Throughout our lives we all experience moments of proving ourselves for various reasons. To get the job, to land the date, to pass the parent-introduction test, to earn the promotion, to obtain the loan, to make the team.

And it makes sense. We can’t just hand out high-paying jobs, awards, or bags of money to anyone who asks for them or “thinks” they can do something. Yikes. What would that look like?!

But as a woman, as a woman who spent her first 30 years at 100 pounds or less, and as a woman growing up in the traditionally male-dominated agriculture industry, I’ve had to “prove” myself more than is typically necessary.

Apart from my family and a few people who know me well, it’s often been automatically assumed that due to my gender and size I can’t do the work or work as many physical hours as a man, throw those bales, help birth that calf, or drive that [insert preferred machinery].

I’ve had to tuck in, knuckle down and show – prove – that of course I can. (I cannot, however, for the life of me properly back up a wagon or implement if it’s not solidly attached 😂)

So, not only have I had to prove myself in some of life’s quintessential experiences and rites of passage, I’ve contented with an added dimension, sometimes unknowingly.  

As most women will attest, there’s often an extra layer added to the proof process, a secret bonus round we must pass before meriting a thumbs-up signalling that our experience, knowledge and skills are validated and potentially valued.

Women are held back from opportunities due to a lack of career development opportunities. Why? Caroline Fairchild, editor-in-chief and VP of Education at Lean In,  says in this article that it’s because, “Where men are promoted based on potential, women tend to be promoted based on previous accomplishments.” (Italics are mine.)

People only see gender first, not skill, ability, determination, knowledge, or potential – and that gender establishes at what level you have to prove yourself.

I’ve dubbed this devaluation and invalidation of a girl’s/woman’s role “proof of purchase” because there’s this idea that girls and women must somehow prove that they’ve “bought it”, meaning that they possess the knowledge about and/or skills for completing a specific task – and can, in fact, excel at this traditional, typically-associated-with-men task.

In agriculture they must somehow provide proof that they have the physical strength, mechanic ability, or business acumen and that they are an asset to an industry that is still perceived as traditionally masculine. They are judged on past accomplishments rather than future potential. (Or, at a minimum, a combination of both.)

Receiving opportunities is often contingent upon whether they can provide proof that they’ve done it, that they have the stamina to do it. But the whole idea of proving one’s ability for a job based on, as Justice Ginsberg said, “immutable characteristics that bear no relationship to ability”, is farcical.

After all, there are small statured male farmers who are exceedingly capable and do all the daily physical work required. There are farm men who are too overweight to do some of the physical tasks required. There are farm men who know nothing about mechanics and outsource everything – a skill that tends to fall into the genderized skills bucket as male even though it’s not inherently a male-specific skill. And there are farm men who grew up around cows but are terrified of them (even though men have been traditionally socialized to be fearless and brave).

Being devalued and invalidated based on gender tells us that there are still many systemic barriers that need be addressed if eager, capable, experienced members of an industry need to constantly “prove” that they have a legitimate right to be there in order to be offered equal and valuable opportunities, to be seen and heard, and to have their contributions recognized.

This proof of purchase phenomenon affects more than whether a woman applies for a leadership role, or even on a more basic level, aspires to do something about which they have great passion. Julia Boorstin noted in her book When Women Lead that “young women’s more fixed mindset was attributed to the fact that their competence is ‘constantly and unfairly questioned’ and they’re forced to prove themselves.” Researcher Carol Dweck introduced the masses to fixed and growth mindsets in 2006 (you can read more about it here), but essentially a fixed mindset is when someone thinks they were born with a specific amount of intelligence and skill. By contrast, someone with a growth mindset believes that their talents can be developed through hard work, good strategies, and constructive feedback from those around them.

And having to prove one’s competence over and over and over ad nauseum is not only exhausting, it can also be mentally debilitating and possibly exacerbates the Dream Gap.  

It can also knock the stuffing right out you even when your confidence level on most days is a nine out ten.

Case in point: a few months ago, I was caught off guard by a family friend. He always asks a lot of questions (out of genuine curiosity or plain old nosiness I can never tell) and so it wasn’t abnormal that he was asking tons of questions about the current state of agriculture. I’m ever eager to share industry insights with non-farmers to help them understand the struggles but also to catch a glimpse of how rewarding working in agriculture can be, so I leaned into his barrage of questions.

