A story of sexism and mental illness from a silicon valley CEO
By Rachel Major
Edited in part by Alexa Josaphouich, Julia Casciato, & Alyssa Walker
Trigger Warning: Anxiety, Depression, panic attacks, some strong language
-Part two-
…What do I have anyway? Call the manager? Make a complaint? The only way there is any true redemption is if he admits that he was beyond rude, his rashness highlighted one of the biggest plagues of our world.
All I have is a woman’s intuition in a man’s world.
For as small as it was, that single, angry question was glaringly obvious. We’ve become two intimate strangers, no secrets between us - only ugly truths.
I have a job to do. I need to find a way to move forward, and I have to admit it is rare to see recognition in a man’s face. Even if it’s already been covered up. But my heart is still pounding, and now, with everything before us, I need to choose from the thousands of words in the English language to make a coherent sentence to get the parts I need.
“Uh…” Of course, the first words out of my dumb mouth are an ineffable declaration of uncertainty. I clear my throat and try again.
I know it sounds cheesy, but the thought that other people are depending on me - I need to get this part back to my team member - gives me a laser focus. I hold it tight, and feel myself react automatically with the sleuth of strategies I’ve accumulated to try and make it more appetizing to take me seriously. Push my shoulders back, don’t play with my hair, chin up, and try to keep my voice a little lower. I step forward with a rigidity like my bones are made of metal. At least it’s magnetic so I can keep my balance as I move one foot in front of the other.
“Good morning,” I muster, looking at the bridge of his nose so I don’t lose my confidence. I cross the space between us. I stop a few feet short, though, because the front desk he’s standing behind is elevated. I don’t want to give him a chance to literally look down on me.
I explain the problem. It’s pretty simple. Our flow rate is too powerful and we need to redirect some of the water to control what goes into the next part of the system.
I’ve hardly finished before he’s backing up, saying his colleague is much more equipped. Before he turns around, he makes eye contact before hastily fleeting away. His eyes are a grey-blue like mine.
As I watch him retreat, I wonder if it’s really true that he needs his coworker’s help. I’ll never know. What is his fate? Will he reflect about this, try to change? Or will he horde it away to the part of his mind where uncomfortable emotions lurk because he has the male privilege to do so? Blow his brains out when he can’t handle it anymore? Which is a worse punishment?
Now that it’s over I feel the whispers of the worst parts of myself start to get louder.
Coward.
Pathetic.
How are you ever supposed to run a company if you can’t even handle the shithead behind the counter at your hardware store?
Please shut up. I plead with myself. Not here. I’m almost done.
The tide rolls back, but I know it’s under false pretenses. Like a leviathan sinking beneath a black ocean, the waters rippling with the threat of an unknown but certain return.
“Jesus Christ, you’re dramatic today,” I mutter to myself, trying to lighten the mood.
“Did you say something?” The man’s colleague has arrived. My head jerks up. This man is even taller than the previous employee; he must be at least 6’2” and with a 6-inch step between us, he towers over me. I’ve accidentally moved closer to the counter so I’m craning my neck to look up. I instantly hate being short, hating the power men have by simply being more vertical. I force myself to recognize his face is friendly.
I make a lame attempt at a joke - something like “must not be able to hear me up there!” and motion for him to come around the desk. He chuckles and starts to move. By the time he’s walked back to where I am, he seems more human. I feel more human too.
He’s friendly and attentive, and we’re quick to find a solution. Before long he’s ringing me up and we’re chatting about my build. You get a discount for working in agriculture, and he’s happy to include it. He remembers me and my colleague.
“You have a company, don’t you? What do you do there?” he asks.
I tell him yes, we’re co-founders. I leave out the fact that I’m the CEO. I hesitate, feel incomplete, but I can’t take the inevitable double-take that always seems to follow right now.
Not all men. I think as I leave.
Just takes a few though, doesn’t it? Not all men, but enough.
I walk back to my car, sink into the driver’s seat, and screw my eyelids closed. The rising tide is back, and I grip the steering wheel tightly trying to focus on the texture, really feel how each finger is curling around the surface.
Just breathe. I tell myself. Count your breaths.
The monster slinks back down, like burning bile down my esophagus.
I’m a little calmer and try to distract myself, I grab my phone. This is instantly a mistake.
I have a message from two team members - one will be late to a meeting and another is late on a task - and several social media notifications. I’m irrationally angry. But what I hate more is the idea of typing out the “perfect” response - stern but not too stern, don’t be too bitchy, don’t be too cocky, but don’t be too nice either. Still be clear, forceful, confident. My shoulders slump with exhaustion at the very thought. And on top of an already steady anxiety with anything social media related, everything suddenly falls apart.
I throw my phone violently into the passenger seat. The neat boxes of my life, the organized categories that I try to keep everything under to keep my sanity in this startup world, suddenly all spring out at once. There are so many things to do, so many half-finished tasks, nothing will ever be done, nothing is ever good enough.
Why are you such a failure? Why do you always ask questions instead of giving orders? Why can’t you stop? Why can’t you stand up for yourself? Why do you even try?
