#43 “Time and again, I have been made to feel that I am invisible.”

“Time and again, I have been made to feel that I am invisible. Whether it be getting opportunities to lead a project or providing my view points in a meeting. In one instance, I asked the team member presenting their design how a particular use case will be handled - my question was ignored outright. After a few minutes, another member of the team asked the exact same question and the discussion around it went on for about 20 minutes. In another instance, I was presenting a design where a manager from another team kept interrupting me and didn't let me answer their questions till my skip manager jumped in to say ‘I think we should let her finish what she has been trying to say’. As a result of this meeting, the feedback I received was that I do not know how to ‘lead’ my meetings. My manager said I shouldn't be taking this feedback negatively but take this as an opportunity to build my ‘soft skills’ to be able to interrupt back if somebody is interrupting me. There are numerous such incidents where I have questioned myself - is it because of my personality? is it because I am not senior enough in the team? is it because of my gender? I do not know the answer.”