I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met someone — almost always a man — who, upon learning that I am an engineer, responds, “Wow! I thought you must work in marketing or something!”
And I get it: I’m a blonde woman who works at a startup, which makes me a rarity in general, and among engineering ranks in particular. Not only that, I adorn myself with many stereotypically feminine accouterments, from skirts to bold lipstick to pink sweaters. Even if your idea of a software engineer includes women, it probably does not include women who present themselves like I do.
After expressing their surprise, most of these men laugh. It’s clear that they think they have complimented me, as if I should be flattered: they imagine it’s an acknowledged fact that all the pretty girls work in marketing. Sometimes this is made explicit, with them adding,”You’re just so pretty, you know?”
There are a number of problems with this.
First, and most pertinent in the moment, is their assumption that women self-select into careers based on attractiveness. We do not. It’s common for female software engineers to tone down feminine presentations in order to better fit into bro-y office cultures, which is a subject for another essay, but I don’t know anyone who chose their college major based on how members of their preferred gender perceived them. I’ve met people of all genders who work in marketing, and they’re lovely people, both inside and out — just like my engineer colleagues.
Second, and no less important to someone like me, is that I am proud of my career, and I don’t want it to be something that anyone uses to calibrate my attractiveness. I worked hard for two computer science degrees. I endured a gauntlet of engineering interviews. I’m excited about what I do and I want to talk about it with people. But it doesn’t feel great to start those conversations with them expressing surprise about my qualifications, which imposes a sense of doubt.
Finally, it centralizes my appearance when that really shouldn’t matter. I don’t want you to make a judgment about me based on how I dress or do my makeup or anything else about how I look. This is a much more general point: if the first thing you’re saying to someone you just met is a commentary on their appearance and how that appearance factors into your assessment of who they are, then you’re already off base.
I’m not begrudging you the fact that your mental model of a software engineer looks nothing like me. We live in a world where most software engineers are not women, and that’s a separate problem to solve. It’s not my place to comment on, but these issues are further exacerbated when you take into account race and disability. Just hold your tongue occasionally — similar jokes with respect to any of these things are just as out of place.
Maybe someday, we’ll be friends and you can join me and the girls from marketing as we roll our eyes at all the fools who pit women against each other.