Nora Tan
About My Guest
Nora graduated from Stanford in 2019 with an individually designed major in engineering, focused on entrepreneurship, design, and society and ethics. She is passionate about causes which help end systemic racism, injustice and inequity. Throughout her career, she would like to work on: civic action, public safety, personal mobility, accessibility, economic empowerment, climate change, and information and communication technologies.
Nora grew up in Seattle after her family of five moved from Singapore. Outside of work, she enjoys tennis, hiking and backpacking, alto saxophone, creative nonfiction, and cooking (especially Malaysian, Thai, and Chinese food, as she is half Malaysian Chinese and half Thai!)
Shervin:
Today, we are joined by a new guest in our series on Misogyny. So why don't we start off with an introduction? Who are you?
Nora Tan:
Hey, everyone, and Shervin. My name is Nora, I am originally from the greater Seattle area. I just graduated from Stanford last June of 2019 and in college, I studied my own major in engineering, which was a mixture of Product Design, Computer Science and Management Science and since then, I've moved back home to the Seattle area and I currently work as a product manager at a tech company called Axon. Love being back home in Seattle. I have a lot of family and friends here and I have really appreciated being employed during this uncertain time in our world.
A little bit more about my personal history, I am half-Malaysian, Chinese and half-Thai. I just turned 24, a couple of months ago and I do have an older sister and an older brother and both of my parents living in the West Coast, so that has been nice to be near them throughout my lifetime. And apart from that, I love playing tennis. I love immersing myself in music and art. I love reading and listening to music. I really enjoy the outdoors, hiking, and camping, and backpacking and generally enjoy being spontaneous and adventurous with my family and friends and balancing that with a lot of hobbies where I can have solitude and reflection. And so, I'm excited to be here and to talk to you, Shervin.
Shervin:
Yeah, thank you and seeing as how you and I met through telepath and one of the questions that you posted caused us to engage a little bit on was around, I believe it was time for your annual review and/or a promotion of sorts and there was an interesting conversation that came out of it. And one of the things I want to explore with you, Nora, is what is the experience like for a woman professionally having to navigate those waters and without leading the witness, my read of your question caused me to think, "Wow, women feel differently or deal with different conditions, I believe, than men do." And I'd like you to either validate or invalidate that or just sort of share from your own personal experience. What's it like as a woman working in a professional setting? And what sort of obstacles do you have to deal with?
Nora Tan:
Yeah, that's a great question and thanks for bringing it up, I think I actually feel that I have had a pretty supportive professional experience, largely because of the managers that I've had at different companies and kind of the support that I've gotten outside of work as well. And so, I think it's been interesting for me to observe the ways in which women have to work harder and stand up for themselves and advocate for themselves, whether it was watching my friends go through it or to read about these stories on LinkedIn, or reading even Harvard Business Review articles. And I think there's been a lot of research done to demonstrate that women are facing these unique challenges in the workplace.
I can remember I was taking a business school class at Stanford and the class was all about focusing on equity in the workplace, and how can we get to a more equitable workplace and each class would have different speakers come in to speak about Diversity and Equity and Inclusion and some of the most incredible people in the industry doing fantastic things, whether they were the heads of their Diversity and Equity Inclusion divisions at a company, or if they were simply just advocates for better equity in the workplace. And I think with women in particular, there has been research to kind of show the different ways in which women interact with others as opposed to men or how women conduct themselves in meetings, or even what women might value in terms of a career or workplace.
And I think and hopefully, I'm not incorrectly quoting these, but from what I can remember, I think, it's generally shown to be that, women place a lot more value on emotional and personal relationships with their co-workers, that women sometimes may not tend to advocate for themselves as much as men, because they don't want to be viewed as bossy or aggressive, that they might not realize that they can ask for things and receive those things, whether it is a promotion or a raise, or even more support in the workplace. And so, I think I've always been conscious of these things and especially at a place like Stanford, where there is such an emphasis on innovation and a collaborative spirit and nature.