But then the conversation took a turn after I spoke about my love for agriculture and all it entails – including the hard work that, ironically enough, allows me to prove myself to myself. (I wholeheartedly believe in a growth mindset).

He said, “Listen, it’s very physical…” and went on to tell me that he didn’t see that it was a job possible for me. How could I do it? Because, you know, I’m a woman. And a tiny one at that.

The thing is, I HAVE been doing it my whole damn life.

So, I exhaled deeply, counted to 10 and took a few minutes to explain to him that I DO do it, that I have always done it. That I have always worked alongside my dad and brother in the same capacity. That I have outworked men many times (not just on the farm) – a point that I am inordinately proud of, probably because I know that I am often being secretly judged as I blindly navigate my way through the proof maze without a map.

The conversation ended soon after. What else can you say to someone who simply doesn’t believe a thing to be true? I now know what’s it like to try and reason with a conspiracy theorist!

But for the rest of the day I was agitated, frustrated, sad and felt utterly incapable.

I went for a walk not only to blow off steam, but to work through the conversation in my head.

I asked myself: Could I have approached the conversation better? Could I have changed his mind? Or does the fact that he’s never seen me do it definitely proof that I can’t? Because it’s still a male-dominated sector, it’s also quite unlikely that he’s never met a woman farmer since he’s not involved in the industry. Would his opinion change if it was more commonplace, like women doctors? What if I judged his ability on the fact that he has brown hair, or because he’s right-handed? What if we told our children they could never do anything because they are children? That a baby could never walk because it’s a baby?

I’m not sure I found the answers.

I do know, however, that I’ve had to prove myself since I was very young and “scrawny”, especially in such a physically demanding environment like farming. It’s exhausting. (The proving, not the work.) But I keep doing it so that someday – I hope – my daughter won’t have to.

Here are some things we can do to alleviate the proof of purchase phenomenon:  

• Create spaces for voice and visibility:
  Rather than surreptitiously look for “proof of purchase” why not just put it all on the table? The boss or manager can be explicit about what skills they are looking for, no matter what corner they come from (like blind auditions). A contender for a leadership position or new job could be equally explicit about their potential, what they can do, what they would like to learn to do and what skills they would like to acquire so they can better – and equally – contribute to the business’s success.

• Be acutely aware of bias:
  I challenge you to find one human on this planet that is not biased in some way about something. Mission impossible. It’s the evolutionary nature of the beast, but because we also have the power to be aware of our thoughts and actions, the ability to learn, and the capacity to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes (a.k.a. perspective taking), we can learn to spot and eliminate our biases. Biases can often be unconscious so we might need to periodically remind ourselves and others about the types of bias and insidious ways they affect people.

• Challenge the culture in male-dominated fields to help set women up for success:
  As many studies have highlighted, microaggressions (which are often related to implicit or explicit biases) are sadly commonplace in many workplaces. For example, it is not uncommon for women to be routinely spoken over, for fellow employees or clients to assume that the woman is in a more junior position to the man, or for women to report that they’re anxious about bringing up their ideas to the boss or speaking up in meetings. This is where men can become allies: by stepping up to champion women in male-dominated industries.
  
  
• Encourage and seek out diversity:
  Time and again, anecdotal and statistical evidence has shown that an important part of any successful business is diversity. All genders bring a variety of skills and perspectives to the table. As Fairchild pointed out in the same article mentioned above, “Women can be especially valuable in a male-dominated industry like manufacturing [or agriculture in our case]. Due to the way people are socialized based on gender, their communication styles may end up being different. I do think that there is an advantage, sometimes, to have women have these relationships [because] different people bring different things to the table.”
  
   
• Claim your space so that you can be a “seeing is believing” role model:
  If you don’t see people who look like you in important or influential roles, you assume that those types of people cannot be in those roles. What you see becomes the norm; what becomes the norm is what you see. Seeing is believing. And believing is becoming. Step serenely and confidently into your ag role and toss that proof of purchase receipt in the trash.