"impostor" poems - Hello Poetry

Most days, you're not a woman developer, you're a developer. You work just as hard, You (try to) talk just as fast You keep your feelings under the surface (barely) Actually, scratch that You're always a woman developer. you're just so used to internalizing these habits Trying to have confidence in your skills despite the impostor syndrome pulling you down each time slowly, like quicksand Trying to make up for the confidence you never had compared to someone who always had it all Trying to not cry in the kitchen because god who is allowed to have feelings Trying not to talk about men who made you uncomfortable because oh my god for the fact that people call women overreacting most men seem to make every little statement about them, have you noticed? oh wow, isn't this just reverse sexism? oh wow, can I even talk to women? Being so vocal about being queer and Indian but if you make one noise one sound one phrase about your experience as a woman because in such welcoming company you subconsciously thought why not You let down your guard But There goes the shattered glass as the topic of gender-based discrimination is finally broached There goes the thing nobody ever talks about There starts the debate you did not want to participate in "Oh wow you're so harsh to these guys" "We were just slamming what they were doing, you slammed their actual personality wow" "I just said they sounded like a brogrammer" "sure if you say so" "Isn't that just an arbitrary description" How do you explain How do you describe every nuanced experience about Every male in your life who have been exactly like this to you How do you explain the light discrimination The harsh discrimination The systemic problem as a whole How can you condense all this into a workplace environment talk Where you don't usually talk about this? Where you don't know if you can actually talk about this Where you know that you ultimately don't want to talk about this cuz how can you explain these feelings that they can never understand You shut up and move on with coding. But inside, you're conflicted with ideas of presentations to express the fact, or never speak about this again Because in the end, You're just a developer, not a woman developer to them.

0

Jul 28, 2018

Jul 28, 2018 at 10:42 AM UTC

varshinir93

An Arbitrary Description (not really)

Most days, you're not a woman developer, you're a developer. You work just as hard, You (try to) talk just as fast You keep your feelings under the surface (barely) Actually, scratch that You're always a woman developer. you're just so used to internalizing these habits Trying to have confidence in your skills despite the impostor syndrome pulling you down each time slowly, like quicksand Trying to make up for the confidence you never had compared to someone who always had it all Trying to not cry in the kitchen because god who is allowed to have feelings Trying not to talk about men who made you uncomfortable because oh my god for the fact that people call women overreacting most men seem to make every little statement about them, have you noticed? oh wow, isn't this just reverse sexism? oh wow, can I even talk to women? Being so vocal about being queer and Indian but if you make one noise one sound one phrase about your experience as a woman because in such welcoming company you subconsciously thought why not You let down your guard But There goes the shattered glass as the topic of gender-based discrimination is finally broached There goes the thing nobody ever talks about There starts the debate you did not want to participate in "Oh wow you're so harsh to these guys" "We were just slamming what they were doing, you slammed their actual personality wow" "I just said they sounded like a brogrammer" "sure if you say so" "Isn't that just an arbitrary description" How do you explain How do you describe every nuanced experience about Every male in your life who have been exactly like this to you How do you explain the light discrimination The harsh discrimination The systemic problem as a whole How can you condense all this into a workplace environment talk Where you don't usually talk about this? Where you don't know if you can actually talk about this Where you know that you ultimately don't want to talk about this cuz how can you explain these feelings that they can never understand You shut up and move on with coding. But inside, you're conflicted with ideas of presentations to express the fact, or never speak about this again Because in the end, You're just a developer, not a woman developer to them.