Dear engineers: Stop condoning harassment with your silence
One of the things I love doing most is mentoring women in engineering so they can have more impact and influence in their work.
Unfortunately, sometimes this comes with exposure to the darker sides of life as a professional woman. Lately, the number of women I’ve talked to who have experienced sexual harassment at work has increased.
One told me both her manager and HR departments said “it happens everywhere” and “you just have to learn to deal with it” when she attempted to report the behavior.
Another was asked “Well, what are you doing to cause this? There must be a reason.”
A third had been victim-shamed into believing that she is overly sensitive to sexual remarks and innuendos and was told to ignore them.
And another told me: “I was harassed, but it’s OK.”
HARRASSMENT IS NOT OK.
If you see this happen at work and do not stop it, call it out and do all in your power to put a stop to it, you are just as guilty as the person doing it.
I am sick and tired of victim shaming, of not believing women when they dredge up the tremendous courage it takes to speak out about it, and of the gaslighting that this is still very common.
I am tired of companies putting out diversity and inclusion statements on social media while this STILL GOES ON in their organizations.
An actual diverse and inclusive engineering industry starts with zero tolerance for harassment of ANY kind.
Yet, the statistics are staggering. 78% of women in STEM in majority-male workplaces report experiencing discrimination at work. 50% of women in STEM overall report have experienced discrimination.
Why can’t every engineer do their work in 2020 without being harassed?
And can we please, please, please, stop painting a beautiful picture of what STEM is to minority students (both gender and race), without ALSO arming those graduates with the tools needed to speak up and stand up when they see bad behavior?
I love problem-solving, data, finding creative solutions, and the innovation that comes with being an engineer.
But there’s a reason that an estimated 40% of women leave engineering, and it’s not because they are not interested in the subject or had a kid. The most cited reason for leaving cited by all genders is the “work culture” and we haven’t moved the numbers significantly on retention in decades.
Finally, if harassment has happened to you, please know it is NOT YOUR FAULT. You are not doing anything wrong.
You are not at fault for the bad behavior of others. That fault lies entirely on the perpetrator.
You don’t have to put up with it and it’s not OK.
You deserve to be able to go to work and actually be able to DO YOUR WORK without being messed with.
You are smart and worthy and capable of amazing things.
