“Anything you can do, I can do better” I loved that song as a kid. Never did I imagine as an adult I would find myself repeating it silently in my head almost daily. Women’s equality has always been an issue in the world….the big wide all-consuming world. But I didn’t think it applied to my small world. You see I’m employed by a male dominated work force. It’s a fact that’s painfully obvious. Us girls make up about 14%. However for the past 6 years my office has been equally mixed, or dominantly female. I was living in a small secure bubble that was about to be popped into obscurity. 6 months ago I moved to a new section. Ecstatic about having job growth and new experiences, the fact that I was going to be working with 9 men didn’t seem important. That was my first misconception of many. I’ve always had the assumption that my employer only hired educated, progressive, and cultured (or those capable of one day gaining these attributes) individuals. That, I’ve found is not nearly the case. Upon my first week of work, while slowly acquiring tools needed to accomplish my daily task, I was advised not to “feminize” my area. Actually I was jokingly (not joking) told not to “hang a bunch of girly $h!t”, followed by a course of laughter. Naturally I immediately went out after work and bought the most girlish décor I could think of at the time. Am I into girly things? Sure I’m a woman, I like pretty things. However I have never in my 7 years of employment purposely decorated my area with any specific girlish décor. I didn’t even have my bedroom decorated. My cubicle now looks like Tinker Bell and her fairy friends dumped steaming piles of fairy dust and friendship on it, just for the enjoyment of my fellow coworkers. Do I like Tinker Bell? Sure I occasionally watched Tink and her friends with my 5 yr old daughter; she makes some very good points about sharing and caring. My purpose for utilizing her though was not for my love of all things fairy, but I’m almost 100% sure no one else in this office was told not to hang “girly $h!t”. In hindsight, if I had thought this through (as my husband suggested as I stormed through Target filling my cart with anything pink, purple or periwinkle) I would have realized I have to sit here not them. It does amuse me however when upper management (all male) walks through with furrowed eyebrows because it looks like a legit fairy princess lives in my cubicle. They never say anything, just stare then advert their eyes when I make eye contact……