Conspicuous and Invisible

Before I started my job with OTI, I was a little concerned about what it would be like to work with a bunch of men in a war zone. Would I be respected? Would my opinions and insight be valued? Would it be a daily struggle to get people to take me seriously?

My initial fears were quickly allayed when I began my training with all those future male colleagues and realized the plus-side of being one of the few women in a room full of men: I was a hot commodity! Not only was I not ignored or de-valued, but I got extra attention. People wanted to talk to me; I got free coffee and rides home! This was a bit disorienting at first (note: 80% female grad school program), but I won't deny it was pretty nice. I began to wonder if this is the way life is supposed to be! It began a season of life wherein I feel I'm being treated better by men than I ever have before - even (and perhaps especially) than at church and my Christian undergraduate university. This experience so far has helped me value my identity as a woman in ways I previously had not. I'm realizing that for much of my life, I've seen my gender as a liability, but now I'm learning to recognize and appreciate my femininity as value-added to people around me and the world.

However, after 2 months at KAF, the "honeymoon" period of basking in the limelight is beginning to wear off a little. I still feel like I'm treated really well by my colleagues 98% of the time - I get doors opened for me, people letting me go in front of them in line at the DFAC, and favors from our somewhat cantankerous facilities managers that my male colleagues swear they could never get. I don't notice it too much, but my friends tell me I get stared at walking around the base (my OTI colleague Dan said that for the first few days he was here, he couldn't figure out why everyone was looking at him when we were together - then he realized they were looking at me). So I know I'm conspicuous, but in professional settings, I've been feeling a bit invisible of late.

When people come into the OTI office with a question, they naturally go straight to my supervisor, a man, for the answers. But sometimes I even notice it a little with Dan - that people will defer to him for answers and responses when we're together, even though we have the same level position and I've been at KAF longer than he has. And I feel most invisible at military meetings, which often seem like a "good ol' boys" club, where I feel awkward and out of place. There are many reasons for these professional tensions that have nothing to do with gender - I'm new, I'm young, I'm a civilian, my desk is in a corner of our office that makes it easier to face Rod and Dan than me when people walk in the door. And - truth be told - I often don't have the answers people are looking for when they come to our office; I simply just don't know enough yet. So there's no reason to get all pissy and sensitive about how I'm treated as a woman in the office. Yet, the gender thing is there, and I notice it. Fortunately, I have the mantra of lessons from the job search running through my mind most days: Fight. Don't indulge self-pity. Access the good even in difficult circumstances. Perseverance, hope, patience. It may be harder for me professionally as a woman, or it may not be - regardless, all there is to do is run the race in front of me and tackle the obstacles I encounter, because we all encounter obstacles and mine certainly are not the most onerous. A friend of mine who is also in the Army had some good advice when it comes to first having to battle to get the military to take you seriously:

The only solution to that is to try to find one person in the meeting you can convince, and then convince them. Then find a second and have the first guy convince him that you can help. And from there on you build an army.

Or, plan B is to flirt with them. May not help your credibility, but you may get to go out on a mission with them if they think you will make out with them because they took you.

So, you can go either way with it. It's ok if it's all for the greater good, right? We are trying to win a war here.

So at least I've got options :). But what is more disturbing to me than simply my personal struggles is the fact that on the whole, women are conspicuously absent from most strategic development, planning and implementation across the board - from lethal operations to governance and development (because even though civilians like to think they are driving things, the military still overwhelmingly outnumber us and therefore have the lead even on governance and development issues, for better or for worse [and don't assume I necessarily think it's for worse - I really don't know most days]). Or perhaps I should say women are inconspicuously absent, because I haven't really noticed anyone caring much that women are not a part of these discussions. The other day I was the only woman in a briefing on a topic I studied fairly extensively in grad school, the implementation of which is being completely driven by the military in Afghanistan. This bothered me on numerous levels, but the absence of women was one. Not that men don't have completely brilliant ideas, but when women aren't part of the planning, you are inevitably going to be missing something. No offense to my brilliant and honorable male colleagues, but I wonder if we might be doing a little better in Afghanistan if women were more involved in developing our strategy here.

And this doesn't even touch on the issue of Afghan women's issues, and how difficult they are to access and consult in a divided society, especially when the war/peacebuilding/development effort is being led by men. There are certainly a few efforts being made with Female Engagement Teams and the like, but I can't help thinking this is a big missing piece that we are nowhere close to adequately addressing. If you want to know what invisible looks like, try finding an Afghan woman as a foreign man in Afghanistan.

I don't know what the answers are, but I know this: gender matters. It matters for me, it matters for U.S. policymaking, and it matters for Afghanistan.