Breaking the Gender Barrier
In October, my friend Mary Jo Murphy wrote a piece for the New York Times, asking women to tell their stories about the first time they encountered the Gender Barrier. The article was published in the New York Times on October 28th, 2016. Since my husband works for the NYT, Mary Jo wasn't able to include my story. So I thought I'd share it here.
My Gender Barrier encounter happened in 1973 as a senior at Morristown High School in NJ. I wanted to learn electronics as a possible supplement to a career in radio, my real passion. My friend Margo and I joined a beginner's class, and the teacher, his name long forgotten, told us to our faces that women didn't belong in the electronics field. I lasted a few classes. The final blow was being humiliated in front of the class-- so embarrassing to someone as painfully shy as I was in those days. We had been asked to solder (join) two pieces of wire together and as the whole class watched the teacher proceeded to point out the bad job I had done by easily pulling the wires apart. I dropped the class the next day. My friend Margo stayed on to prove him wrong, even though she really wasn't as interested in the field as I was.
Eventually I learned basic wiring and soldering on my own, which I later learned really wasn't a necessary skill to further my radio career. Flash forward to the early 1990's, I had been hired at WNYC. One of the earliest side-tasks required of me as a broadcast engineer was to wire up a set of microphone cables. Other cabling projects followed. I have the great satisfaction of knowing that most of the cables I made for WNYC are still in use today. Also I have helped wire two of WFMU's studios. Gender Barrier broken!
I hope this inspires other women to think about the ways they were able to break the Gender Barrier and carry on (and flourish) in their chosen fields.
