my name's not Charlie, and these are no angels

The first 7 months I spent here I was subject to some pretty harsh treatment by the local women. But, I made it a mission to change that.

I taught a class a few months ago. There was only one female. I realized immediately that she was the smartest one of the group (not me being sexist, 54% of local women go to college vs. 23% of men, and of the 23% of men only 7% get a degree, unlike the women who graduate with degrees) but she was afraid to speak up because of her male colleagues. I invited her to do some one on one training with me during the lunch break and after class, with good results.

I've since started doing that with every female in my classes. I've also (even though I could get in a lot of trouble for this) allowed women not officially signed up for my classes to attend them. I put out notice that any woman interested in architecture can contact me and I will help them out as much as I can (given my current work schedule which is, at times, insane).

I'm proud to report that I have a serious group of 7 local women that I'm mentoring. I do everything from helping them with technical issues to plotting with them on how to deal with a difficult male boss. I'm not trying to free them from their hijab, I'm just trying to free their minds, and I think that is what gives me some credibility with them.

When we started our little group one of the women suggested we call ourselves charlie's angels (after the movie, she's way too young to have known about the TV show). Now they call themselves Franki's Devils. When I finally leave here in August if even half of them are making the same progress at work that they all seem to be making now, I'll be happy.

The weird thing is, when we were meeting the other evening, I looked around the room and saw a bunch of beautiful, fashionable women who are all really, really smart. I was joking with them that I feel like I'm teaching super models how to be geeks. They make fun of me all the time (like today when one told me that my hair can probably be seen from outer space because it was so humid today I looked like a blonde cotton ball) but I think that they are starting to like me for real, and not just because I'm trying to help them. We never talk about personal things, and we never gossip, we just talk engineering stuff. If just one of them makes it to a conference within the next year because she's run a successful architecture project I will be very happy.

It's always been my experience at work that women are the worst bosses and will do anything to hold another woman down. I swore I would never do that. And then a cousin of mine went in to the peace corp and taught african women how to run their own businesses. I thought that was cool and wanted to do something like that myself. I've mentored a few women over the years but every one of them ended up getting married or having kids and dropping out of the work force. Here, I feel that the women are motivated to make an impact, and not a slight impact, but a big bang.

Change will come here. And these women will hopefully be part of it.