Higher Ed AV Media: When we think of “AV Horror Stories,” visions of flaming extension reels, projection mishaps, or even ceiling-dwelling squirrels might come to mind—real stories shared by many in the field. But my AV nightmare is far more chilling: being forced to work an event because of my gender identity.
5 comments:
I may have interpreted this wrong, but I don't see this as being quite as big of an issue as the author made it to be. She wasn't being forced to do something, or being treated differently because of her gender. I saw this title, and I figured it was about a woman who was being pushed off to the side and not being given work, or given menial/lighter tasks outside of the real work. "Working in the shadows because of my gender" gives a different connotation than the story that follows. I think it's a nice idea to have a female empowerment event be run by all females. With that idea, the rest of them team/her bosses should have listened to the woman that they were putting in charge and acknowledged her requests, but I don't think the idea of having this event run by women is a bad thing. If I was in this position, I would have taken the job and led a female crew to work this event.
While I think that the clickbait title of this article is a bit obnoxious considering the actual story, I do understand where the author is coming from with her opinion. Taking an event and twisting the original purpose of it on its head so that you are actually leaving the original purpose of the event is relatively common in many industries. While the goal of the event she speaks about is valid- to encourage women to join male-dominated industries and acknowledge the women who do work in the industry- by forcing the only woman who was available at the time to work on her time off and not paying her adequately for her time the event becomes performative and even harmful. There was no real teaching moment or empowering action taken according to this description, just putting together a female team and expecting it to be enough. Aside from the ethical issues with unfair pay and expecting her to work just because she was the only woman available, some of what the author describes is actual blatant sexism. By her male coworkers telling her that “it will be like a sleepover”, they are making assumptions about her as a woman and infantilizing her profession. Everything in this article is a truly unfortunate situation for the author- though the title goes a bit far by describing it as a horror story.
Having to work on a day off with no overtime pay for the sole reason of being a woman, with no choice in the matter, is not ok. To me, the worst part about it is that no one listened to her. Not only did they not think it was a problem in the first place, when she directly told them it was a problem, and even offered a solution, no one listened. And someone thought it was appropriate to tell her “‘it’ll be like a big sleepover.’” This story shouldn't happen. Stories like this should be relics of the past. But they are still here, and they’re not uncommon either. Many women who are in the AV industry have stories of being singled out because they are a woman in one way or another. The specifics differ, but the core idea remains. I believe it’s possible for the industry to grow out of it. For that to happen, I believe we need to share our stories, stories like this one, and make people understand that it is not ok. I thank this author for sharing their story.
The sad truth is that there are still so many different fields with gender disparities and although there have been strides to equal out every industry, prejudices will still remain. Scientific fields still remain very gendered and women are often singled out especially when it comes to things such as being pregnant. The saddest truth is that many of the movements that are trying to help aren't actually helping such as the one shown in the article. I really liked the point about the worthiness of hearing a woman's story other than trying to offer them opportunities during a singular one day event. Being able to hear the stories and listen to the disparities before acting upon them in a progressive way is one of the only ways we can learn from and assist those who are struggling. Overall I think this story is less of a warning to IT companies but to big events like this because if they're unable to understand the women who they're trying to empower they have no worth.
This scenario is complicated. On one hand I think having women and gender diverse only spaces are important, and I think it’s fair of an event to ask for that. On the other hand, the event should’ve asked for a women-only staff well in advance. Because they need to give time for the workers to think over the request, and in cases like this one if someone is uncomfortable. If there were not enough people to cover the event, they should've spent the time and effort finding a venue that can. I agree that the author should not have felt “pressured” into working an event because of her gender. However, as everyone else has pointed out, the introduction is a bit misleading. I’m assuming one of the goals of having an all-woman staff was to give opportunities to people who may typically be overshadowed. If the author did not want said opportunity, she should’ve had the space to decline– but I understand it might not have felt like a place to do that. As a gender-diverse person, I don’t see anything inherently wrong with this, but there are very obvious ways for problems to arise quickly even just in the wording of a request.
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