The Usualness of Unusualness

A long time ago (I was about 16 at the time, so practically aeons ago, in fact) I was the only one amongst my regular group of friends with both parents married to each other.

My ma said "I expect you're glad that you're the only one with a normal family".

Being something of a pedant, even then, I pointed out that it might be considered to be more "normal" to be a child of divorced parents, since the numbers kinda stacked up that way.

My ma took comfort from the idea of "normal"...I didn't.

It's been dawning on me that my circle of friends, as it has widened, has become less "normal" (by my ma's definition, not mine) and as my range of companions has become more diverse, I have felt more at ease with myself.

As I've met more people I've stopped worrying whether or not they'll think I'm a bit odd for being bookish, geeky, lacking the housework gene and refusing to wear grown up shoes. Don't get me wrong, some people I meet undoubtedly think I am odd...it just doesn't really bother me any more.

At the zoo the other day, one of the most well balanced, sanest, funniest people I've met tells me how they'd had a troubled teenage. "How come?" I ask... "Small village. Gay" V replies, in a matter of fact way.

I have to admit I'd almost forgotten that being gay was anything other than reasonably usual - yeah, I'm straight, but so many of my friends aren't that I barely notice it any more. It brings me up short.

Then I realise that's exactly what I like about the people I spend time with. Diversity.

In interests, in skills, in living circumstances, in sexuality, gender and gender identity, in age and size, in background in occupation...

How could I fail to be comfortable with this lovely bunch of folk who only ask me to turn up and be me?

How lucky am I?


.

Pointing at the Glass Ceiling

So - I'm now an unemployed person...or, officially, a self-employed person.



I've spent the last couple of weeks regrouping and with my business partner, TD, sorting out the legalities of our company.



We have a lot of hard work to do to get our potential clients to learn about us and to take us sufficiently seriously to actually employ us.

It's gratifying that everyone I've explained the idea to - from the bank, to friends, to a Businesslink advsor - thinks it a wonderful plan. But these are not the people we need to convince.

Fortunately, 50% of the company directors has a lot of experience in the industry. The other 50% is less well endowed with knowledge of architecture, landscaping and construction.

The other slight disadvantage I have is, let's not put too fine a point on it, that I'm a woman.

Back in the day (in the late 80's) I was full of rage with how badly women were treated in the workplace. Insurance wasn't the most sexist industry to be in but even so the number of women in senior management jobs was vanishingly small.

As I moved away from the operations side of things towards working with IT folk it became more noticeable that it was hard to be taken as seriously as my male colleagues.

It's a simple fact that there are fewer women working in IT disciplines than there are men. It was the same at school and in my studies for my degree. I can't opine, with any authority, as to whether it's nature or nurture.

What I can say is that in my relatively limited experience that women in IT management-type roles tend to play one of two parts. They either get down and dirty with the boys or they turn into bitch-queen and shriek their staff into submission.

I'm a down and dirty kinda gal. I mean, I've been a geek my entire life. Nevertheless, you are received with a mixture of suspicion and patronizing tones, quite often.

Towards the end of my career in insurance, I totally forgot that there had ever been a time when I wasn't respected by my male colleagues for my ability and knowledge. I could walk into a meeting and be taken seriously.

BW is a network engineer. He says that women have to be at least twice as good to be taken seriously in the industry. It makes him angry. BW is a rarety, I believe.

I can't imagine that the industry I'm moving into that I'll have an easier time of persuading the some of the men I'll have to work with that I've anything to contribute. I will have to work damned hard to get enough understanding and technical knowledge to bridge my credibility gap.

I fully expect to have to be at least twice as good as I would need to be if I didn't wear a bra...

So I could bleat on about it. I could rage against the injustice. Or I can just suck it up and prove that women can perform well in these sorts of jobs.

Maybe the more of us do that and the fewer of us whine on "Woman's Hour" about how hard life is, the quicker it'll be the norm to take us seriously.

Wish me luck, eh?

Oh, and wish TD luck - he's got the job of educating me sufficiently to not let him down.

.