Throughout my life, most of my closest friends have been men. This has never been deliberate and certainly not for a lack of effort – it’s just that most of my interests and passions tend to be ones that are “traditionally male”: interests such as hockey, baseball, video games, aviation, aerospace, physics, math, engineering, mining, and so on. I am acutely aware of what these “traditionally male” environments look like beforehand and what to expect, but not once has it ever been a consideration or something that discouraged me from partaking. In fact, after establishing myself in these environments, I am fiercely proud to be there and create my own environment within the realm. My life, thus far, has been a masterclass on learning how to navigate “traditionally male” environments.
Despite playing sports with boys all throughout my childhood, I think a defining period for me was 2011 when I was in grade 9. I got my first Xbox and began playing Call of Duty with a group of guys who I shared a lot of classes with – a few of whom I was already familiar with because I had played hockey with them growing up. In fact, one of them I had already known for my entire life, as our dad’s coached hockey together the year we were born (and now we have a matching tattoo). For the next 4 years, these were the people who I’d spend most of my day with – then subsequently talk to for hours after school and on weekends over Xbox Live. All of this time led to the development of a tight-knit group that we refer to as “the boys” (original, right?), who are my closest friends to this day.
However, there was no fooling anybody. I am clearly not a boy. On its own, this never bothered me – I have never felt like a boy and have never wanted to be a boy. What did bother me was the supposition of other people, over many instances, who insisted that I was fundamentally different than the boys in such a way that could never allow for genuine, unconditional friendship. The boys themselves never made me feel this way. Looking back, it is silly to think of the many times where I exhausted myself attempting to justify that even though I was different, I was still allowed to belong. I remember one night in particular, when I was chatting with my friend Scott on Xbox Live while we were playing Black Ops II Zombies (map: town, on grief mode) after a particularly challenging day. I remember saying, defeatedly, “I wish I was a boy”. While I have never genuinely wished that, in the moment I felt overwhelmed by the onus of proving to the rest of the world that I was allowed to be a genuine friend to Scott. It would have been easier to be his friend had I been a boy. A lot of my high school experience was shaped around proving to the rest of the world that I was “one of the boys”.
Therein lies the fundamental, unjust, and unequivocally false premise that I have been held to (and ultimately responsible for overcoming in any “traditionally male” space): I am a girl, therefore I am a special kind of different that forbids me from participating genuinely in a “traditionally male” space.
I am willing to accept that I am viewed as different – although I aspire towards a world where I’m not, and that being a certain gender is as deterministic and life-altering as one’s eye colour (ie. minimally); however, that’s not a belief I’m prepared to write about here. It is no coincidence that after I moved away for university, my friendships with the boys became stronger and I felt more secure – I no longer interacted with anybody who knew all of us and therefore had nobody to prove anything to. I was allowed to be a genuine friend without the anxiety of being perceived as a special kind of different. Because of that, I was a better friend. What I wish I had known all along is that other people’s projections and doubts about my friendships never mattered at all. However, working in the mining industry has been somewhat reminiscent of high school when I felt like I had to justify being “one of the boys”.
This same idea explicitly surfaced at work not too long ago. We have recently added a young tradesperson to our team – she is ambitious, fiercely principled, and determined; She embodies every quality we need in a proficient tradesperson, and she gets along well with everyone. Last week, some of the guys were talking about her (all positive), but one comment stuck out to me. Somebody mentioned that she had a good sense of humour and wasn’t sensitive, that she was “one of the boys”. In that moment, it was as if a train of emotional wounds of years past had struck me. I didn’t say anything at the time, and I’m sure the person who said it did not realize the implications of his comment – but I have reflected on it every single day since. What I’ve concluded is the following: in order to gain the respect and trust of those around us in a “traditionally male” space, women must first prove themselves to be one of two things:
- Innocent, quiet, and compliant; or
- One of the boys.
Also, before I continue, here’s a sidebar: the next man who apologizes for swearing in front of me is going to get told where to go; that is, if I’ve already asked him not to apologize at some point before. I am not porcelain, I am not a child. It is disrespectful to do that, especially if you had no problem swearing in front of the twenty other guys in the room had I not been here. You just ‘other-ed’ me. For a moment, consider how that makes me feel. I am not twelve – and even if I were twelve, I had already been swearing for years by that point, too. The few times I’ve brought this up, people retort with “well we were raised to not swear in front of women” – I get it, I understand. However, even though it is minimal, this is still a manifestation of a much larger fundamental problem: you perceive me as different, and worse, you are actively treating me that way. I care very little about how you were raised – consider that what matters more in this conversation (a whole lot more than your misguided upbringing) is the fact that you have insulted me by treating me differently in such an inconsequential way. Alternatively, if I play into the “don’t swear in front of me, I’m a woman” bullshit, I’m just reinforcing trope #1 listed above – and you are indirectly suggesting that you expect me to behave that way in order to gain your trust, or else I’m “unwomanly” or you view me as a child. At the very least that’s how I perceive it, and that’s a lot more harmful than you realize. If you’re not going to swear, extend that same philosophy onto everybody – not just me. Do not treat me differently. Moreover, by swearing I play into trope #2 because only somebody who is “one of the boys” would swear. Why can’t I just be myself? Why am I held to all of these standards? Hell, I just want to be genuine in my existence and swear!
