Because being smart and professional means you couldn't POSSIBLY be feminine

Working at Microsoft continues to amaze me. But again, it’s not because of the big things, like software and stock grants and benefits so fat it’s a second job just figuring out how to max them all (so I hear). It’s because of the little things, like the conversations.

Walking to the breakroom for coffee, lunch or just to stare longingly at the snack machine, is a virtual trip around the world. People zapping their lunch in the microwave or grabbing a cup o’ Joe on their way to a meeting can easily be heard just shooting the breeze. In Chineese. Or Russian, German, C+, take your pick. I don’t understand a word of it, I just know it sounds beautiful. Intense. And completely beyond my frame of reference.

In fact, I continually find myself in meetings with developers, marketers and product managers who are so far beyond me that I feel like the stupidest person ON THE PLANET. Which, on a side note, I sometimes prove to be sadly and terribly true.

Last week I got lost in another building. LOST. Not "Hm. This is room 1204. I’m looking for room 1234, so I should turn around and go the other way" lost. No, this was "Room 3278?! The hell? I’m on the FIRST FLOOR! This is the THIRD TIME I’ve been down this damn hallway…how do people work here? It. ALL. LOOKS. THE SAME!! Maybe right…no? ok, left. Am I IN the fucking TWILIGHT ZONE?! WHERE THE FUCK IS THE FUCKING ELEVATOR GET ME OUT GET ME OUT GET ME OOOOOUUUUUT!" lost.

Thank CHRIST no one knew me.

At times like that, I have to remind myself: I AM smart. AND talented. Just not with any of the stuff THEY know. My inbox is stuffed with requests from every member of my department asking me to update an intranet, reformat documents, make banners, newsletters, a multitude of miscellaneous graphics, and oh, by the way, can you please explain what this search engine optimization gobbledy-gook is all about?

Alright. I feel like I’ve recovered from the getting LOST AT WORK story. Back to my point.

There is one conversation at Microsoft that comes up all the time. And it amazes me for a couple of reasons. One, I’ve heard it here more than anywhere else in my entire adult experience. Second, I haven’t had to think about it in a really, REALLY long time, because I’ve been lucky enough to work in places where it wasn’t so much an issue.

And that issue is: THERE ARE NO WOMEN HERE.

Now, of course, all my previous employers subjected me and my coworkers to the same sexual harassement-equal opportunity training breaks to Legalesia that most employees everywhere enjoy QUITE REGULARLY. And like most employees everywhere, we were all taunting the Gods of Legalesia about 5 seconds afterwards. Then the jokes die down, and those kinds of conversations don’t come up again until the next round of ‘training’.

But I’m talking about everyday conversation. Things people talk about while they’re waiting for another meeting to start, or when they’re in line at the lunch counter. The kind of conversations that reflect the things people really care about only because it affects them directly.

And before I worked for a techno-centric company like Microsoft, those conversations never revolved around the balance between men and women in positions throughout the organization – unless someone was conducting interviews. It wasn’t like there was a shortage of women.

Although, a previous manager of mine once made the observation that none of the women in higher management (director, vp, ceo, etc.) in the business world today would be classified as pretty. In fact, it’s as if the women in these positions and the people putting them there are trying to get as far from feminine as humanly possible.

This had not occurred to me. But the more I thought about it, and the more I paid attention to noticing it, the more it seemed true. As though there’s some unwritten agreement that only women who look ‘serious’ (i.e. homely) go very far in business or technology. No pretty clothes. No flashy haircuts. No lipstick.

Now there’s this raging controversy over an Austrailian calendar, "Screen Goddess IT Calendar 2006-2007"

Published to "smash the perception" that IT careers are *gasp* ‘nerdy’  (a trait listed as "one of the greatest barriers to entry to the industry"), the calendar, it’s creator and the website itself have been under attack because GOD FORBID, they dared to show women as…women.

Fantasies and all.

Technology is a creative industry. True, it’s an extremely technical one, but how else do you engage ANY group to such a field except through their imagination? And why is it necessary for women to completely emasculate themselves in order to be taken seriously? Or even BE serious ALL THE TIME? What’s this rule that you can’t do anything FOR FUN? ESPECIALLY when you have all these technological toys to PLAY WITH?

I wonder if there’d be as much fuss over a "Screen Gods" calendar with IT guys dressed up as Conan the Barbarian or Brad Pitt. I hear you laughing. Better keep it down – those guys know Important Shit about Things That Can Totally Ruin Your Day. So be nice. Anyway, it could happen. Granted, Superman, Batman and Indiana Jones would probably make an appearance, too, but still. To each their own.

I love this calendar. In my fantasy world, I’d have to be Trinity – but with a better costume.

I would RULE that.