I feel like I was lucky to be in an environment for a lot of my formative years of college to see what it could be like to dream big and do big, whether it was hearing from female entrepreneurs being parts of organizations that uplifted women in a professional capacity, just hearing about stories from, the incredible things that classmates were doing. But I think for me, personally, my experience, again, has been one of support with managers who believed in me and who really gave me a chance to shine and would often advocate for me, and help me advocate for myself as well. And I think the reason why I was successful in those ways was because of the amount of work I did beforehand to ensure that my manager would be that person for me, regardless if they were a man or woman. And I feel lucky that I was able to find those people, which I know, not everyone gets that experience and sometimes it's not by choice.
So, recently when I was asking about this promotion, I think, definitely there was a lot of thought that was going into my mind around making sure I was getting what I deserved. And I think I generally tried to be a very reflective and introspective person, so I wanted to make sure that I wasn't really fooling myself into thinking that I deserved something that I didn't, but I think a lot of the evidence from working at my company so far kind of pointed me towards that direction that I was up for this promotion that I did deserve an X percent raise and I feel grateful that I did have this community of people to validate some of my assumptions and my thoughts and my beliefs.
And ultimately, at the end of the day, I, again, has just happened to have a manager who is female, and she really believes in me and advocates for me, and she kind of did all of the heavy lifting of justifying my promotion and justifying the raise I would receive. And I was ready and teed up to have those conversations and being ready to go back and forth, but it turns out that a lot of the heavy lifting was done for me. And so, when it came time to finalize what this promotion would look like, there really wasn't that much more for me to do, other than just tying up loose ends and asking questions and making sure that I understood what was going to come with that promotion.
And so, it is interesting, right? I said at the beginning, my answer were like I personally feel like I've actually had a very supportive experience so far, but I know that hasn't always been the case. And I think I've just read and listened to so much evidence that women often have to take extra steps and do extra things and think about things differently in order to get some of the same things as men in the workplace.
Shervin:
So, we can come back to this. I've got a follow-up question, but before I go there, maybe let's ask something more fundamental. What are your earliest memories of sexism?
Nora Tan:
Yeah, yeah, that's an interesting question as well. So, I grew up in a family that really prized academic excellence and working hard, and I think sometimes in Asian American families, traditionally, there has been a little bit more of an emphasis on the boys in the family as opposed to the girls. And definitely in recent years that has changed, especially as things have become more modern and I think I had parents that were a lot more progressive in that way and that the boys and the girls would be treated equally. We would each be given the same opportunities and the same support and I feel really grateful for that. So, I feel like from a young age, you're just, I personally within my family, I didn't feel any sense of limitation of things that I could or couldn't do, just on the basis of my gender.
And in my environment, particularly, I grew up in a more upper middle class suburb of Seattle and there was a lot of support for children and teenagers to pursue things that they wanted to pursue, whether it was sports or academics or music or theater that, and basically, the sky was the limit and I think the school system was a really good school system as well and there was a lot of support overall. And so, when I tried to try to place like what might some of my earliest memories of sexism be, it's actually hard for me to do that because I think I had a very supportive environment. I had a really good set of friends growing up and maybe it did happen more often than I can remember.
But I think I always had a pretty set mindset on the things that I was interested in doing and why I was doing those things and maybe where I could see some memories of sexism coming up, we're in tennis, actually, because there were a lot of practices or groups where we're practicing all together, all the boys and girls together. And of course, there's all these statements about how boys are stronger than women or men are stronger than women, and how they are more athletic or maybe more, naturally talented, but I think I view any of those signs of sexism more as an opportunity to improve myself and really compete against these boys because, "Hey, if I could beat the boys, then I could beat the girls," and then I would win.
And that's kind of the goal of sports is to, well, I would say legal, but one of the goals is to win. And so, I think, maybe there would have been some subtle statements or subtle actions in tennis, maybe boys not wanting to play with the girls, maybe thinking that we have to group all the girls together, and train them separately to the boys. And I do remember that occurring sometimes whether it was like grouping girls together in a fitness or if grouping the girls together to practice with each other on the court. And in one way, maybe it makes sense, because when you're playing competitions, you're usually playing people of your own gender apart from mixed doubles, but in another way, if you were really want to help level the playing field and give everyone the same chance, then you would mix them all together.
