His Voice Within and Her Voice Without!

Did you know that you have a better chance of getting bit by a shark, struck by lightning, and struck by a meteorite combined than working directly for (or knowing) a deaf engineering manager at a Fortune 20 company? I did a quick probability and speculative analysis for fun the other day with a couple of my friends and realized how rare that combination was, at least within the United States (there’s only handful of us, probably could be counted on one hand). Well, surprise. I’m one of those yeticorns, one of the terms coined by Josh Goldschmid, another deaf engineering manager. He would say that we’re way beyond the unicorn level here, we’re in the realm of absurdity and improbability, the rarest of items that you would find in a video game after zig-zagging 80+ hours scavenging throughout your favorite MMORPG, combining at least 20 different crystals and weapons, having it forged by some legendary Dwarves somewhere deep in the Khazad-dum mountains and a glitch the computer program ensuring that it probably won’t happen again. Well, he just said the yeti-corn part, I made up the rest.

Got your attention? Great. Hold that thought as I hopefully will give you an insight to a multi-temporal word (without needing TARDIS) that I suspect not very many people are aware of, at least non-Deaf folks (excluding sign language interpreters). Here it is. . . Women in the STEM field are actively suppressed and oppressed everywhere! Shocking. Right? No? Oh. . .You already knew that? You don’t say? You’re saying that statistics and studies already bears this out and you’ve heard (or experienced) many first-hand stories on this topic, and attended at least a dozen workshops relating to that topic. Okay, let me try again. Let’s say that . . . I know what it’s like to be a woman in a STEM world.

You crazy! What are you talking about? You’re a white cisgender dude! Exactly. That’s what makes this whole premise absurd yet true. How would I know, you’re probably wondering. Let me take you down the rabbit hole, narrated by yours truly with what I would imagine sounding as if I had a LeVar Burton voice.

One can presume from a quick glance of my LinkedIn picture that I’m vested with all the privilege that this society bestows upon this particular set of population (generally-speaking). However, the second that I start using sign language, the general population notice that they’re interacting with someone who isn’t an oral-based communicator, but uses 100% signing. At that point, all “my privilege that I’m “supposed” to enjoy evaporates” as if it never existed, and is replaced with a classification that seemingly the so called “diverse culture” does not want to be associated with, a person with disability, missing out on the whole point of embracing the true human diversity.

Let me set up the scene here, since the above relies on the premise that you’re seeing me in person . . .You already know that I’m a Deaf person, someone who signs, and I’m an engineering manager of over 65 brilliant multi-disciplinary engineers at one of (if not the most) crazy complex engineering company in the world. Next scene please!

Now within that world, I have a wonderful primary working partnership with professional sign language interpreters, 2 whom are both females. Now the catch is . . .we’re in a middle (or the tail-end) of a pandemic, which means for the most part, we’re all now mostly virtual. So for all matter and means, all my meetings are done over video-conferencing / WebEx / Zoom, running off my home internet and tethered cell internet (I have to run two different lines, one as a primary and other one as a back-up for my Zoom calls, since sometimes you just never know when you’re on a call and the entire neighborhood decides to start splurging on their unlimited Netflix/Prime/HBO+/StarZ/Showtime/Plex/Tubi accounts, relegating my 1 GBPS account to speed of the sad ol days of 56.6 k modem and the thrill of AOL chime.

Within a virtual environment, imagine yourself with me on the other end of the phone for the first time, without knowing me personally. At that moment, the unfamiliar environment throws ones interaction social norm expectation into a flux, allowing gender identity as perceived in this society creep into play and when folks listen to me communicate and hear a female voice, expecting a male. The experience can be jarring and I can’t tell you how many folks have refused to believe that I was actually William on the other line, quickly pressing the “red icon which represents a 1950s land-based phone” on their phone to terminate the call. Sadly, this is not a rare occurrence, but something that Deaf folks put up with nearly every single day, forcing me to constantly e-mail that person (or IM’ing them) psychologically counseling them through their own very confused identity crisis.

Spanning years, I did a bunch of grand experiments, giving over a dozen different presentations, mainly filled with first-timer participants, one utilizing male sign language interpreters as my primary voice, and the other with female sign language interpreters. It was an eye-opening experience (or should I say ear-opening experience), for with the female interpreters . . . I was lambasted by male engineers, interrupted again and again, questioned constantly, and dismissed in so many ways that I was nearly invisible in the room and even though my idea was the one that carried the day, the credit went to someone else. Sound familiar? Represent, my sisters! Represent!

However, with the male interpreter, my word carried tremendous weight, I barely got any questions, and I got my ideas credited as the originator. Admittedly It was a complete breath of fresh air, to have male interpreters doing my voicing, just to not constantly fight against the torrent of the river of subconscious prejudices. Think of butter at room temperature and using a knife to slice through it. That smooth! No wonder why we’re all creatures of comfort, hence hiring folks that match our perception of what the world ought to be, to my dismay (and others).

It’s not something that I just recently came to the realization of, doing this for over 15 years in the corporate environment, but it’s been amped up considerably in the recent dominant virtual environment, new team formations and due to other various reasons.

Examples range from mild to unconscionable, while giving my presentations I’ve received comments that my female interpreters sounded like a “b*tch” since they were trying to vernacularize male grammar, tone, and feel. I’ve gotten asked by several managers to have my interpreters replaced with a male one since I apparently come across as “weaker” or not as “confident” in my ability to communicate my thoughts, they were concerned that I wasn’t portraying myself properly according to my gender.

Want more examples? I’ve gotten lectured by a few executives who believe that I need to “straighten up my act”, to bend to the social norms, if I wanted to climb up the corporate ladder, stay in my own lane gender-wise, so to speak. Consequentially, I have been passed up on many job opportunities just due to their inability to reconcile their own built in prejudices towards women, BIPOC or people with disabilities. Heck, my world is filled with many examples where my interpreters are actively pursuing voice conversion systems to switch their voices from female to “white male” to help alleviate those prejudices I experience on a daily basis.

Taking this a step further, can you for a minute try to imagine what that is like for a transgendered person in a corporate environment, where every day is a constant justification of your identity. Props to them for their class act in the face of obvious systematic discrimination and microaggressions. It’s exhausting!

To all the female and BIPOC employees out there, regardless of your profession, I have nothing but absolute respect for your ability to navigate in this subtle, yet toxic environment. I made a promise to myself, and have kept it since day one, to be the ally that women, BIPOC, and PWD very much deserve to have in the management field, not due to some white cisgender male savior complex, but due to the acknowledgement that the pain and their experience is real and we must do everything possible to remove all the dignity violations that exists within our corporate environment. 

Now, if you’re wondering. . . I do not plan on switching out any of my female interpreters, to do such is an admission of defeat and forgetting the importance that the lesson that I’ve learned isn’t always necessarily a one-way street, but a two-way street. Not to mention, that over 85% of sign language interpreters are females. For those that I interact with on a daily basis, exposing my colleagues to this “reality distortion” helps reshape their mindset as well, and makes them into better allies. What a fortunate opportunity I have to really change the world. . . one person at a time.

How’s that for an insight? Yeticorns Rocks! Good talk.