between men and women: language.
Phrase Everything As A Win-Win
Do
notwalk into your boss' office, throw a hissy fit, and say that you need
new furniture
NOW! Negative style points. Whenever possible, explain
your ideas in terms of how they would benefit the other person, not how
they would benefit you. Women tend to be more sympathetic, so tend to
expect sympathy more readily. Forget it. You have to make them understand
why they want to do what you want them to do.
Learn To Say "No" Well
You also need to be able to say "no" well. If the boss says, "We'd like you
to write a statistical process control package for our line in one month",
the appropriate response is not "you're out of your mind", nor is it "that
can't be done". The appropriate response is, "Well, we could do that, but
only if we hire about five contractors and rent six computers for development."
It may be that the project is important enough that they are willing to do
just that.
If your boss really pushes you and basically tells you that you
have to do it all by yourself in a month, you need to tell your boss, "I
will do the best I can to get this done in a month, but let me go on record
as stating that I feel that this is a schedule aggressive enough that it
is not possible for anyone to do." If you can back that up with examples
of time-to-completion for similar projects, even better. Put it in writing
and keep one for your files, even better.
This is very important. The saddest case I ever saw of a woman not fitting
into the culture was one of the sweetest women you'd ever want to know.
She was universally highly-regarded technically. And she had a
reputation for being very difficult to work with.
She is so sweet that when they ask her to do
impossible things, she'd end up capitulating relatively easily because
she wanted to be nice. She'd work her brains out, day-in, day-out, evenings,
weekends, all the time, get all frazzled. Then when it got close to deadline
and it wasn't ready, they'd start to come down on her, and she would just
explode. She'd go totally non-linear. And nobody would understand what set her
off. So she'd get nailed for being hard to work with.
This obviously was
extremely frustrating for her, so it would be even worse next time. It was very
sad. Here was a human being who spent a lot of time being very unhappy
and a company that lost a great resource. Moral of the story: learn to say
no! And if you can't say no, you'd better be darn-shootin' sure to keep your boss
well-apprised of your progress.
Speak Up!
In general, you should not wait for people to poll you for your opinion,
for your status, for your needs and desires. You have to speak up and tell
them yourself. There is a scholarship in General Engineering - the
Elizabeth Ruff scholarship -
whose description basically says that it is for sweet, unpretentious,
unassuming girls. (Yes, it really does say, "girls".) I read the
criteria and said, "Whoever wins this has my
deepest sympathy.
This is practically a recipe for failure in the engineering
workplace." Especially in meetings, you can't wait for them to say, "Now,
Marilyn, how do you feel about this?" You'll have a long wait.
Expressing Certainty
Also on the subject of pretentiousness, I have a friend who observes that
if a man
thinks the answer is three, he'll say "The answer is three." If a
woman
knows the answer is three, she will say, "I think the answer is three."
Women tend to be more tentative. This is not necessarily bad - you
may end up with higher credibility than the man who keeps insisting that
the answer is three when it is really is seventeen... but you might look
wishy-washy.
Don't Take It Personally
Men also take things a lot less personally. They will yell and scream and
call each other bloody idiots over a technical point, then go have a beer
together. The fact that someone doesn't like a particular idea of yours
does not necessarily mean that they don't like or respect
you. They
just may lack diplomacy. If someone is in your face, it's probably because
he or she feels responsible for but not in control of something. This
is a deadly combination.
If some guy gets nasty with you, do what I do:
assume he had a fight with his wife, got into a fender-bender, has to come
up with $3000 to fix his roof, and left his wallet at home. Then feel
sorry for him and see if you can make his day better.
This can have some very nice outcomes. This guy who was famous for being
abusive barged into my office, just livid, and started beating on my
desk with his fist. "Your goddamn groupcan'tdoshitright@#$*((R*@&$#%(*#$&!"
I let him rant and rave until he wound down, then said, "Yeah, well, we
very well might have screwed up, let's take a look at it."
That stopped him
dead in his tracks! He was so braced for a fight that he didn't quite know
what to do when I wouldn't fight back. We looked at the code, and it
turned out that he had screwed up. I showed him what he had done
wrong, explained what he needed to do to fix it, and told him that if
he would go fix it right away, I'd stay late to personally oversee my
group's part of it so that it would be ready to move on first thing in the
morning.
It was priceless! He just sort of slunk away and never gave
me any trouble after that. My friend Anne reports a nearly identical
occurrence with Customer From Hell, so it wasn't just me.
