Do you know what it feels like for a girl?

In light of the new UN campaign He For She I decided to write my story as a female engineer in a man’s world. Let me start with stating I belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities and I believe in political, economic and social equality of the sexes.

I have been posting water stuff of FB since forever hoping to sparkle some minds with the current state of the water world. So naturally I was very excited that I had received a water question from a male FB friend. He asked if I thought it would be smart to pee in the shower. Trying to remain optimistic my answer elaborated about the domestic water use and I threw in terms like grey water, black water, recovery and societal behavior change. He continued to ask me if I pee in showers, and second if I would like it if he did.

During an early bachelor course I became friends with a one of my male class mates. At the end of the course I proudly showed him my good results. His response was ‘who I had to blow to get that grade’ and the other boys all thought it was very funny.

As one of my earlier work experiences it was my job to visit installations to collect samples and do some analysis. On one of the days my direct colleague was on site with me. While we were driving back to the office he informed me the guys at the station were discussing how good I look bend over while taking samples from the aeration tank.

Ughh…

Now at what point do you start to think “this is not a funny story” or even use the term sexual harassment? I can tell you in all cases I was very uncomfortable and feeling disrespected.

Although all places I have worked and studied at have been very welcoming and open I did have to put up with unwanted and improper attention, serious boob staring and the occasional sexist joke I was not meant to hear. Over the years I have spend considerable time checking my outfits to make sure they’re not too tight or revealing. Some frustration has bottled up inside me and I feel I need to state this “Yes I have a female body, boobs and everything, get over it!”

Outside the visual aspect of being a woman, are there other ways in which my gender is influencing my work? Personally I have never felt I received doubt about my hard or soft skills as an engineer and hopefully you already know, girls can be good at math, play with Lego’s when they’re young and grow up to be engineers.

When I look around at the places I have worked, woman are a minority (at one installation there wasn’t even a woman’s bathroom!). This doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem, but woman can have great qualities that can be beneficial to team dynamics and productivity. In a productive workplace men and women can work together respectfully and fully embracing everyone’s potential to achieve best results, and that is of course the dream. Perhaps if you work in an office in a western society you might not see this as an issue, please remember that on average women are still paid less than men and possibly this story has given you something to think about. On a global scale gender inequality is still happening at large and I therefore believe it is important to talk about it, so this one is for the ladies.

*My experiences are not meant to show men in a bad light, they simply are how I experienced it.