Ever feel like a token?
There are probably a lot of different ways to get made into a token.
A token is something that stands in for something else. In the case of a subway or bus token, it’s a coin-like object that stands in for real money. Something of little or no value being substituted for the real thing.
As a woman who has worked in one of the more technical areas of IT, I’ve often been the only female on a technical call. More than once, after introducing myself (including my title) I’ve gotten the response “so, when is the firewall guy going to be joining the call?” Subtext: “yeah, yeah. You say you’re the network administrator who will be doing the firewall configuration…but when will your daddy be here?”
In the five years I was a network admin, I never worked with a woman from any other site. When I worked with our other female network admin on projects, it was always noted how rare it was to have not one, but two women on the team. There are not a lot of women in the field.
In one conference call to discuss a technical issue, I was working with 2 administrators from another site. Both male. One of them had worked with me many times. The other was new. At one point during the troubleshooting, when I had double checked my side and asked them to do so as well, the new guy said to the other guy (without muting his phone): “I don’t think this chick knows what she is doing.” The other guy, to his credit, responded by indicating that I was very good at my job.
I replied “this chick is smart enough to mute her phone when she says something rude about someone. Please check your configuration, particularly the NAT rules. You will probably find that something has been mis-typed, or that there is a rule missing completely for the impacted IP addresses.”
Which turned out to be the case.
Even though I am an extremely competent person in any job I have held, I was being treated like a token. A placeholder. Not real. I am not typically quick to perceive sexism, I don’t think, but these calls are a pretty good representation of it.
You can also be a relationship token. The one that is good enough to hang out with if no one better is available and gets dropped when someone in a push-up bra walks by. People who “tokenize” other people typically aren’t very smart in their actual choices. That is why they keep coming back, I suppose, but because they don’t see you as real, they don’t want to keep you.
And now my brain has audibly clicked into the off position.
I do hope I will be able to complete a thought soon.
I miss thoughts…