Minorities take on many forms. The most obvious ones are those of race, gender, and visible disability. Religious minorities, members of LGBTQ+ communities, those of us with invisible disabilities, and individuals with differing sociopolitical views may or may not be immediately obvious, but they still feel otherized.
There are other things that render you invisible or invalidated, too. Overweight people are often overlooked. So are women who are over a certain age, along with the elderly in general. The concerns of young people are often dismissed. We go out of our way to avoid seeing the poor.
When you are a member of a minority, you can count on bouncing back and forth between two realities much of the time: 1) You will be ignored, discounted, forgotten or dismissed. 2) You will be singled out, often to the point where all eyes are upon you, but not in a good way. Well-meaning people will pity you, as if that’s a welcome gift, or go so far out of their way to include you that you feel overexposed; people who definitely do not mean well will hit you with derision, humiliation, microaggression, or downright hostility; and ignorant people will treat you like some sort of a freak or a puzzle that needs to be solved. And the worst part is that you never know, from one moment to the next, what you’re going to get. Under such circumstances, it’s hard to feel like you’re standing on solid ground.
As a 60-year-old, overweight, autistic woman who works in a male-dominated field, I seem to get it coming and going. It was even worse when I lived in a red state, given my blue political slant. (At least I’ve been able to slough off that itchy layer of skin. It only took 40 years. And I’m working on the weight thing for the sake of my health, but some days are more successful than others.)
Believe it or not, though, most of the time, I try not to view the world through this lens. I have too many other things to worry about to devote all my energy to what people do or how they behave. But sometimes it gets thrust upon me in ways that are hard to ignore. At the time of this writing, I had two such experiences within 48 hours.
The first was related to this article, which appeared in the Seattle Times, on March 15, 2025 entitled Life in the tower: Who controls Seattle’s drawbridges?.
I had very mixed emotions when I heard that this article would be coming out. I am proud of my job. Bridgetending is surrounded by a great deal of misconception. Many people assume that all bridges are automated, when in fact most aren’t. So it’s always thrilling when we actually get a chance to be seen.
It’s nice to explain to people that, no, we don’t just sleep through the shift, occasionally open one eye, push one button, and then drift off to sleep again. There’s a lot of complex coordination, along with safety protocols, maintenance, crisis management and reports involved. I’m always happy when some of those misconceptions can be dispelled. The article did do that.
But based on what was published, if you really wanted an answer to the question posed by its title, you’d have to conclude that the people “controlling” Seattle’s drawbridges are, exclusively, white males. Everyone photographed was a white male. Everyone interviewed was a white male.
They gave no evidence that female bridgetenders even exist. And that is despite the fact that most of us are quite high up in seniority, and all of us are as capable and competent as our male counterparts, if not more so. In a just and equitable world, there should be three times as many women in this department as there are.
It would never occur to most women that being a bridgetender was even a possibility, so having no images of people who look like them in an article in a prominent newspaper is no help at all. If we’re not seen, it’s hard to represent and even harder to encourage. I have actively tried to recruit women to apply for the job, and several have, but only with my active encouragement. Frankly, I’ve been a bridgetender for 24 years, and even I wouldn’t think I met the requirements of this job based on its current description, so it doesn’t surprise me that they don’t get many female applicants. What they claim is required has nothing to do with the job at all.
When women do apply, they often don’t make it to the interview stage. When I say, “Hey, why not?” the powers that be will often look again, and decide that, yes, this person merits an interview. Well, how many women are excluded because I’m not there to push for them? And why should I have to?
I’ve been a bridgetender in three different states for three different departments of transportation, and whenever our public relations department tells us that a reporter will be writing about bridgetending, I am never asked to speak for my coworkers, even when I’ve actively expressed my willingness. Not once, in 24 years. And there have been many instances where people have wanted to interview me specifically, and I’ve directed them to run it by PR as per policy, and the inquirers have been told that they can’t do it.
Why are we kept hidden? What are they afraid of? What are they protecting?
I wasn’t going to blog about this. I really wasn’t. I am so resigned to being crushed under the weight of all the good ol’ boys in the transportation industry that I’ve pretty much given up on attempting to make any positive changes. Standing in the face of constant resistance is draining my life force. But then the second thing happened.
For several months now, there has been construction going on just south of my bridge. As one would expect, this requires a lot of safety cones and signage along the lines of, “left lane closed ahead.” You get the idea.
All that is well and good, but for the fact that, as a bridgetender, I have a designated parking space on my bridge. Every day I park there, and then they come along and put their big, heavy signs up in such a way that I can’t leave at the end of the shift. One night, after a long, crisis-filled shift, I got to my car at 11 pm to go home, only to find that I was completely blocked in, and I had to manhandle all the signs out of the way before I could leave. And mind you, it was 38 degrees out, and the rain was torrential.
I took photos and passed it up my chain of command, but the only response was that they’d be told that they can’t block a driveway. Well, this is a unique situation which does not look like a driveway. But for some reason, they refused to go into specifics. The problem continued.
But today I happened to look up to see a crowd of construction workers at the site, so I grabbed my safety vest, hard hat and marine radio and walked down to ask if I could speak to the person in charge of their safety setup. This was a group of about 10 men, and the testosterone was palpable in the air. Some just stared at me. Others glanced at each other and chuckled. But once they realized I was going to stand my ground, one of them stepped forward.
I explained the situation, and we walked up there so he could see. I know that a parking space on a drawbridge is rather unique, but given that he always places the signs not 5 feet from my parked car, there’s no way he couldn’t have seen it. And where exactly did he think I’d go? Anyway, he politely argued with me for a while, and I told him to think of this as our driveway. You can’t block a driveway with safety signs. It’s not permitted.
Even then, he was reluctant to make the move, until I explained that our electricians and mechanics also drive down this way and have to exit, too. Then, all of a sudden, he was more than willing to make the change. As I watched, I gritted my teeth, then thanked him.
Anything to help out “real” people, I guess.
For what it’s worth, I did shoot out an email about the first issue to the people in our bureaucracy who are in charge of equity and social justice and the like, and have gotten a preliminary response. That was gratifying because that hasn’t been the case in the past. If my email gains traction this time around, I’ll write an update here.
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