Why these two tropes, anyway? Well, I’ve done some thinking and I think it boils down to this: trope #1 effectively renders women as invisible and trope #2 assures others that these women are not a threat. Simply, I just want to be myself. However, consider last week, when I was being myself (inquisitive) – and a coworker told me that whenever I ask questions and solve problems (literally my job), it makes all of the experienced journeymen electricians uncomfortable. Holy shit, fuck that. While it likely isn’t true, the utter fact that one person believes this enough to say it to me is yet another dynamic that I must consider. What’s even more frustrating is that I already make an effort to mitigate this – usually when I have some technical input or thoughts, I frame it as a question instead of a statement so that I don’t come off as assertive or like a know-it-all. For instance, when somebody suggests that a battery truck may be inoperable due to a CANbus issue, and I ask:
“Haven’t we already determined that the issue isn’t a CANBus issue because all the other components on the CAN-high circuit are reporting accurately to the PCM? Unless I’m dumb or something.”
Yet, I already know the answer to this “question” – it’s not a CANBus issue, and I also know that I’m not dumb, I’m just trying to play down my input to be as innocuous as possible. This is behaviour I’ve subconsciously acquired and use it to be trusted and listened to. This is an example of me being trope #1. However, this is a catch-22, because people view this as purely just a confidence issue where I don’t have faith in myself, rather than a mental game of 4D chess wherein I must consider how the tone of every single thing I say may affect the way others feel.
Feeling like I need to be perceived as one of these characters in order to be trusted or to prove myself is exhausting, the same way it was exhausting to be a “character” in high school. What is frustrating about this is that I do not feel as though this same standard is extended to men in these spaces – sure, they must prove themselves to be capable miners, tradespeople, engineers or whatever their immediate role is – but they do not have to be disingenuous to do that and gain the trust of others. Not only must I prove my technical skills to everybody (which is fair and ubiquitous amongst everyone), but the burden has been placed onto me to prove that I am not a threat and that I belong. Furthermore, by attempting to prove my technical skills I’m verifiably perceived as a know-it-all or too assertive, thereby lessening any trust I had in the first place. For most of my life, I’ve had to go above and beyond to justify the space I occupy in these environments. Perhaps this is a fault of my own, but I constantly worry about how I may be perceived by others or if I’ve proven myself enough – which all seems sort of silly when I wonder if others are worried about my opinion of them and if they’ve proven themselves to me. I’m sure they’re not thinking about that, and never have. Perhaps they should.
I will be the first to admit – I am not very tall. Most men are stronger than me. I could not operate a jackleg. I do not have sex with women. I don’t hunt or fish. I knit things. These qualities make me different than a lot of people in this space, but they do not render me useless or unrelatable altogether – they do not make me a special kind of different. None of these qualities prohibit me from being valuable or trustworthy. In fact, as my supervisor often reminds me, I am here because of my differences – a degree in astrophysics, an observant mind, a deep understanding of electrochemistry and electromagnetism, organizational skills, deductive reasoning, passion for my work, the ability to learn, and so on. These are the metrics by which I should be deemed trustworthy and somebody who belongs. If I am being held to the standard of my physical strength, height, gender, sexuality, dislike of fish – then no, I will never be trusted because those are not things I can change. Here I am, in all of my glory, shouting from the top of mountains – these things do not matter when considering whether I belong in the mining industry.
Listen – I am not a threat. I am not trying to invade or change the ethos of a “traditionally male” space with my spooky girl power and feminine mischief. All I’ve ever wanted to do was highlight the unequivocal fact that my differences simply do not matter. Of course, when saying this to anybody who already doubts me, I will likely come off as abrasive and they will not extend the effort to consider where I’m coming from; they’ll just see me as a threat or unjustly aggressive because they do not understand. Unreasonable people cannot be reasoned with. Instead, I’m just doing the safe thing by writing a blog about it to get it all out. Though, I’m sure there will be people who read this who are not overly charitable to any of my thoughts in here either. Regardless, the easiest way to gain the respect and trust of these kinds of people is to continue to be either the innocent, quiet, and compliant woman or “one of the boys” – even though it’s unfair. I will continue to be frustrated, but I will also try to push the boundary and slowly become unapologetically genuine. That, and I will continue to be a shoulder to lean on for the women who are following behind. We’ll figure it out – always have.
(April 26th, 2021)
astronomine 