Accept Blame Properly
Accepting guilt can be really useful. Not just for defusing cases like that
jerk, but also for establishing credibility. If you say, "Yeah, I screwed up"
when you do screw up, then when you say, "No, that was not my fault", people
will believe you.
Now, when you do accept blame, DO NOT GROVEL. DO NOT MAKE EXCUSES. I worked
with a woman who would spend five minutes apologizing for a screwup... and
then make the exact same screwup next week. Contrition and excuses are not
useful: I want the problem resolved.
When accepting guilt, do the following:
- Make a brief statement of contrition,
- accept guilt,
- explain briefly how you are going to solve the immediate problem,
and
- explain how you are going to prevent this from occurring in the
future.
For example:
- "I'm sorry,
- I didn't clearly explain to Mike which include files to use.
- I will personally go rebuild the kernel now - it should be ready at about 4:30.
- I'll also go put a comment in the README file about which include files to use."
(Note that if a subordinate screws up, you accept the blame as being your
fault. If they did something wrong, you didn't train them right, you didn't
give them adequate instructions or equipment or something. If you blame them
you look like a whiner. If you protect your people, however, they will
follow you through the depths of hell.)
Insecurity
Now, some people get really nervous about the idea of admitting guilt, being
afraid that it will make them seem less competent. Here's what you need to know:
#1: Everybody screws up.
Everybody. It happens all the time. I know you are all freaked
because you've all had profs who gave zero partial credit on the grounds
that if the sign is wrong, the bridge will fall down. This is true, but
there are an enormous number of checks in the real world to make sure that
the sign is not wrong.
You design, then simulate, then redesign, then simulate again, then prototype,
then test, then redesign, etc. etc. etc. Engineering is an incredibly
iterative process, and it is that feedback loop that keeps the bridges from
falling down, NOT that everybody but you does everything right the first time.
#2: EVERYBODY is insecure about their job performance.
I read an article in
Psychology Today when I was in college that interviewed people at all
different levels of corporations. They were surprised to find that the
higher you went in a corporation, the more successful people were, the
moreinsecure they were about their jobs! There was a real strong fear among
high-placed people that someday they'd be
found out! That everybody would
suddenly realize that they were totally clueless! Moral: nobody has a clue,
so relax already.
#3 The most successful people are NOT those who screw up the least.
The most successful people are those who learn best from the
screw-ups they make, and act fastest to make amends. I was at a startup
that was very careful about who they hired. They only tended to hire
people who had always had raging successes. Unfortunately, this left
them ill-equipped to deal with a troubled project.
My friend Anne says, "I have been on
some large, highly successful projects, but I didn't learn as much
from them as I did from the small, disastrous projects (which failed
because they were small and we thought we didn't have to do all the
stuff you have to do for a big project -- WRONG!)"
I know someone else who observed that at Intel, the people who
were on projects that failed miserably eventually ended up as corporate VPs -
because they had learned so much more than their colleagues whose
projects had succeeded.
It's very difficult to examine a success and figure out why it went right.
It is much easier to take a failure and figure out why it went wrong.
So look at your screwups as valuable learning aids!
Measure Your Job Performance
Now, this doesn't mean you shouldn't pay attention to your job performance.
It is a really good idea to figure out some way of measuring your performance -
something, anything. My friend Anne quoted Gilb's law
(from the book
Peopleware):
any measurement you make is better than no measurement at all.
I'd advise
as a minimum generating weekly status reports (regardless of whether your boss
asks for them or not). Mention what you are working on, why it has taken
you longer than you thought (because it always does), what would help you in
terms of equipment, cooperation from other departments, etc.
Benefits of Being Female
There are some
benefits of being a woman surrounded by men.
Men Like Women
Most men
like women. It's
a strong evolutionarialy favorable trait. So all other things being
equal, you may well get more cooperation from men than they would give to
other men. Part of this also is that men can be really territorial around
other men. They can play all kinds of status games with each other that
can make them real jerks to other men. Women by and large not only don't
play those games, they are oblivious to the fact that they are going on.
This means that men can usually relax more around women.
Being Remembered
Because there are relatively few women around, if you are the only
woman in a meeting of thirty, guess who the Vice-President is going to
remember? Yes, you will be more exposed. Yes, your screw-ups will be
more visible. (I don't remember who said it, but I liked the quote:
"Women have not yet achieved the right to be mediocre.") But your
successes will also be more visible.