And so I think that's where most of my early memories would come from, but apart from that, I think, another memory that comes to mind, which isn't quite what your question was, but more recently, as a younger teenager, it was actually my first year after college and we were on a family vacation in Australia, and I was wearing a Stanford long-sleeve shirt and I was 17 at that time. And so, still a younger adult, still a teenager, and I remember, we were just sitting on this boat going out to go and snorkel and there was an older man on the boat sitting somewhat near us, and he looked at my shirt, and, looked away and then kind of looked back and asked me, "Do you actually go to Stanford or are you just wearing that shirt for fun?" And I remember being very confused by that question because my first thought was like, "Why does it matter if I'm wearing it for fun? Anyone should be able to wear a Stanford shirt if they want to. "Who cares the reason I'm wearing this Stanford shirt?"
And then I think when I realized that maybe it was a little bit more sexist was when my sister started getting really upset and she asked me, "What did this man say?" She didn't quite hear what he had said at first and she was like, "This is not okay." I can't believe he asked you that. You realize he's asking you that because he can't believe that you could go to a place like Stanford. And I remember at that time, it was just like, I was just a teenager, so I responded to him pretty nicely. It's like, "Oh, actually go to Stanford. I just finished my first year there." And his response back to that was, "Oh, good for you."
And I think sometimes when people find out that women are doing really cool and amazing things, the first response can be, "Oh, I don't believe that that's possible and then once they realize, "Oh, it actually is possible and I do believe that, then it's kind of like really questioning how did they get there and how did they achieve those things when I think sometimes that doesn't always happen with men. It's like I had kind of just assumed, "Oh, of course, you're competent. Of course, you did the thing that you said that you did." And so, that was something that happened about eight years ago at this point, seven or eight years ago at this point, but was definitely something that I've thought about from time to time.
Shervin:
It's a powerful story. And in some ways, it touches on a couple of themes. The first is how men seem to allow themselves to ask these questions of other people, right? And just sort of insert themselves into places in a way that can be quite violent and quite unwelcomed, right? But this does go back to I think, something that you were mentioning about how research had shown that women somehow have to prove their worth more at work or sort of the body of work that they've done and why they are deserving of a promotion or a raise or something to that effect.
So, how do we break that cycle and I'm asking sort of an unfair question here, but like as a man, what do I need to know? What can I do to not have to impose this additional tax, if you will, on the women around me? Because it feels like a tax, right? You're carrying this extra burden, this extra load with you. What ideas do you have for how we change that?
Nora Tan:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think so much of it really comes from the things that you learn as you grow up. And, we can't really always control the environments that people grew up in and the values and beliefs that they're taught in their classrooms and their families, but hopefully, along the way, they are exposed to understanding how the world is different for different people. And I think one part of it kind of starts with just the things that we teach people in the classroom, whether it's increasing the amount of readings assigned to better help anyone understand the female experience. I feel like the high school curriculum for English classes has not changed in 50 years and it's the same reading list with the same white male authors and the same kind of goals and you could honestly take one reading list from one school and pick another random school in America, and there's a huge chance that they overlap greatly.
And so it kind of begins with updating some of the things that we believe are important for teaching in our classrooms. Like even recently, I was actually speaking with a student who is from my high school and who applied to Stanford as well and she started the Gender Equality Club at our high school and even actions like that that are taken by students to help promote learning about these different issues outside of the classroom are so important. I think there has been such a rise in education and activism over the last decade, and I see how different things are now that even when I was in high school and a lot of these students take it upon themselves to really be the change that they want to see.
And so, I think it starts with changing curriculum, it starts with addressing the things that we teach in these school systems, and enabling students to fill in the gaps with their actions and their words, however they see fit. And I think, transitioning that into kind of the relationships is that I think there's a lot of value in being friends with people of an opposite gender and being supportive and listening to their experience. And I think sometimes people just don't know until they've heard a story and part of this process of helping men understand the world that women live in is creating a space in which women can share their stories and share their experiences and sometimes that starts with being a really good friend and asking questions that help someone, anyone feels safe and that they can open up to you, and that they don't feel like they're on the stand.
And I think, this kind of flips a little bit in which like I feel like there's been some stereotypes for men growing up in which they can't always feel comfortable showing their emotions or to kind of phrase it like, real men don't cry and things like that and I think as part of helping foster better emotional connection between men and women, it is a two-way street in terms of being there for each other, and helping break down the stereotypes that are placed on both sides. And I think the last part of it in the professional setting, I think this is where the previous X number of years of childhood and adulthood really becomes cemented in the workplace and if there is not an active effort to recognize and mitigate some of these stereotypes, then things just become worse.
