My story on being a woman it’s actually a sad realization about what most women go through in their jobs and their lives in general.
When I first moved abroad, I was 23 and went to Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, to supervise a team of nearly 30 male staff, no girls. Luckily enough I was pretty naive to don’t have a clue about what exactly I was going to face. I knew it was a muslim country, knew that most of the staff were south-asians, but for me it was easier to think that all would go well, as I really wished to grab that opportunity.
As soon as I got there, on my first work day, I got shocked, it was just too hard. Everybody was looking at me from head to toes and I knew the comments were: “Who is this girl?” “Is she gonna tell us what to do?” From that moment I knew it would be required from me to prove to my own self that things would work. And so I did it. Every single day thriving to do my best, leading by example, showing compassion but at the same time being strict about the demands.
In Brazil my team was much smaller, there were men and I was dealing with male suppliers all the time, but they were more open to accept that I could be taking decisions, carrying weight, changing ways of doing things. So the first months abroad represented a huge change of perspective for me, taking me completely out of my comfort zone. I was questioned, doubted, my opinion was in check all the time. Not only because I was new, but because there was this mindset of them seeing me as someone less capable.
There was so much going on my mind at that time, coping with the changes of living in a new place, not being super welcome by the team but still having to lead them, questioning my own objectives and plans: “Should I really insist on being there?”
When my second month began, I was able to finally acknowledge changes on their behavior towards me. They started seeing me as someone proactive, helpful and who was able to take good decisions, for the business and for the team. As time passed, issues were being fixed, the team was more engaged, my boss was also pretty satisfied and I was really settled. Then, a short while after completing my first year within the company, my boss suggested to transfer me to another department, to assist with a renovation which would take place. As I really love challenges, offer accepted.
My new team was way smaller and there were ladies, but there was a major transformation being done by the corporate office, bringing all attention of the big bosses to this tiny team. The Corporate Vice President responsible for my department was completely nuts. Creative, smart, but with some very old fashioned thoughts and ways of acting. He approached me one day and after giving me a whole lecture about how important that project was and how we would be the new replicable idea from corporate, he told me that I would have to work on developing a makeup tutorial to suit the needs of each one of the girls from the team. I couldn’t believe what I heard, first because I was completely clueless about make up and second because it was a total nonsense, from my perspective, to tell others which colors of lipstick or eyeshadow to wear.
I was perfectly aware about the company’s guidelines on “neutral make up” and was totally ok with that, as standards are important, but he asked me to ignore the standards and make something really amazing for my team. If it was about “screw the standards and do what you want”, would be ok. But that was not the point, he was asking me to tell people how to look more attractive to create a buzz in the industry.
Besides from that he told me I should wear very high heels, because, on his words “that’s how women should be to look presentable”. I was working 14-16h a day, mostly standing and moving from one place to another to get things sorted. There was no way that I would obey that decision. Neither would allow my team to suffer. My question was: “Why guys don’t have such rules? They only need to cut their hair and have clean uniforms.” That was completely sexist from my perspective. Why do I need to look presentable in high heels and screw with my health?
I then confronted my director, asking him to intermediate, because I did understand the importance of the renovation and a shift in the ways things used to be, but I was not able to understand someone telling me that I should highlight my eyes as I have beautiful big eyes; and this whole combo of comments from a man telling how a woman should or not present herself to work.
My director could feel my despair, but he insisted that this was CVP decision and there wasn’t much room to negotiate. For me this would be end game, as I wouldn’t pretend to be happy with something completely outrageous. I was so annoyed and mad that it reached a point that my director simply told me to ignore all the rules once corporate intervention was done.
This whole situation made me reflect as much as it pissed me off, because I know that so many women around the world would simply agree with things that they don’t feel comfortable about or some sort of imposition from men in high positions, out of fear of losing their jobs or being persecuted and abused at work.
