One of my favorite bloggers, the woman behind “My Bright Spots,” has some wonderful insight to how women sometimes find themselves behaving against their own personality when working in a male-dominated field…regardless of how talented and experienced we may be, there are times when we don’t speak up, or take a needed break, because we are the sole (or one of a very few) representative of the gender.
I’m a woman who works with men most of the time. Always have. When I was a teenager, I was active in Explorer Scouts, an extension of Boy Scouts of America. It was co-ed, but still mostly guys. I went on to college where I majored in Electrical Engineering. By the last half, I had settled in with a nice group of 4 or 5 girls, but most of my classmates were men. Then I got a job in Software Engineering, again, men.
This has never bothered me, particularly. I get along with my male coworkers. I’m not a high-strung woman that takes offense easily. I’m not overly girly in my speaking or mannerisms. I wear jeans and tennis shoes to work, just like any of the other guys.
But I’ve been having this strange awakening lately. It’s come partially from interacting with more female coworkers and partially from reading…
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Just As I Am...Meet Laura Ingalls Wilder 
What a wonderful summary of the point that it took me over a thousand words to make! Thanks for the reblog. I’m happy that the story touched you so.
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I can say when I was the only female auditor, I was very careful about how much time I spent talking to the secretaries and made sure I went to lunch with the boys (yeah they were all younger than me by 1-5 years) I could just see a time when I missed something because the boys ran into the execs, learning something while I was chatting away with the clerical staff, and forever changing the way they thought of me.
Of course, the actual problem ended up being that I didn’t buy into the one manager’s 5 drink minimum when on a business trip.
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