One of the most important skills I’m learning living in DC is how to navigate in the world that belongs to middle-aged white men. My friends and I joke that we just need to have the confidence of a white man and we’ll rise up professionally. But, how am I actually able to make a name for myself by applying leadership without being bossy, exuding confidence rather than bitchiness, all the while showing curtesy that isn’t perceived as weakness.
Yes, I believe these are issues that most young professionals face (i.e. having to start a email with “just checking in!”), but the thought and concern that women, especially women of color, face in the professional world is outright exhausting.
I have been the only woman in addition to the only person of color in the majority of DC public events or private discussions. This, along with being one of the youngest in the room, automatically creates an intimidating environment. Not only do I have the natural pressures to upkeep my professional reputation, but suddenly what I wear, how I act, what I say represents of all young Asian women.
It becomes extra painful when it’s actually part of my job description to serve our guests drinks that they request. I have to complete my job while perpetuating the stereotype of the obedient Asian woman. I think to myself: do I deserve to be angry? Isn’t it just part of the grunt work that all young professionals face? But seriously, I am the only woman and only person of color in a room full of 30, and the only one saying “here’s your coffee, sir.”
This microcosm represents the professional world – a game where we start disadvantaged and have to carry extra weights throughout. Sure, on paper we get equal opportunities, but when your life is consumed by both institutionalized discrimination and constant microagressions, there is no winning.
Take for example, how does this city eliminate “manels,” much less all white panels, when at the start many women and/or people of color do not have access to higher and graduate-level education, the money to survive months on an unpaid internship, and connections to the right places? This, along with professional discrimination, results in slim pickings for potential speakers and presenters. If a woman and/or person of color manages to even make it onto a panel, they simply become tokenized by the institution to show its “diversity” quota. Thus, I have to not only prove my worth amongst a male majority by working harder and being smarter, but the few other women and I have to compete against each other since there’s only room for one woman in the male-rigged game.
All of the above scattered thoughts describes my everyday. By simply being an Asian woman, I have consider consciously and sub-consciously one hundred different things before acting on or saying anything. While I’m busy considering these things, the white men get to just say or act as they feel. They ask the questions or offer thoughts in meetings first, they say no to tasks, they don’t even consider the possibly that some tasks are part of the job in the first place. So then, how do I process all these issues, but still have the confidence of a white man?
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