An engineer describes staying silent early in her career to fit in, tolerating inappropriate remarks rather than risk seeming weak. She's seen the culture shift, pointing to colleagues like Katie who now speak up without fear, and notes more people feel safe voicing concerns.
I didn't feel in my early engineering career that I could speak up. I was just like, I have to be one of the guys. I have to have no issue with people making inappropriate statements to me. You know, I predate Katie, so I think things are better now. More people can speak up. But like back then, like, you couldn't have convinced me to speak up because I really didn't want to be seen as weak or a burden or— like not able to do it because I had worked very hard to do what I did, and I was not giving it up for anybody because somebody said the wrong thing to me. Yeah.
