A Woman's Touch

Easter in Norway is sacred. Sacred, not because Christ was nailed on a cross and atoned for the sins of man-kind, but because it’s the last hurrah of winter before spring comes. Schools are closed for the week and the country shuts down – stores close, hotels close and all of Norway heads off to their family’s hytte (pronounced hut-a) in the mountains to ski.

For the sacred week I went to Sweden. In Sweden, Rasmus’ brother asked me to give a talk at the local Youth House, where they were having a theme night on Discrimination and Prejudice. Nikodemus invited me to talk, hoping I might talk about being an American in the many places that I have been. I agreed to talk, but then when I started to think, I felt I could give a better talk about being a female in a very male dominated job.

I titled the talk, “A Woman’s Touch” and introduced myself to the Swedish youth, telling them my name and where I was from. I then asked them to brainstorm what they thought my job was from that limited information and from what they saw of me standing there. I got many responses – a social worker, a teacher, a journalist, and even a comedian. I told them I worked off shore and all, were indeed shocked. I then showed them a loud music, fast paced 3 minute video about seismic. After introducing them to the offshore world I just wanted to share a few experiences. On the whole, I’ve been very pleasantly surprised at how I’ve been treated off shore. Its much a more a family – with the guys acting as brothers, uncles or fatherly figures. However, I had one incident last fall that I shared with the crowd. Instead of recapping it, I’ll copy here what I wrote in my journal last October..

Today I had a pretty amazing conversation (this is amazing as in whoa - shocked, not whoa great). A trainee (mid-career hire, he is 35) George, from Romania. He is pretty quiet. The first part of the trip we talked some on the back deck, cracked some jokes. Everyone else was saying he was quiet, and I was sticking up for him. Over the last few days though he just wasn't talking to me and basically flat out ignoring me. Today we sort of confronted each other. and he basically flat out told me men are better than women and that no matter how hard a woman tries, as soon as she makes one mistake, that's it, she is not longer viewed as equal or able in a "man's" world. He also noted that smart women are the exception not the rule. He also noted that there may be a few high up women, but that people don't really respect them or view them as equal.

WHOA - I've never met anyone who actually thought this way. This whole conversation started when I said "thank you" to George for emptying a bucket of kerosene for me. He told me "you don't have to say thank you" I said “Oh why not" He said "because its not like this is a personal favor or anything".

whoa again. we also talked about how the trip was going. He doesn't think he will pass his appraisal. He rarely smiles, and doesn't really engage with people. This is a problem when the environment on the ship is really team oriented. He also says he has another job offer back in Romania. so he may not be back

An eye opener for sure. Thank goodness for Allan - I was able to talk to him about it. George is pretty cold to him as well.

The question to leave with is have you been discriminated against? In what way? How did you react. For me, my goal was to hear out George, I wanted to know why he thought this way. Me, arguing was only going to cement his beliefs even more.