On the pressure of representing "all women"

Whoa, two blog posts in one day! I guess I have *big thoughts* today!

This morning at work I made a mistake, an embarassing mistake that caused me to need to submit a request for my developer VM to be rebuilt. And I spiralled into some panicky feelings. It was an honest mistake, but the public nature of it really stressed me out. Why?

Well, earlier this week I was in a supervisors meeting where we were talking about the diversity statistics for where I work (this is what the breakdown of % women and % minorities there are in the organization, they report out on it annually, if you've not worked in corporate culture before).

And being a "woman in STEM" comes with a certain amount of pressure, because of these numbers. Most organizations have DE&I (diversity, equity & inclusion) goals to increase those numbers. Plenty of colleges (my own alma mater ncluded!) have programs that seek to change the balance of these numbers. And it's because of this that I know there are some people who will never, ever change their minds about me. In their minds, women can't write code, and any woman with my job doesn't know what she's doing.

It's that weight that I'm carrying around with this mistake. Yes, there's also the natural work stress that a mistake puts me behind, and I have to reset some work I'd already done because of needing the VM to be rebuilt, but really, those things are recoverable. But the weight of having proven someone "right" in thinking that women shouldn't work with computers? That's what's nagging at me. That's why this mistake isn't something I can just brush past and get over. Those same people would probably say "you can't get over it because you know we're right, and you're not meant to do this" and I *hate* that I can even imagine this conversation. 

Anyways, it was making me angry and getting under my skin so here I am writing it down and publically saying no to that conversation. I'm allowed to make mistakes, and it doesn't mean I shouldn't be doing this. Because I am doing it. In fact, I've been doing it at this employer for TEN YEARS (I hit my ten year anniversary a few weeks ago). One of the executives at my job frequently says "we need everyone in this fight" as a reason to value DE&I initiatives. 

So here I am. I'm in the fight. Let my god-given talent for this go to waste? I don't think so.

                                    

(thanks, Elastigirl. For this, but also because of how you mother your three super kids. And for how you co-parent while working in the sequel. Truly the hero women in STEM didn't know we needed.)