Making room for women’s thinking

Several years ago I was working on a solution for an engineering problem (I’m a civil engineer by training) and I had spent a few weeks thinking about it. I spoke to several people (all men), and arrived at what I thought was the best possible solution.

One night that week I went to a salsa class and I remembered that one of the women in the class was also a civil engineer — so at the end of the class I decided to ask her thoughts on my solution. We found a napkin and a pencil, and I started explaining my design. She looked at it for about 5 seconds and then said: “why not do it like this?” and she proceeded to draw, in 1 minute, a solution that was cheaper, more visually appealing, faster and easier to build than what I had come up with. I was astounded.

I asked her: “why do I get the feeling that you were able to create this because you’re a woman? I’ve shown this to many men and none of them thought of anything even remotely similar to this”. She smiled and told me that this happens all the time: solutions designed by men are often very “square”. It was clear to me that her solution was balanced and more elegant.