Exploiting the Underground Economy
Women also tend to be more empathic and more diplomatic, two traits that
are highly useful in collaborative efforts. Companies are all dependent
upon what I call "the underground economy". This is an economy based on
personal ties that has nothing to do with the formal power structure.
This
is what I invoke when I get on the phone and say, "Psst! Hey Dottie! I
got a sputtering system down, and I need some oxide wafer to qual it and
bring it back up. The fab manager is breathing down my neck, but hotwall
is down and can't get me any wafers. Can you get me about twenty oxide
wafers?" And then Dottie shows up five minutes later, slips me a box of
wafers, and says, "Here you go. Don't ask where I got them." (It isn't that
she stole them from somewhere, it's that company policy frowned upon hoarding
wafers. I presume that she knew a technician who had some oxide wafers in
his or her desk that were left over from some experiment, and she called in
a favor from that tech, and I ended up with wafers.)
This kind of thing
happens all the time in The Real World. Frequently the unit of exchange is not physical, it
is information. Also, exchanges don't even necessarily stop at company
boundaries. I have friends call me up and say, "My boss is afraid to use
an aluminum casting for this part because he says it won't be waterproof.
What the hell is he talking about?" Or I call up friends and say, "Honey,
sweetie, darling, I'm having trouble with my computer and I think it has
to do with file locking; could you explain to me again how file locking works?"
I think that all other things being equal, women tend to be better networkers
because they do tend to pay attention to other people's needs.
The Rules
Women have a lot fewer rules that they have to follow. Men are practically
handed a rule book at birth and told, "If you break these rules, you
will be Not Taken Seriously."
Women used to have a whole set of really rigid rules as well, the whole
barefoot and pregnant routine, uncomfortable shoes, etc. That finally
became so unbearable that The Rules got challenged to the point where it is
common for them to be broken. The remnants of The Rules still linger, and
give women all kinds of grief, but if you think you are oppressed,
think about all the Rules men have to follow!
- If you weigh less than 200lb and are less than 6' tall, you may
not wear pastels.
- You may only wear a skirt or dress on Halloween.
- You must wear a tie to formal occasions.
- You may not be neutral about The Super Bowl.
- You must always have a job.
- You may NOT stay home and raise kids.
- You may not touch another man, unless
your are thumping him on the back, shaking his hand, punching his
lights out, or participating in a sporting event.
- You are allowed to exhibit only one feeling: blinding anger.
For example, I have one friend who had large sums of money in the bank and
didn't like
his job. I told him he ought to quit his job and go travel around the
world. He rather liked the idea, but couldn't. He absolutely
could
not bear the idea of someone asking him, "Where do you work?"
and not having an answer.
Men are starting to notice that they have all these Rules, and are starting
to rebel: asking for custody of children, staying home, wearing pink, but as
we know, it is a slow path to equality.
For more, see:
Ellen Spertus
excellent compilation of documents on
Women In Computer Science
- CEO: Sandra Kurtzig's informative and funny book about starting
a company and making it a success
- Female Advantage (Peters): This book profiles
four successful women and how their "feminine" traits have helped them
succeed.
- You Just Don't Understand (Debra Tannen): Tannen talks about
how men and women use language differently. Some people I know complain
that her research is anecdotal and not rigorous, but jeez, look at it as philosophy.
(How many people complained about Iron John not being rigorous???)
What she says rings very true to me, as well as providing a good framework
for thinking about your own interactions.
- Peopleware (DeMarco and Lister):
My friend Anne says this
is the most sane book on software engineering that she has ever read. The
theme could be summed up as "How to Complete Your Project Despite Management".
Anne says she particularly likes the chapter on The Furniture Police.
Progressive Directory's Women Index has general
topics of interest to women.
- The Female Equation links
to various things
Final Word
I believe it was Martin Luther King, Jr. who said: "Excellence is the
best antidote for racism." I think the same is true for chauvinism, so
let's all go out and be excellent!
Acknowledgments
I have received a great deal of assistance and encouragement from a
number of people in the creation and extension of this document. Thanks to
Mom, Wendy, Joyce, Hala, Megan, Brad, Sassan, Jim, and especially
Anne Powell!
DuckyYou may reproduce this document in whole or in part without my permission
provided that you do not receive money for it, you do not alter it, and you
attribute the author.
