Cheryl
BORn
London
yeaR of birth
1988
―
I was 14 when I decided that what I was going to be in life was a software engineer. After graduating from Cambridge in Computer Science, I started working as a software engineer. Even though I saw myself as an engineer, the tech industry being very white and male dominated did not see me as a part of that. People would assume I was working in sales, for example! I’ve definitely seen an unfriendliness, a distrust of women who are engineers.
I thought a lot about the diversity issue in tech. I realise that most of that has very little to do with me personally and very much to do with how people treat me because of how they see me. Being female is part of that, being Chinese is part of that, even being short. I have these extra things that I have to consciously work against which cause people to think that I’m not as professional or technical as them.
After working in that environment for 5 years, I decided to leave and before starting a new job, I thought very hard about the way I’m seen in the workplace. In the industry, there is a feeling that clothing is functional and it’s frivolous and ‘female’ for you to care. If you dress up, you are not technical, you are not an engineer, you are not one of us. All these things came together before I started a new job and I thought I’m going to do the ‘Steve Jobs’ thing and buy multiples of same identical outfit which I will wear to work everyday. I wear all these t-shirts back to front, and I do that in because I want to deflect any attention to the chest area.
I really didn’t like this thought originally because I felt as a tech person, you should wear anything you want, like the tech world says! It would be great to think that I can wear a ballgown to work but at the same time, that’s a big fight and I’m not sure if it’s a fight I want. These t-shirts are nothing special, I wear these everyday, literally, Monday to Friday. It is a uniform for me, it is a uniform I have constructed for myself. In a perfect world, the only thing that you should be judged on is your work, your character, your ability. These t-shirts have become a bit of an armour for the workplace and that is reflected in my artwork.
―
當我14歲的時候，我決定這輩子要做軟件工程師。從劍橋計算機科學專業畢業之後，我成為了一名軟件工程師。儘管我把自己當做工程師，技術產業都是白人男性為主，他們並未把我當作其中一份子。比如，人們總想當然以為我是做銷售的。我親眼見過對女性工程師的敵意和質疑。
我想過好多關於技術行業多樣化的問題。我意識到，這個問題其實和我本身並無太大關係，而是和他人如何看待我有關。這個問題和我作為女性有關，作為華人有關，甚至和我身材矮小有關。這些附加的東西使我在工作中必須有意識去反抗，因為它們讓人覺得我不夠專業或者技術不好。
在這個環境中工作了五年，我決定離開。開始新工作之前，我很認真地思考了我在工作中的形象。在這個行業中，衣著的功能是實用性的。如果你太在乎衣著，則顯得輕浮和「女氣」。如果你精心打扮，就意味著你技術不好，不是工程師，不是我們當中的一份子。考慮到這些，我決定做新工作時，要像喬布斯那樣買很多件一樣的外套每天穿。我把這些T恤都反過來穿，排除一切對胸部的關注。
一開始，我非常反感這個想法。我覺得作為一個技術人員，你可以穿自己想穿的衣服。就像技術行業宣稱的那樣。如果我可以穿一件舞會長裙上班該多好！但這又會引發一場大的爭吵，但我不想吵。這些T恤并不特別，我每天都穿著。真的！週一到週五。它是我的制服，我為自己量身打造的制服。在一個完美的世界中，唯一衡量你的標準應該是你的工作，性格和能力。這些T恤成為了我工作時的戰甲。這在我的藝術品中體現出來。