And I think some things that come to mind for me are and a lot of this I kind of observed in some of these classes at Stanford as well when we talked about these issues, but some things that come to mind include men really advocating for women. For example, if a male, who is a manager has a female employee and is kind of aware of these maybe tendencies that women might not advocate for themselves as much or ask for things as much, at least being able to create a space in which women can be honest in one-to-ones and ask them questions or help them feel that they are valued and trusted. And such, then you can really help understand the person that is your direct report.
And with that understanding, it's really up to you to be the advocate for your employee. And so I think if men can just recognize that women might not always be asking for the things that they want or deserve, and actually go and do the work for them and just help them get what they deserve, that just helps to reduce the amount of burden that women tend to carry. And I think, there's also been kind of like interesting studies as well, in terms of how in that very exact same meeting, for example, like in using even maybe the exact same words or the same method of communicating, just like differences in body language and behavior from men, between men and women can influence how other people view that person in a meeting.
And so I think it's kind of noticing these biases as well that we have and maybe a part of it is, which I've seen some companies do is having these different trainings, but it's nice to have trainings and once you have trainings, then you actually have to put into practice and you have to talk about these things and have discussions and open reflections because everyone starts somewhere and it doesn't work if you shame someone for not knowing something or not doing something. It only works if you help them get to where they need to go. And so, I think helping promote this environment of learning as well where in which men can learn about these issues that uniquely affect women.
And so, the advocacy aspect and I think the learning aspect are big in the workplace. And then the last thing that comes to mind for me right now is that just treating other people with respect, I think, it is especially in the tech industry, there is still such a disparity between the number of men and women in the workplace and I think just because you are a woman in tech doesn't mean that you should be respected any less. And I think, if men can just keep that in mind that they should be respecting everyone the same and such then hopefully they can help reduce any biases that come to mind.
And I think so much of this really is actually interesting, because it kind of depends on the location as well. Like I feel like in Seattle, I don't personally see or hear about these issues as much, but maybe in a different city, it might be more prominent overall, but I think we have made a lot of progress recently and I think it's just a process that you have to keep continuing and have to be active in partaking in.
Shervin:
You described your family and your ethnicity as Malaysian, Chinese, and Thai. Is there some... I don't want to get into sort of intersectionality because I don't know enough and I don't want to speak about something that I'm unfamiliar with, but how does growing up with like an immigrant culture, how does that influence your thinking about sexism and misogyny or were there... speaking as an Iranian American, one of the things I've been exploring and learning about is how sexism is different in different countries, right? There are even cultural elements to it. Are there experiences that you could think of or care to share, either in terms of the negative aspect of it actually seeing sexism and misogyny or something in your culture that guards against it?
Nora Tan:
Yeah, absolutely. I think, especially for Chinese people, historically, there had been a lot of emphasis in the sons of the family and even when there was the one-child policy, you hear stories of young babies who are girls being sent away because the family, if they can only have one child, they want to have a son to not only continue the family name, but because sons are more valued and more prized and I think that was a long standing part of Chinese culture. And definitely recently that thinking has changed, I think it is being more and more eroded and less common, but I think, in terms of, older generations, there could still be elements of those.
Like even for my family, my grandmother, who is Chinese on my dad's side is historically, she has definitely... I didn't feel any true difference in treatment between myself and my brother, but it would show in terms of her old ways of thinking still persisting when it came time to receive angpaos, which are often gifts of money exchanged during the holidays and she would usually give more money to my brother than to my sister and I, or even when she passed recently, four years ago, in her will, she gave double the amount of money to my brother as opposed to my sister and I. And for me, I'm not a very jealous person, I'm not a very spiteful person, but it was interesting to see how that old way of thinking persisted.
But on the other hand, my dad, who is the only son for my grandmother, and he has four sisters, really hates this way of thinking and he would always tell us growing up, he doesn't believe in this, he doesn't believe that boys are any better than girls. There's no reason to think that way, and that he doesn't agree with my grandma. And so, he has always tried to balance out any of those differences. Like for example, in those events when we did receive money, he would take his portion of money received and equally split it amongst my sister and I, so that we would all have the same amount of money amongst the three siblings or even most recently with my grandma's will, he is planning to take his portion of the inheritance and to split it amongst my sister and I, so that we can all have the same amount, again, between us siblings, and I really appreciate that.
