As you stood astounded in front of me, I was offended. "How far can a woman actually go in the science world?" you asked, as you chuckled to yourself. "Science is for men."
I ignored your sexist remark and continued to ring your order. "Your total is $143.98 today."
"Anyway, can you knock that down a few dollars?"
"No. Are you paying with cash or card?" Clearly, I was agitated.
You paid, and as I handed you your receipt, you said, "Honestly, I do think that a career in biology is a far stretch for you dear, especially if you're working here."
That was when I lost it. "For your information sir, I work here so I can afford to pay for books and other necessities at school, so my parents don't have to. I work here because it's conviently close to my school and works around my class schedule. This isn't my career. This is my part-time job, that I will be leaving once graduation comes. So, please take your incredibly rude attitude and shove it somewhere else. Science is my passion, I am going to use my knowledge to find pathways and discover the mechanisms of diseases and the therapeutics too. I've already worked in a lab looking for cancer therapeutics, was offered a paidinternship as a chemist, and am currently studying the grey matter volume changes in the brain of PTSD patients, so don't tell me that my dream isn't practical or that science isn't for women, because you're wrong."
You paused and my coworker stood behind me and clapped her hands at my response. You had nothing to say but, "Okay then."
What you should have said was "I'm sorry." I'm sorry I'm a sexist pig, that probably has no science background at all. I'm sorry that I doubted you and what you want to do. I'm sorry that I support the gender norms placed into society many years ago, and continue to think that women shouldn't work in the science fields.
Many people are taught in school that Watson and Crick discovered the DNA double helix structure, but do you know what they really discovered? Rosalind Franklin's notes. They published her work because she was a woman and they were men, so it just made sense for their work to be published and not hers.
As a woman in science, you're expected by society to be this sexily dressed feminine person with glasses and a lab coat. You're sexualized to meet the odd fantasies of men. But that is not what a woman in science is at all to me.
A woman in science is someone with a passion for everything they do. A woman in science will do anything to prove her hypothesis and anyone who doubted her wrong. They are strong, independent and intelligent. A woman scientist can do anything a man scientist can do.
