So there have been a few situations in the last week in which I've gotten really triggered.
On Friday, Michael and I went on a hot air balloon ride. There were at total of 8 passengers (including us). The balloon people (all guys) were short staffed, and asked Michael if he'd be willing to help do a few things. He was happy to help, and he was clearly the one person among all the passengers who would be most likely to be able to assist (6' in his 30s, and not obviously physically challenged or injured). The rest of the group consisted us plus of a family of 4 (the adults were in their late 40s, and the kids were a 14 year old girl and an 11 year old boy), and a grandma in her 60s and her 8 year old grandson.
At one point they needed more than just Michael, so they then turned to this very middle-aged, big-bellied, clearly out of shape man and the 11 year old boy to assist. I was slightly insulted that an 11 year old boy would be asked to help before me, but let it roll off.
At the end of the ride, we landed in the middle of a field, and they again needed help rolling up the balloon and putting it back in the stuff sack. The first person they turned to was Michael...this makes sense...but then they clearly needed more help than just him. I was standing right there, and I offered. The guy responded by saying that maybe I could help later on when there was less balloon and it was lighter. That was the trigger, and I got pissed, but not too aggressive. I then starting working to convince the guy that I was stronger than I looked, told him that I lived on a farm, told him about lifting hay bales, that I wasn't concerned that it would be too heavy etc. etc. After a lot of verbal back and forth, he finally agreed to let me help...turns out it wasn't that heavy, and we took turns lifting the load while Michael and the other guy pulled the basket. By the end, he was huffing and puffing quite a lot more than I was, and we were lifting equal amounts of weight (yay for me!)
So the trigger for me here was taking me back to my days as a graduate student engineer when I was told by research faculty that I wouldn't be a good fit for their lab because they had a lot of heavy equipment and their labs were loud, and that they only ever had 1 girl in the lab before. Fuck that. I never heard of any boys being told that maybe they shouldn't consider asking to work in a lab because the lab was loud and contained heavy equipment.
And then today I was at this group that I belong to that I really like. It is a group of business owners that gets together once a month and people talk about their businesses and we help each other brainstorm ways of doing things better. Typically 10-15 people come to the meetings, and I am one of 3 women participants. Today I was the only woman, and it was my turn to present my business along with one of the other men. Maybe it was because I've been thinking a lot about being the balloon and grad school episodes a lot the last few days, but it was really noticeable to me the dynamic in the room, and how actively I was working to not fall into one of my two survival tactics from grad school (either be one of the guys, or fall silent). I'm not sure I succeeded when the other person was presenting, but I think I did OK when it was my turn to talk about SanchoPaca.
fuck...why does it have to be so hard.
I made a choice to leave science...and now I wonder if I could ever go back. It is so much easier being a very competent administrator...most people in administrative jobs are women, after all. When I think about going back into science, I think about how hard I had to work all the time, just to be taken seriously.
sigh...time for some BVTS therapy. I've been watching a lot of Buffy lately (I got season 2 as a birthday gift from Michael)...that Buffy girl seriously kicks ass.
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