Do you know that the colour orange is named after the fruit, not the other way round? That’s why redheads (that colour is not red and nor is the breast of a robin) aren’t called orange heads. Apart from the ancient Egyptians, there isn’t much evidence that the ancient world could distinguish the colour blue.
This video shows that cultures that don’t have a word for something find it harder to see it. Himba Colour Experiment
Why is this relevant to being a woman sound engineer?
When I was younger and was asked what I did I often use to say, “I work in theatre.” Not “I’m a sound engineer” or sound technician. I have been working in theater for a long time, and I have bought a flat solely with the money I earned being a sound engineer. But it took a long time for me to say that’s what I was. If I wasn’t secure enough to say I was a sound engineer why would anyone feel secure enough to give me a job as one?
Working in theater is very much like being a member of a club. Once initiated you know all the code words, the unwritten rules. You can walk into any town in the UK and look for the building with the weird rectangular block on top (that’s the fly tower). Smartphones have put a stop to this part of the ritual. Find the stage door, (I’ve spent hours wandering around outside theatres looking for the stage door.)
Once inside, there are theater job titles like Charge Hand, Chippy, Lampy. Stage Management. If you’re part of the club, you know what these people do. People are often referred to by their jobs’ you know “Danny Wigs, Sarah LX” (electrics). It’s like some medieval fiefdom, and it’s easy to see how the surnames of Clark, Smith, and Baxter came into being. (Baxter, Anglo-Saxon for a woman baker, Brewster was a woman brewer, who knew?)
You relate to people by their job title. Electrics will show you where the 63 amp outlet is, stage will help find the anti-rake for the FOH position. The stage door will tell you where the nearest cash machine/ toilet is.
Flying something in is making it come down, taking something out is making it go up. Not to be confused with the show or lights going up. Preceded by the half-hour call, the quarter, the five and beginners, or big knickers or big dinners. All of which are, in the UK, five minutes earlier than you would expect them to be. But you know that because you’re in the club.
Upstage is at the back of the stage – downstage at the front. Prompt corner is also stage left except when it’s a bastard prompt, which is stage right or OP (opposite prompt). Wardrobe has the means to get your clothes clean and an iron, useful while on tour, always be nice to them, and stage management has the biscuits.
So what do you call yourself? Not what other people call you or what you tell other people to call you. What do you refer to yourself in your head? Are you a sound technician, a sound engineer, a mixer, a sound op, a radio runner, an RF Technician?
When do you become a Sound Engineer? When you start studying? When you graduate, on your first paid gig? After a year or ten? If you won’t let yourself into the club first. If you can’t see yourself as a sound engineer, then it doesn’t matter if other people are willing to let you into the club or not.