A look at being the only woman in a company.
I know a trans woman who worked in a situation like that, she is a project manager in another multinational engineering company. She went from what “he” said was law in meetings to being asked to get coffee in meetings.
What Is It Like To Be 'The Only Woman In The Room'?Before I retired I worked at a multinational engineering/manufacturing company and I was in charge of a test department at one of their manufacturing facility (that is until they decided they would rather farm out the manufacturing) and there was one lone woman in the engineering department. I always thought it was great that she was an engineer since she had to buck the “old boys’ club.”
NPR
By Tania Lombrozo
February 15, 2016
As a physics major at Yale in the 1970s, Eileen Pollack learned about gravitation and quantum mechanics and ballistics. She also learned what it's like to be The Only Woman in the Room, the title of her new book, published by Beacon Press last September.
Unfortunately, many women with interests in science, mathematics and engineering (among other subjects) will relate to Pollack's experience of being in a conspicuous minority. According to statistics provided by the American Physical Society, women today make up fewer than 25 percent of physics majors, with lower numbers at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels. These numbers come from 2015 — several decades after Pollack's own undergraduate experience.
[…]
Pollack's book contributes to the conversation about women in science, but not by marshaling evidence from empirical research, nor by developing a detailed policy agenda. She offers bits of evidence and advice here and there, but the book's strength is in the first-person narrative that gives us a vicarious glimpse into the mind of the only woman in the room as she navigates her coursework, her social life and her career plans. If other books answer questions about where biases emerge or what we should do about them, Pollack's book answers the question: "What is it like?"
I know a trans woman who worked in a situation like that, she is a project manager in another multinational engineering company. She went from what “he” said was law in meetings to being asked to get coffee in meetings.
Some things never change!
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