I knew a woman IRL who was an electrician, and she had to change careers when she moved to the South, the harassment became too much.

I worked in plastic extrusion manufacturing. The first woman in the department in ten years. They last woman who worked over there, well, got degloved. So there was an unofficial freeze in hiring women in the department for a time I heard. Until I showed up and loved the work. I found it fascinating.

They tried to have me work in the aerospace dept, and I did for a time, but it was boring. I wrote a solid cover letter when a position opened up in extrusion, basically begged. They gave it to me. Worked my line for 5 years. It was hard, but rewarding. We had a 4 team engineering dept for extrusion, three guys and one other woman, who I absolutely adored, she was better at what she did than then her male peers tbh.

99% of the guys I worked with were respectful though, a couple of the worst:

We had a young fella come work as a temp, I actually got him let go. Numerous people didn’t like him (only there two weeks, what an impression) because his work ethic/attitude was bad, but he was clearly hitting on me, had on a wedding ring. It really upset me that all these fellas around could be respectful but this noobie was being a tool while also married. I asked him to stop, and he didn’t and I went to HR, and he got walked out 20minutes later. Loser. Most of the guys were super awesome though, they used to playfully hit on eachother more than anything. I’d walk in to the dry humping eachother for laughs. Silly stuff. Never to me, always respectful to me. I don’t tolerate cunts and I’ll tell you to your face.

I had this shit supervisor, old timer… Now, I was also the head of the Employee Ownership Team. They called it, Ambassador of EO. Something I worked hard for outside of my daily duties, I had to be nominated and approved by leadership, I was blessed to get the position. I was basically the face of our division for national conferences. I knew my work well, and I was doing extra. I expected a solid review.

This supervisor, who I had for only 6 months before review time, sat me down in his office. I was smacked to the floor when he started telling me I should go work for trader joes. They make good money, same as our company, (um not) and I might like it better he said. My blood immediately got hot. I was pissed. I didn’t fight and kill myself for this position just so this asshole could tell me to go work at trader joes, of which, not that it matters, the closest one is over 50 miles away.

I immediately went to my old supervisor, who was also on the employee ownership team and I trusted, and told him, what Fuck You Gerry said to me. Someone talked to the guy. Supervisors are given $2 to give raises each year(hourly). They have a team of 6ish people to split that with. I got the highest raise that year. While I know I earned it, I was a master at my line, running good product and my paper work was always correct, a lot of the guys never did the testing/paperwork, traceability was vital, and some guys just made numbers up, like, I definitely deserved the raise, but it may have only gone down like that because he was spoken to about our little misogynist review meeting. I thanked him for the raise and kept doing what I did.

Minor, but the guy from Laos on third shift refused to Doff with me. Doffing is just a two person job you do while the line is running. But he, like, apparently was stuck in his tradition. His cousin would work with me, and was the one to explain to me why he wouldn’t. But they were on third on a different line and I rarely had to help during shift change, so whatever, shut your line down then, I didn’t give a fuck, it’s not my line.

There was also an OG owner, not the founder of the company, but one of the corporate dudes who was with the company from the beginning,. I had heard, from multiple people, he was misogynist in some of his hiring practices, and on prior visits he never approached me. Sometime in my second year in the department, he came up to me, shook my hand, and complimented my work. I helped him rework his thinking on who should/could work in what departments. It felt so fucking good to hear that.

I love proving men wrong. Tell me I can’t do something and I will become the best I can at it just to spite you.

But day to day, most guys were fine/respectful when I worked there. It’s not so scary. I enjoyed the hell outta my wins.

I did have a bully, or a try hard bully. Another woman who started around the same time I did. She ended up in aerospace, I was always friendly to her, like I remember introducing myself to her with the intention of being kind and welcoming. However, after that, she went on a shit talking crusade about me for six months. I still don’t know why. Nor do I care. I didn’t make any “outside of work” friends while there, I did try with the few women there, but failed. That bully girl, I guess I wasn’t her only target, because, ha no one was supposed to know, but we all did, she was receiving extra culture/sensitivity training for a long while. I fucking hated that woman by the end, the training didnt work. She made a clique and they three (two girls and a guy) would segregate themselves whenever we were together as a company for meetings/events. That also didn’t bother me one bit, do you boo. I just thought they were mean. She wanted to be top dog, but thats not what drives that, respect and hard work gives you that status, not shit talking. Work hard and know your stuff. Thats it. She’d break her machine on purpose just so she could have down time to sit on her ass. Gah. Man, Woman, or otherwise, that shit drives me mad. Her behavior hurt me more than anything the guys did. Anyway

I was a woman in a male-dominated industry (software) but I did marketing which is the “woman’s place” in techie brains, so I didn’t have the problems that the two programmers in my last job in tech had.