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The ‘Lily’ Hole (Uhm, what?)
It was another day with my robotics team on our trip to the national competition. On our long trip, we decided to drop by the Ford Rouge Factory for a fun tour. We were able to see a futuristic demonstration of the new Ford trucks; the F-150 Raptor Truck was a beauty! Our little group followed the tour guide around the factory until we reached the fun part: the Ford trucks assembly plant. The tour guide left us, and we were able to individually walk around a platform above the assembly line to stare down at the workers. I could see employees hopping into the trucks to add various parts.
I walked with a group, one mentor, and a group of boys. The mentor pointed out the holes punched out on the beds of the trucks, which are used to lift the bed from one part of the factory to the other. My mentor, who was in his mid-forties, looked at me and exclaimed, “Hey Lily, you could do well by inventing something like that. You could call it the ‘Lily Hole’ and make a bunch of money.” The other boys stared at me in awkward silence. Let’s go make money off my hole, I guess.
2. Exclusion from the “Men’s Play”
During the nights at the hotel after our robotics competition, my friends and I would stay up talking about our futures in college and our cringy high school pasts. It was fun, but there were moments when it was time to discuss strategies for the next competition day. The team members would come together into one hotel room to plan. They’d watch hundreds of robotic matches and compare the successes and the failures of each bot. It sounded exciting! You get to plan on which allies you want, and then you would develop predetermined strategies against any team.
The problem was the strategy group was exclusive—exclusive to the boys. I was not invited to the meetings. Most times, I would not even know where the meeting was being held. The girls were nonexistent in the “men’s play,” even the one girl with the most experience on the team was not in these meetings. I pretended to be unbothered by the exclusion each night, but it hurt. What was the point of the girls being there? To bring “diversity” to the team?
3. Does sexism really exist?
My team and I sat for lunch. I was scarfing down my food happily. Feelings of content washed over me. Who doesn’t feel amazing after eating some delicious food? My mentor asked me for my opinion on something, and I was happy to give my input. It was something I didn’t get to normally do. Apparently on the robotics forum, an anonymous user commented on the sexism apparent in robotics and how it is not handled well. My mentor was frustrated and annoyed by the comment, and he wanted my perspective on it. He exclaimed how he felt that sexism is not very prevalent in the group, and if it were to happen, they would deal with it well. He ranted on for ten minutes, and I fell silent. It was like he was blinded to sexism and annoyed by the criticism.
The community was filled with vulgar, sexual jokes about women. Females were assigned the “detail-oriented” and “creative” jobs; the males were assigned the hard coding and heavy duty jobs. The females were required to be escorted with a male around the venues, and the males could walk freely. The women were to act proper and polite like the “pretty little birds” that they are. Yeah, sexism isn’t apparent, right?
At moments like these, you may wonder why I didn’t I voice my opinion, why I was so hurt over minor meetings, and why I let that happen. It was honestly because I was afraid and intimidated. I had never done anything with engineering or robotics, and I thought this was my chance to join the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) field and learn. When I said something technical or math-related, I was shot down if I made a mistake. I felt dumb in comparison to the other students. I didn’t feel like I belonged.
It has taken me a long time to recover my confidence and self-esteem. Shit, I’m still recovering and learning. The STEM field is intellectually and emotionally exhausting, but I love it. My love for engineering trumps the demeaning obstacles planted my way. I learned my ideas, experiences, and opinions have a right to be heard, and I will scream it into the ears of those in this homogeneous field until it is understood. It will be heard. I will be heard. Sorry, not sorry.