My dad, even though he grew up with parents who were a little bit more traditional, I think he is a very independent person and thinks deeply about a lot of things and formed his own views of the world and how people should be treated within that world. And I really appreciate that because I think I was able to see kind of the more traditional parts of my culture, and then also see what it looks like to take those parts and to say, "No, I don't believe in this, and I'm going to do things differently because I believe it's the right thing to do." So, I think that's kind of the Malaysian-Chinese part of myself.
With the Thai part of myself actually didn't feel as much or observed as much difference in treatment between men and women and this is just for me personally, I mean, I think, there seemed to be a little bit more equality overall and maybe part of it is the emphasis on Buddhism and kind of following some of those practices. But on that side of myself, there wasn't as prominent of memories or actions that really stuck with me.
Shervin:
What do you think influenced your father to break that mold?
Nora Tan:
I think growing up with four sisters and also his dad, passing away when he was in his early 20s really impacted him because just when you're around women that much, I think, you're bound to change some views or some understanding of the world. I think also part of it was that he kind of took his own path and instead of following his mom's wishes for him to become a doctor and to go to medical school in the Philippines, he actually went to college and studied business at the University of Wisconsin, and then later pursued an MBA at MIT.
And so, he spent a lot of time in his young adult years in a Western society in America and I think that really probably influenced, just some of the different types of thinking and doing, and especially for someone who had grown up in Malaysia, for all of his life before that. And I think apart from that, my dad really is someone that tries to gather as much information as possible and think about things and see things from different points of view and he tends to be a strong and opinionated person, but he is always very informed. And so, I think part of it is just the way that he operates as a person and has developed his thinking style.
Shervin:
He sounds like a big influence in your life, too.
Nora Tan:
Definitely, yeah, and I think there's a lot of, as with any parent, there's going to be really fantastic parts of them that you want to emulate and others that maybe you want to develop your own personality for, excuse me, and I think with my dad, seeing how he can take situations in which he has little or no information and then find that information and form his own opinions from thinking about them is something that hopefully, we can all do in our lives and throughout our lifetime and I think he has really helped us learn that and also shown us the importance of thinking for ourselves and not letting a certain way of thinking or doing stop us from trying to be our own person.
Shervin:
I know that you weren't just a tennis player, but you were a very, very good tennis player. You played collegiately, is that correct?
Nora Tan:
Yeah, for one year in college, I did play on the varsity tennis team.
Shervin:
Okay. So, that's at an extremely high level. You've been in very competitive fields you're at, you have a significant role at a significant tech company, you've gone to a very, very elite school, very difficult standards to get in and to stand and you've competed in sports at a high level. Where does that drive come from? And did you feel a need to sort of do this to fight a bigger system, was to say it was this driven based on sort of something intrinsic or were there elements of it based on like I think earlier touching on, beating the boys was a way to guarantee that you could also beat the girls, too. If you could just elaborate on that a little bit.
Nora Tan:
Yeah, I think for anyone, there's always going to be a combination of the intrinsic and extrinsic and hopefully, the majority of the motivation is intrinsic, but I think across these different pursuits, I feel grateful because I feel like I learned to believe in myself from a young age and to work hard to bring that belief to whatever I was doing and I think a part of it also was just the amount of support I received in doing those pursuits. My parents really sacrificed a lot of time and care and money to be able to help support my tennis and to be able to help support my education.
And I think for me, it was always in the back of my mind that they were really sacrificing a lot of things for me and the least that I could do to repay them was to try to push myself to be the best version of what I could be and I think as I'm a little older now kind of transitioning it to the workplace, I definitely have less of a sense of competition within myself to prove myself or to achieve a certain thing by a certain time, for example. And I think part of it is just recognizing that there are going to be many arcs in life, and you can't always be the best at everything that you do and that's okay.
