Steminist Blog

My Story

Guest Blogger: Alekhya Macharla

I know every girl’s story is different, but this is mine. I was born in east India in a town with no access to the internet until my engineering, and had an overall lack of awareness of anything related to technology except academic books. But I was lucky enough that my dad was able to give me and my sister a good education in a good school, and then an engineering college in my town because he doesn’t want us to leave home until we finish our education. Through my school days, I never had any question in my mind, but as my engineering degree progressed, I found myself wondering whether only studying academic books and giving exams are enough. What about the practicality of my degree? What about the awareness a person should have in life? What about the world outside this town; would I be able to compete with other people?

My dad always spoke about his dreams of me getting placed in the best software companies, but what he never realised was that only scoring excellent marks is not everything. We always had fights on the same note at home and as usual I was always wrong because it’s given that Indian parents always know what’s best for their kids.

Ironically, I completed my engineering in 2009, which was obviously a great year to have so many dreams about getting a job at a fancy multinational company while everyone around me was losing theirs due to recession! But jokes aside, I was happy because I managed to leave my home town and move to a city that was considered the “software hub” of India. Of course, it wasn’t as easy as just that; I tried and tired for a whole year before I finally got placed in a multinational company. I was on cloud nine when I got the job and literally cried tears of joy for my achievement; that was my best day in my life for many several reasons - one of them being the chance to earn money on my own capability. I know many people start earning at sixteen years of age, but as I said: this is my story.

I started working in the company and worked very hard to keep up the good work but the one thing I always noticed was the toxic masculine culture. Being treated as a woman, not an employee, meant not recognising the good work or the deadlines I achieved in the project. No matter how hard I worked to achieve my deadlines working outside office hours, (something I know now is not good practice, but I was young) I never stopped hearing how I will not be able to achieve all of this once I get married because as a woman I need to balance both my professional and personal lives, and for a woman family life is the first priority. But I always ignored the jokes my colleagues would crack, treating them as just jokes. Imagine my shock when I asked my reporting manager about a promotion and asked him to send me to the client’s location to USA and he said, “I don’t know if you can do a long-term visit or work in US since you would likely be getting married soon, so we can’t afford the visa money and send you instead of a man”. I remember graphic details of the way he spoke with me that day, and the meeting room in which I heard these words. A regret that will remain with me my whole life is that I didn’t have a comeback for him then.

There are many women now in the STEM world, but how they were treated then and how it is now looks the same to me. Being in the technology industry for more than a decade, even as a Manager for an IT consulting firm in Australia, I can see that women in both countries still face similar situations in their lives. They (we) still have to prove their ability to manage their work and the ability to manage their personal lives.

There are many inspirational women out there that we see and hear about in our daily lives - some in our workplace, our friends, our neighbourhood - who we never recognise as our inspirations until they are in a book or an article, or the news. Most of us have a story to tell. Based on mine, I would like to tell the coming generations to never give up on dreams no matter what factors disadvantage your life; every gender has a right to dream, and I hope we can be more rebellious, courageous and bold enough to question anyone who questions our ability.

I know this is not the end of my story or my career journey. I want to achieve more heights in my life whilst balancing my personal life, but I will not sacrifice any of these lives. I want to be an inspiration to my daughter and get inspired from other women in the STEM world.