Hi,
Before I get into introducing myself and what I want to talk about today, to everyone who’s recently become a part of our community, welcome and thank you for trusting us with your oral care. To give you some context, we send out a Sunday newsletter every week to talk about our journey. For those, who’ve been with us from the start, you are our cheerleaders.
Now diving straight into business. My name is Drishti and I am the D2C maverick for Perfora. I take care of all things D2C i.e. website at Perfora. A lot of you have been sending DMs and emails saying that our website looks great. Well, I am the one behind it. 🤫
And if you haven’t checked it out already, here's a quick glimpse. (Please send across some appreciation if you like it 😋)
While I am all this, I am also the only female in this team of 4, and boy, it is a roller coaster ride at times. So, I thought, I’ll just talk about my experience of being the only woman in this male-dominated team.
For a millennial woman like me, working in a male-dominated workplace where the boys’ club is still a thing (sometimes), a workplace free of gender bias can seem like a pipe dream. While the team is extremely supportive on most days, it does get rough at times. To be honest, some days are really tough. Let me give you some instances.
Battling the outside world
We end up talking to a lot of agencies, founders, and other key stakeholders throughout the course of business and quite a few of them do end up completely discarding my opinion and words. In fact, the founder of an agency we were in conversation with did not even have the courtesy to look at me while talking. He shared all his expertise and experience just looking and directing it to the founders. But I loved how my team kept redirecting things at me to ensure that the message was loud and clear
Getting Along With The Team
We do end up spending an hour or two daily to see how things are coming along for the business and sometimes these talks tend to get heated up. While both Jatan and Tushar are extremely respectful to my thoughts, quite a few of these times, you do get tagged as opinionated, grumpy, and likely to get offended too soon.
Fighting the Inner Demons
I think this is the most difficult one. We’ve been born and brought up in an extremely patriarchal society and being in such an environment makes you question and self-doubt yourself a lot and this tends to make me shy away from sharing my thoughts and opinions. Also, a lot of times, it makes me feel that I am not being valued enough which is far from the truth.
But I am glad that I know these 3 men. On most days, they are my pillars of strength. They are the most accommodating and supportive individuals who not only regard me for the work I do but also call out my inefficiencies to help me grow every day. I am treated like an equal here and for that, I am super proud.
While a male-dominated organisation is wrath with quite some traditional thinking in terms of men pulling women down, however, working with these people I learned a few things which clear out that the world has evolved and people are changing for good. This is what I’ve learned:
- Not all male-driven workplaces are bad. I’ve been lucky enough to work in a certain environment with men who are nurturing, graceful and kind, where being a woman hasn’t affected my professional experience in the slightest.
- It is not ALWAYS unsafe to work with men. There are still good guys alive making this world a better place.
- At these places, your paycheque is decided on the basis of your talent, hard work, efficiency, etc. and not on the basis of your gender.
- It is less noisier, more confrontational with men around.
- Some men are the most non-judgmental species. They never judge you with your personal choices.
- They do give you competition, but that makes you strong to face the world.
- Speak up and speak out. You are smart. You have ideas. Do not doubt yourself. Respect yourself and only then, will the world respect you.
If you’re a woman, I hope this brings a smile to your face to see our tribe grow and if you’re a man, I hope you become more like these men.
I will be super pumped to know your stories or any advice that you may have for me to do better here. Just hit me up with a reply to this.
Cheers,
Drishti
P.S. We're looking for a social media ninja to join our team. Personal preference is a girl to balance the ratio ;)