Something interesting happened to me the other day and it got me thinking. A friend from home gave me a great compliment, and frankly I don’t know if I’m deserving of it. I was telling her what it’s like being a woman here at site and how certain things tend to bother me at times. I was telling her that one of the biggest things that upset me is how the Mongolian women get treated by their own men and at times by the expats. Sure I’m a woman working in a male dominated industry, and I’m the minority, and to a certain degree I’ve always felt that since I am part of the minority, I should conform to my environment, at least to a certain extent. I’m a believer of ‘why should the majority have to change for one person, or a small group of people.’ This mentality is correct if the majority is in the right. But if history has taught me anything, this is not always the case. I’ve been asked by several female friends from home to write an entry on what it is like being a woman at site and for some advice. I have avoided this topic, because some of my true feelings on this matter have been kept to myself, and can be easily misinterpreted and are somewhat controversial. I will write this entry in two parts; part one will be my thoughts and advice on being a female expat on an international assignment, and second part will be about the women of Mongolia and what I have learned from them.
The compliment my friend gave me was, ‘Good for me and all the other ladies in the office that you're out there, paving the way. It'll be tough on all of us, but hey, you're making it easier for the next woman that works with all the people you work with, and some woman made it easier (by some degree!) by coming before us.’ I don’t know if I’m paving the way for anyone; I don’t know if I am being a good example for mining woman at all and you can all judge if I am, after I explain my approach. But I do agree with me friend on that there were woman who did this before me and they certainly deserve some if not all the credit. No doubt in my mind, that women who worked at site twenty years ago had to go through a great deal more then what I have to go through, which is really very minimal in comparison. When I finished school in 2006 and started working as an Engineer in the office; when I mentioned that I was interested in going to site, I had two opposite opinions from my senior co-workers, some of them were thrilled that a young engineer is willing to go to site and encouraged this, then there were the others that said I’d probably not be able to go, telling me it’s very rare for women to be sent to site. Really? Is it really that rare? Or is it that there simply has never been a great deal of women in the mining industry, so it is simply considered rare because we never had the numbers. It’s probably a bit of both but I thank the females who came before me, for allowing me to be even given this opportunity.
Now don’t get me wrong, this industry is not for the faint at heart. It’s mentally and physically demanding. The days are long, and the rotation are weeks/months apart. If you are a soft person (meaning you like comfort), man or woman, maybe being a mining expat is not in the cards. But for the women thinking of doing this line of work, there are a few things you should be aware of before you agree to take an assignment:
- If you are a woman who is not prepared to turn in her high heels shoes and nice clothes for steel-toe boots and PPE,
- Not prepared to overhear crude jokes without jokingly laughing them off,
- Not prepared to be in the TRUE presence of men (meaning they don’t hold their tongue for the benefit of your ears)
Then you are probably not prepared to come to site. If I can give advice to any woman thinking of coming to a CAMP site, especially international, make sure the three things I listed above do not bother you or you can at least live with them and to make sure you know your bottom line very clearly. What I mean by ‘your bottom line,’ is make sure you know exactly when someone crosses your line of what is acceptable and what is not, make it clear when they went too far, and remember above all, to choose you battles wisely (and by the way, with some of the experiences I’ve gained here, the three things I listed above are not worth trying to correct, even if they hurt your feelings and you are in the right, don’t waste your breath, YOU don’t need to like it, but you will need to move on from them). If you choose to come to site, and if you do choose to have these battles, then you will have few friends and if you can live with that decision, then good for you but at least be aware of this. Just remember, no one wants to be around someone who makes everyone conform to their beliefs or worst yet, makes them walk on eggshells, this is not the attention you want to bring upon yourself when you are the new kid on the bloke. But at the end of the day, the one making the decision is the one that has to live with it and only the individual can make those decisions. If you are not sure what your line is, sit back for a while, don’t do or say anything to drastic, take in your new environment and it will be become clear to you.
The off jokes, the swearing, the demanding work environment, are some of the reasons I like working here. I like working in an environment where I can say what I’m thinking and do not need to sugar coat it. I like it that I work with people that are ‘what you see is what you get,’ even if I don’t like what I see, at least I know what I’m going to get, there is honesty in that. It has been brought to my attention that I have a worst trucker mouth then most of my male counterparts (this has been pointed out to me a couple times), which is the truth. I know sarcasm can be the lowest form of humor but it’s still the humor I choose to use. For the most part, I enjoy my new co-workers even if what they say or do, are things I don’t agree with at all times. The ‘bottom line’ I have established for myself is somewhat grey. Most of my closer friends here know it pretty well and once in a while they’ll cross it, mostly to get a rise out of me, and they succeed everytime.
I hope people are not misinterpreting me and think I’m changing who I am to gain my co-workers respect. Honestly, changing who you are, will rarely gain you respect. I’m merely compromising. And you must compromise to fit into a formula that is already set or at least isolate the variables that can be changed. Frankly, gaining peoples respect is not why I’m here; I’m here to learn, gain site experience and go home; this is my goal. If I earn the respect of most of my co-workers then this is a bonus and something that can only help my career. My end goal is what has helped me establish my bottom line. What am I willing to let go or compromise to achieve what I came out here for; this is a question I encounter regularly. I see this being no different than being in a relationship, what are you willing to accept about your spouse to remain happily married, cause your end goal is to remain happily married (well I hope it would be). And just like everything, this goes both ways, I’m not the only one comprising. Everyone has their deal breakers. Personally, I would love it if men and women could work together as complete equals, without ridicule or judgment but let’s be realistic, we are not there yet.
I’ll never know how the minds of men work, but through trial and error, I have learned what usually gets me the results I want. When I was younger and played ice hockey on all boys’ teams, for many years, I was the only girl in the league; I stuck out like a sore thumb, just like I do here. I learned that being a woman that gets along with men, will usually get me a lot further in achieving my goals then being a women trying to be a man. It’s obvious I’m not a man, nor do I want to be one. I enjoy working with men, and when I was younger, I enjoyed playing hockey with them. I didn’t want to be treated differently; I just wanted to be accepted as a teammate and a friend, as I do here. And if, I had to enter a fight to stick up for a teammate, then that is what I did, even though, I was guaranteed to lose the fight, since I had never won a fight in my entire life, but I would take a punch for them, as I expected they would for me. And most of the time they did. If you want to be accepted as an equal, you cannot allow anyone to give you ‘special’ treatment or anything that can be perceived as special treatment, if this happens, don’t accept it and take immediate action to correct it, it may help you in the short term but very rarely will it help you in the long term. This is the approach I have taken here, and for the most part, it works for me, simply because this is essentially who I am. In this industry or any industry that is primarily all men, having a woman on the team can change its dynamic. This can be an opportunity to gain experience, knowledge and growth, in black and white terms instead of becoming the cancer that spreads a disease, be the cure.
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