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This week I am very happy to present a collaboration comic with my friend Chrissie, who has been generous in sharing with me her experiences of gender dynamics in a technical field, and then helping me craft them into a comic narrative.
Whenever I see Chrissie’s work I’m always impressed at the cool, creative things she does. When we were discussing this comic, she told me: “I find men persistently try to direct me lots now too, which is probably the biggest problem I consistently run into”, and my feelings around that fact are a terrible and familiar blend of frustration, sadness, and lack of surprise.
When we talk about the differences in how men and women are treated professionally, especially in technical fields, we are often dismissed with ‘everyone has to deal with that’, or ‘women need to demonstrate more confidence with their skills’, or ‘they’re just trying to be helpful’, or ‘it’s all in your head’.
It’s frustrating when we know something like this is happening, but we spend so much of our time actually trying to get people to believe that it’s a real phenomenon. I find narratives like Chrissie’s validating in that she has a comparative set of experiences and is like ‘oh yeah, people totally think I’m less competent at my job now. it’s totally a thing’. So, can guys just believe us already and get on helping it not happen?
I work as a vet tech at an exotics clinic, since transitioning to male i get AT LEAST half as many questions as i use to from clients. Our older male clients specifically who could spend 15 min grilling me about the info i was giving them, dont give me shit anymore!!! I tell them their bird has x going on and the treatment is y/z, and theyre like “okay, thank you sir”
Intead of the “well, did the DOCTOR say that? I want his opinion.” Kind of shit
Maybe I’m too autistic for that, but I literally cannot grasp what the fuck must be going on in the heads of people who use services of a professional, THEN start doubting their qualifications/thinking that they know more about this field, and yet still fucking proceed to use said services.
Like, if your prejudices make you see other people as incapable of performing their work, maybe have the courtesy to Fuck Right Off?