Four months later

As of last Friday, I finished up my first internship. It was, as many of you know… kind of a trip. In a lot of ways.

I mean, I knew that as a queer woman it would be rough. I knew that I was going into one of the most socially conservative and male dominated industries out there. I knew that going in, but nothing prepare you for the brunt of it. The casual queerphobia let me know that I could not be out to people that I liked and wanted to be friends with, with all the psychological costs of that. Then there was the sexism, casual and institutionalized – being called “kid”, having shop guys give me funny looks every time I went down to look at something; having the wonderful internal debate of “is this guy friendly, or is he flirting?”

About that last one. My last day, a manager from another I had worked with a bit came by my cube. He had always been a bit friendlier than I was comfortable with, but, hell, what was I gonna say? He talked for a bit and then, unprompted, gave me his email address and told me to stay in touch.

I am 90% sure that was flirting, and have since “lost” that email address.

Can these things be fixed? I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do it alone, if I can stand the psychological costs of fighting these things. Maybe it would be easier to just say fuck it and move to a less conservative state, but that’s not really feasible.

Good thing I’m stubborn.