Engineering…. And being a token minority.
Don’t know if anything I’ll say will actually add to the debate - but I guess this situation is pretty much the usual situation with most girls in engineering or any male-dominated field, who tend to get along better with boys than other girls.
In high school, I had two female best friends, and a group of male friends. My class was mostly made of guys and having to deal with them daily actually helped me develop my character. In undergrad, the ratio was quite balanced (special policy in my school at the time), so I had no real problem (and we were busy preparing the competitive entrance exams…). In engineering school, girls were few, but had a strong connection together, and that didn’t prevent us from having a lot of boyish, dirty fun with the guys. But now, as I’ve changed countries, the situation is a bit different.
Now that I’m in Asia, most foreign guys that I hang out with have that slight tendency to play macho with the local girls - and being of asian descent, I sometimes feel like part of the group (like in the post below, just one foreign person among foreign guys but not specifically a girl), but I also sometimes feel like I’m pushed back to my “girliness”. I believe it’s totally not on purpose, but maybe they could make the effort. Anyway, I started feeling a bit lonely, because I didn’t really have any close female friends in this new country. I got sick of hanging out with 5 or 6 guys who always ended up doing dirty jokes - plus I’m feeling a bit old for that, I mean we’ve been through the dirty, stupid game stage in undergrad, didn’t we?
But finally, I just thought it through. Being a girl, in any situation, in front of a “stronger”, more numerous group of guys, takes a lot of inner strength. I’ve counted and analysed so many situations with my boyfriend, where we would just compare “what would have happened if I did this instead of you?”, for jokes for example. Like, if I say a joke that is slightly mocking, the guys tend to say that I’m too mean and dismiss it, while when he says the same kind of joke, the other guys just swallow their egos and the joke becomes a running gag for the rest of the night.
It’s just like that. What I’ve decided is to stop spending all my time with these guys, and just showing them that, well, I have another life besides them and YES, I’m a girl (I do shopping and fashion-blog reading!) but NO, I’m not just that kind of stupid girly girl, you know? (I can stand dirty jokes, thanks!)
I’ve gone back to building up my self-confidence. I’ve fine-tuned my jokes, so that they feel less offended. I tried to get closer to my female friends, to share more with them even though we’re not from the same country and culture. And I feel a little better now.
It’s not a perfect solution but ultimately, some guys need to realize that it’s not that easy being women in an environment full of men. But they won’t understand it themselves; we need to tell them, somehow, and in the meantime, just grit our teeth.
(PS: didn’t review what I wrote - going to bed right now, checking it tomorrow).
I’ve always considered myself to be the type of girl who prefers the company of guys. Honestly and truly, as far as I can remember, I have never had a close friendship with a girl that has lasted more than a year, my guys however, are my boys for life. I would kill for every single one of my old high school buddies and I know they would for me too. And now I’m in college, in the engineering dorm, in a very male dominated setting, a seemingly idea situation for me— but I’m beginning to realize the problem with only having guy friends. They don’t really see me as a girl. On one hand, I don’t want preferential treatment— I don’t want them to treat me like I’m made of glass, or like I can’t do something that they can— but I also don’t like feeling like if I show some sort of feminine tendency, like emotions beyond “DUDE THAT’S EPIC!!!” and “HUUURRRR MANLINESS ACTION CAR CHASES EXPLOSSSSSIOOONSSSS!!!!!” then they look at me like “who invited the girl?”. Maybe these are just especially emotionally stunted guys, engineering is not an emotional field of study, but my it’s something else.
I’m beginning to realize that my strictly guy friend group worked for me in high school because I always had a close relationship with my mom to give that feminine outlet when I needed it. Like, when I need reassurance that my imagined flaws are really just imagined, or when I need to discuss the pain in my uterus that has caused me to have to miss school before, or when I want to geek out about a cute top or essentially just have a feminine moment. I feel like I’m not allowed feminine moments anymore so I can fit in, and sooner or later it’s going to change me, having to stifle myself like this.
It’s just odd to truly be something unique simply by how I was born. Being middle class and white, I can’t truly say that I’ve ever felt isolated from people like me, but recently, I definitely can say I know what it feels like to be isolated from people like you. My college guy friends are fine, they make me laugh constantly and I know they’re watching out for me even though they mess with me a lot, but I hopefully I’ll be able to lower my guard with them eventually, or find a girl to make friends with.
If you’re a woman engineer, send me a message and let me know if you’ve felt the same way and how you dealt with it.
(Source: scienceandengineeringgirl)
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lnchou reblogged this from scienceandengineeringgirl and added:
Don’t know if anything I’ll say will actually add...guess this situation is pretty much...
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