Feminine Wiles

I'll be outright.

Every time I want to make friends with males in my major, I feel pressured to prove myself.  I feel pressured to make sure they know I work for my own success and am capable in my field.  I don't feel that I will be respected without making it known I excel in my field.

I'm sick of this.  I'm sick of feeling like every new friend is another point to prove, and every first impression is against me.  I strive to present myself in a way that first impressions of me are positive and respectful, and I have infinite doubts as to this work's payoff.  I still feel as though I have a number of stereotypes to overcome: unmotivated, unwilling to learn, airheaded, flippant, and more.  It sucks fighting against those stereotypes.

(A quick aside, as an exercise to the tech-student reader.  Ask yourself, "Do I feel that women in tech fields are any of those things?"  Now, disregard your politically-correct heavily-generalized answer and ask yourself, "What do I think of the women in my tech classes?"  Ponder on that for a moment.)

But it sucks even more that those stereotypes are there in the first place.  It sucks that there were enough women in technical fields before me who fit those traits to form a stereotype.  And of course, it sucks that the behavior of those women should have any bearing on me.

I'm interested in talking about why women have stereotypes like this.  I think it has to do with these so-called "feminine wiles" - a shift of the blouse and a wink of the eye, and a good-looking woman has the world at her feet, so we're told.  And it works, often enough, for the same reason that a glance-over and a cute smile can get plenty of men whatever they want with us - humans like feeling wanted, but that is neither here nor there.  Using these feminine wiles, to me, seems akin to using a CAS calculator on the ACT.  Yes, you can probably get away with it.  Yes, it will probably work out well for you.  But morality aside, you won't learn anything and you won't represent yourself accurately.  You aren't showing any real skills.  And if you're caught, you're up shit creek.

Men are easy, in some fields more than others.  The fields themselves are not!  Sure, you can get help with your homework and breeze through freshman year with the assistance of your reverse-harem.  But what will that do for you?  It will ensure that you have a shaky background for the next year, and the year after that, ad nauseum.  And it will build you a reputation, which will in turn build your gender-specific peers a reputation.  Your easy way through engineering school is leaving behind red shells for everyone who comes after you.  It's a dangerous game to play, and most of the time it'll bite you in the ass - imagine, years later, you apply for a job at Company Foo.  The recruiter at Foo says to student Bob, who he knows went to school with you, "What do you think of this person who we are thinking of hiring?"  If Bob says, "Well, she didn't do much work in college - usually she had a boyfriend do her work for her," this is a problem.  This is a reputation that you will not be able to get rid of, even if you fix your experience and your skill base after graduating!

My plea here has a dual nature.  Women, and men, everyone: please think long and hard about the way you present yourself to the world, and about any and all effects your demeanor has on what people think of "your kind".  And women, men, everyone: please, if you catch yourself making a snap judgement of someone and they fit a negative stereotype - take notice and ask yourself what you have observed to allow this judgement.  Please don't fear the benefit of the doubt - let your peers prove themselves guilty if they so are.  It's much easier than proving oneself innocent.

There are more "wiles" than this blatant example, though.  A wise piece of advice was once offered to me - the giver admonished that instead of striving to prove myself to every male I meet, I should instead stay passive and agreeable.  She suggested that if I compete to prove a point with every male, most will insist on winning for their pride's sake, and would continue competing until they win.  She suggested that I essentially lay low and do my own thing unobtrusively.  And yeah, that sounds like a pretty effective strategy - but a cowardly one.  I'm young and I'm outspoken and I want to make it known that I know what I'm doing.  I don't want to hide my talent because of my chromosomes.  I don't see a reason that I should have to.  Some men have competitive natures, some have unobtrusive natures, so why should I hide my competitive nature if I have one?  Please, please - give me a good reason.

I have a deeper concern, though, than my own selfish concern - and that is that hiding talent could easily be transposed into letting talent go unused.  It is absolutely true that if you don't use it, you lose it.  So what does that say about the long-term benefits of women hiding their intelligence, interests, assertiveness, and talent?  By being unobtrusive, are we allowing society to perpetuate our own downfall?  The statistics already aren't in our favor, so why shouldn't we do anything and everything in our power to keep them from getting worse?