And in fact, maybe you shouldn't be the best at everything that you do, but it's really more about ensuring that you're finding satisfaction and learning and growth from the things that you are doing. And so, I think my view on that has transitioned because of course, when you're growing up, there is a little bit more set of a path for most people in terms of going to school and maybe doing some activities outside of school. There comes a time where you think about applying to college, and then you get accepted to college, and then you go to college, and then you do more school, and for a lot of people that the first time that they're really thinking about their long-term vision for themselves might be in college. Some people do understand that when they're in high school.
But I think this combination of just the support I received plus the sacrifices my parents made and really having this belief in myself helped enable me to set a goal and to work towards achieving that. And I think, I don't know, necessarily that I had this desire to like smash any notions in a system around me, necessarily, but I think part of it was definitely growing up in the age when social media was really taking off. Facebook and Twitter and Instagram really becoming popular in 2009 to 2013. Of course, there was a little bit of an extrinsic part to it as well. It's like you want to look good in your life and you want to show other people that you are doing well.
And so, I hate saying it, but there was a little bit of element of that in high school as well and I think once I got to college, I was able to kind of shut that down and really use social media in a more productive way and not as much of an extrinsic fulfillment, but it did. It was a factor in high school and so, I kind of see these elements of both sides being a motivation for me throughout the years across all of those areas that you mentioned.
Shervin:
Thank you for that. I got one sort of final question. You're the youngest woman that I've spoken to in this series, and I would like to know what it's like to experience life as a woman in your age group. I think you indicated that there's a sense of optimism that things were getting better, and that you're talking about someone from your high school and what they were going through and how they were experiencing things even indicating that maybe the next generation would have it even a little bit easier than maybe even your generation. But without going too far off just, what don't men know about experiencing life as a woman in their mid-20s and everyday experiences of either sexism or misogyny?
Nora Tan:
Yeah, I think there's a lot of sexism and misogyny that can be very subtle. And it's interesting, because I think there's kind of two parts for that. I see parts of my age group leading a more public life in terms of, again, with the rise of social media, there are those who choose to become influencers or are able to use social media to become popular musicians or artists or actors and actresses, so on and so forth. And I think the type of sexism and misogyny that those women experience is just at a different scale than women like myself who may be taking a more traditional route or just in a less social media spotlight role. And it's so easy to comment on someone's post or to interact with someone's social media, and express your thoughts and your opinions with very little repercussion, especially if you aren't that famous yourself.
And as we've seen, there have been attempts by these different companies to help people flag bad things, for lack of better words and it's not always successful, because the amount of content that we see is at a huge scale these days, and it's hard to keep up with everything that's happening and so I think I see that happening still and I think that's a part for me that is a little bit concerning and probably one of the reasons that I did decide to partake in telepath and with that hope that we could continue building a world in which social media could actually foster productive and healthy interactions as opposed to managing bad comments and bad actors that come through.
And so, I think we have a long way to go in terms of helping prevent sexism and misogyny on some of these large social media platforms and I really, truly feel for those in my age group who have a much more public life, because I think it's a lot to deal with and it's a lot to keep up with. And I think the other side of that coin are the ones that, as I mentioned, are maybe not really famous and we're kind of a part of society and people like myself working in tech or just people working in different industries and healthcare, and government, so on and so forth. And I think there, it's where you see it being a lot more subtle.
And I think I would just say that for men, if you're able to recognize that you might have these biases and these stereotypes that cause you to say things and do things that maybe you don't even really mean, but are just things that you've learned or observed or picked up, just recognizing that and trying to be aware of the ways in which women are being affected by that or are interacting with that in their lives is a huge step in helping kind of take down the subtle ways that it persists. And so, I think that's what I would say is interesting to think about from that side of my age group.
And I think, yeah, I do have a lot of optimism where I do feel that things are going to continue getting better and fortunately, we did just have an election in which 50% of the population did vote for someone who I think is the definition of representing sexism and misogyny. So, we obviously still have a very, very long way to go, but I am very optimistic this last decade has been a wake-up call for so many of us and a very formative time. And I think we will be able to continue making those changes and helping get to a better world for everyone.
Shervin:
Nora, with that, I want to thank you for your time and the honesty and your wisdom and just, you've been generous and I'm very grateful. Thank you so much.
Nora Tan:
Thank you for talking with me, Shervin. I really appreciate it.