Did I truly let him go because I didn’t care enough? Or because I was afraid? Is this just another example of men getting away without consequences? Am I so tainted by society that I’ve done mental gymnastics so I conveniently think it was my choice to let it slide? I honestly don’t know. It makes me want to vomit.
Pathetic.
Coward.
Loser.
Weak.
Failure.
Stupid, stupid woman.
That’s all you’ll ever be.
That’s all they’ll ever let you be.
The knot in my chest is becoming painful. My heart is pounding so violently I’m certain it, too, is revolted and wants to get away from me. My throat tightens with a vice grip on my useless voice, but I’m still somehow very certain I’m about to throw up. I feel my eyes welling up with tears I’m ashamed of like I’m ashamed of who I am.
I can’t fight it now. I cower over the steering wheel crying desperate tears, hoping to whatever God is listening that that asshole of a man doesn’t find me this way. Instead of the strength of women long dead, I think of what a miserable slice of life we have to face on Earth. The statistics run through my head so fast it’s like I’ve been learning about them all my life.
1 in 4 women. Black women are 233% more likely to die in childbirth. Indigenous women are 10 times more likely to be murdered. On average 10 women are murdered a day by domestic violence in Mexico alone. In the US, it’s an average of 52 per week.
Women are 50% more likely to die from a heart attack because most medical studies are designed with men’s symptoms. More likely to be misdiagnosed because who cares if a woman is in pain, right?
A “record-breaking” 2.8% of women received VC funding in 2019! Shouldn’t we be grateful? It’s up from 2% in 2017.
Check your taxi’s child lock to make sure you aren’t whisk away to a violent death. Check the parking lot before you park, check your trunk and backseat before you leave. Don’t go outside after dark. What were you wearing? Don’t be a ditz, especially if you’re the only woman in your engineering class. Don’t be too bossy if the boys start to bully you.
Why do you carry a knife?” my well-meaning but ignorant male friends always ask. My mother telling me that she used to make sure to tell everyone at her work that she and her husband had black belts, and “if it wasn’t too bad, you just dealt with it.”
Everything hurts. Like I’ve been jettisoned into the vacuum of space and the air has been forcefully sucked from my lungs. I’m empty, horribly weightless, skin prickling like needlepoints in a frigid cold, my ribs and lungs spread eagle. A sacrifice to a society that feels uncomfortable when I speak up. Is there really no space for me here, or is no one willing to make it?
An advisor once told me that to be an entrepreneur is to carve your way into the world; I wish he’d added for women it’s like scaling a mountain with bleeding bare hands, fingernails ripped off for every scramble upward only to be shoved back down.
Memories fall, cascading with the force of a thunderous waterfall.
“Your big shoulders are so ugly.”
“Are you sure you’re not fat? You’re pretty big for a girl.”
“How are you ever going to find a husband? Boys don’t like it when you’re faster than them.”
“Don’t be too combative.”
“Don’t be too opinionated.”
“You’re too pretty to be smart, why don’t you take that as a compliment?”
“Aren’t women just naturally dumber since we’ve been breeding them that way for centuries?” Asks my abusive ex-boyfriend, whom I was with for almost six years.
“Are you lost?” they say as I step into my first college Biochemistry class.
Begging my college “friends” to walk me home late at night in Philadelphia while they laughed and said I was imagining the man following me.
“Why do you keep showing up?” My first research PI demands, a woman who later told me to be careful picking my PhD advisor. Hers held her back almost ten years because he believed “women didn’t really have a place in science.”
“Yea, women should work in engineering as a tech because they have such little hands,” My favorite, and usually good-natured, co-worker casually comments.
“You need to stop asking so many questions,” the boss of my first engineering job tells me.
“You’re nothing but a cheerleader for your startup,” says my father, trying to convince me to go to grad school.
“When are you going to hire the real CEO?”
“How did such a cute secretary get such a good head for numbers?”
“Your company doesn’t sound like much, but you can tell me more about it over drinks”
“We drank beer, we liked beer, boys and girls” is what a now supreme court justice says in defense of gross sexual assault.
“How old are you? I’d love to fuck a teenager with that ass,” says a random man in the Tenderloin, following me as I try to buy lunch during a conference.
“Grab ‘em by the pussy,” says my president.
“Yea, people are already recruiting me for after I graduate” says my brother. I hate feeling jealous but the only job applications I received after graduation were for administrative assistants, receptionists, and secretaries. Even today when my LinkedIn profile says I worked at NASA, that I’m a co-founder for a biotech startup.
Should I change my e-mail to Ray? How many clients have we lost when they see “Rachel” as the contact? How many clients have we lost because I’m a woman?
“Hi, I’m Rachel, CEO of NuLeaf Tech” I practice in front of the mirror for hours and hours trying to make it sound natural. Until I realized it wasn’t me. People were going to do double-takes no matter what. If they were even paying attention to me in the first place.
Stupid, stupid girl.
You were never supposed to be here.
You were supposed to be the Secretary.
To Be Continued…