This Is What It’s Like to Be a Woman in a Predominantly Male Company
Not everything is what it seems to be
You know that feeling of excitement and nervousness we feel when we go out with someone for the first time? I felt something similar to this when I joined a company that was mostly made up of men.
That was my biggest challenge so far. Imagine a woman who recently arrived at a company where of the 43 employees, only 12 were women and none held a management role. The boys didn’t take me seriously.
And the communication between me and them, well, we can say that it was the first obstacle that I faced during this great challenge. How can I say — with so many inside jokes, jargon, and conversations that made no sense to me, I felt like a foreigner in a country where everyone speaks a different language than mine.
I confess that it was quite uncomfortable in the first few days. But as time went by, studying, researching, and learning more about what they talked about, I managed to slowly fit in, and that feeling of exclusion passed.
However, there was still another problem: the guys who worked with me and did the same tasks as me, couldn’t accept that I was as competent as they were. A slight prejudice perhaps. So whenever there was a “more difficult” job to do, they asked me to just leave it to them while I could go and analyze some spreadsheets, for example.
Of course, I didn’t give up and always showed my maximum potential while doing my tasks. That’s what made me gain their trust over time. And after a year or so of work, I got my first promotion as manager of the marketing department. Not bad, right? I also think!
Now imagine how difficult it must be to be a female manager on a battlefield where everyone else is men. Complicated scenario, right? Yes, but I didn’t shy away from it.
Detail: I was the first woman there to become a manager of something.
Did I serve as an inspiration to the other girls? I hope so.
But well, after I became a manager and started participating in team meetings, I realized that I was going to have to work harder if I wanted to go further in there. That’s because the meetings felt like an open-air fair, an intellectual battlefield where the boys talked loudly, and interrupted each other and I stayed in my corner waiting for my turn to speak. Worse than I had fun with it.
Sometimes I also joined this war and got my place to speak. Other times someone would take my turn and I would look like a fool. That was a fun time I went through. Ultimately, I managed to show them that they could trust me.
Conclusion
In reality, even with so many initial difficulties in proving my worth, in connecting with my colleagues, and in combating the prejudice of being one of the few women there to receive a manager promotion — I still think that this was the best job I have ever done. I already had.
My colleagues, I have nothing to say, they were simply fantastic. If I did something that stood out, the credit was mine and they didn’t try to steal it from me.
In fact, this was one of the reasons I managed to get a promotion in such a short time. Whenever I did something that impressed me or gave a tip that made a campaign boom, my colleagues would run to the boss and tell him about my exploits.
Regarding the work environment, it was a fun place to be. I didn’t have that bad feeling of wanting to go home soon. I really loved that job.
In general, not everything is as it seems. When I got there and saw so many men and a few women, I thought about running away and giving up. I thought the oppression would be blatant, but it wasn’t.
Of course, at first, it was difficult to show my worth to them, but as soon as I did, they welcomed me as the colleague I was. It was a challenge that I needed to overcome alone and I did.
I do not regret anything. Being a woman also means conquering the spaces that belong to men. After all, a woman’s place is wherever she want.
Thanks for reading. Have a great day!
