Topics: Women, Single Mom, Aerospace, Management, Raising Kids, Work life balance, Rights

Interview with Stephanie Stevens, History 150 Spring 2023, Conducted by Ryan Stevens, March 24, 2023.

Overview to Social Change Interview:

Around the 1970s and 80s, women were not as involved in the workplace as they are now and were stereotyped as being secretaries and put into limited boxes as to what their career choices were. They were also not seen as management worthy and would be denied positions of power due to the time in which this occurred only a couple of years after the Women’s rights movement started. With this push, there was a significant new push for women to go into male-dominated spheres to prove themselves. In the years following in the 70s and 80s, there was a 30% increase in women working in male-dominated spaces showing improvement in this aspect. There has also been an increase of 4.5 million jobs for women in management roles created since the 80s, these changes were brought upon by women who fought for these opportunities.

There has been major strides in women’s rights in the workforce since the Women’s rights movement began and today the internal determination is still there for women to prove themselves. Stephanie Stevens is one of those women. Stephanie was a Virginia raised single child, who was interviewed on her experiences as a single mother and women in the workplace. Throughout the interview Stephanie speaks on the changes she specifically has seen as women in the workplace especially a male-dominated industry like aerospace and how perceptions as well as opportunities for women have changed since she began working back as a teenager, she also speaks on the very unique perspective of how these changes affected her as a mother who not only had to shoulder the financial burden of her family but also the familial aspect and her experiences juggling the two sides of her life and what she has learned from it all in the early 2000s.

Biography: This interview will be on Stephanie Stevens (my mother) and her experiences as a woman and single mother in the workplace and how it has changed in the almost 20 years, she’s worked. My mother is 50 years old and works at Aurora Flight and Sciences. She is an only child who was married to my dad, got a divorce, and then remarried. She was born and raised in Northern Virginia [Nova]. She graduated from George Mason University. My goal with this interview is to study my mom’s specific experience and how she was able to thrive as a woman in the workplace while raising two kids while going through a divorce.

 

Ryan Stevens 00:02
We are live. How are you doing today? Mom?

Stephanie Stevens 00:05
I’m good. How are you?

Ryan Stevens 00:07
I’m doing great. So today, I’m just going to be interviewing you based on the question I asked you earlier about how it was to be a woman in the workplace from back then, around the 1970-80 and 90s era to now. Is that alright with you?

Stephanie Stevens 00:21
Yeah, that sounds good.

Ryan Stevens 00:23
Awesome, sweet. So if you could just give us some quick background information, what you do, where you work, kind of early life, stuff like that, so that people can get to know you better.

Stephanie Stevens 00:35
Yeah, so my name is Stephanie Stevens, I have worked at Aurora Flight Sciences for 16 years. So my whole career we have been in the defense industry. Aurora is a defense contractor, we build drones for the military. So I’ve been in this industry for quite sometime before this, I worked at Khaki and so what I’ve noticed over time, is that the aerospace industry is a very male-dominated society. So historically, you don’t see a lot of women in this field. But over the last, I would say decade, you do start to see more women in aerospace, more women in engineering, more women sitting at the table. So that’s kind of my experience.

Ryan Stevens 01:17
Awesome. So what was your work? Like, towards the beginning of the career? Like, what did you notice? Specifically? Obviously, you just said that it was male-dominated, and you can see more women coming into the workplace now. But, what were some of the work that you’ve seen over the past couple of years that has kind of like affected that?

Stephanie Stevens 01:48
I think it was really engineering, right? So in aerospace engineering, it’s historically been male-dominated and so we’ve seen a lot more women, we’ve started a lot more programs where there are women down to the grade level, even in middle school, where they’re encouraging young girls to be engineers, and getting them engaged at an earlier age. So that has really transpired, the future generation of women leaders and women engineers into aerospace and just engineering as a whole.

Ryan Stevens 02:27
That’s awesome. Sweet, it’s actually really interesting that you say that, because I was doing some research actually, for this and I found out that in today’s day and age, compared to back in the 1970s, and 80s, which is when I remember you were originally conceived, there were actually four out of 10 women in male-dominated spaces in the 70s and 80s. Compared to now there are seven out of 10, which is just crazy because it’s like a 30% increase and you can just tell a lot more, because I know, when you were coming up, I remember when I was little, there wasn’t a lot female friend colleagues, I don’t remember a lot of those. But now it’s kind of funny, because, now you have Lin-Lin and you have Kevin’s mom, and you have all these, people and now even Hallie, who all are like joining the workforce, in this male-dominated workplace and it’s kind of interesting to see, like the new kind of generation of females coming into it.

Stephanie Stevens 03:24
yeah, I can remember going to Industry Days and being the only woman at the table and they would ask me if I was there to deliver food, because they thought I was a secretary. I was like, No, I’m actually here to sit at the table and so we’ve come a long way since then, for sure.

Ryan Stevens 03:45
Did it always give you kind of like the extra drive to like, push yourself that much harder when you got those kinds of questions?

Stephanie Stevens 03:52
Yeah, I mean, I think I’ve always, you know, I’ve always been a pretty strong woman. I feel like it just empowered me to want to lead even harder because of the stereotype that women have historically been given. When you have those situations, you want to be a strong woman leader, because you know, you’re more than just the lady who gets the coffee, right and so, I think those experiences have made me driven and made me want to be who I am today, which is now that I’m the senior leader, and senior manager of this security team here at Aurora, so we do government security and physical security for Boeing. Since we are a subsidiary.

Ryan Stevens 04:49
That’s awesome. So I know that you just said your leadership position, which is actually really interesting because I also again, found some research on job creation for female workers since the 1980s, and since the 1980s, it has been northwards of 4.5 million management female job positions since 1980 have been created, which is an extraordinary number and it’s crazy to think about. I was just wondering, have you, yourself noticed it? Because I noticed that you said you had colleagues. But have you noticed other people in your workforce that have risen up to management positions that may be in the female crowd?

Stephanie Stevens 05:17
Yeah I mean, I think that Aurora has a strong organization, we have an organization called BWIL(Boeing Women in Leadership), which stands for Boeing women in leadership and I think that the corporations have organizations that promote women leaders, I think women leaders are, very organized, I think they we have a strong organization that promotes women leaders. I think that the corporations as a whole have done a great job at promoting women’s leadership over the years and so I’m proud to be part of that. I’m happy to mentor other young leaders, women leaders so that they can be successful in that as well.

Ryan Stevens 06:12
Oh, that’s awesome to hear. So I want to ask you real quick. So how do you think that the education you received in college prepares you adequately for your job in the workforce and where did you work?

Stephanie Stevens 06:24
Sure. So I got a degree from George Mason, in administration of justice and initially, I wanted to be a lawyer. But God had other plans for me, and I got pregnant with your sister and so I wound up getting a job at Khaki Then I ultimately went into the security field, within a defense contractor and so I think what the college experience has taught me is the professionalism that it takes to be in corporate America right there’s a lot of planning and strategic analysis that it takes to work in this environment and I think that college experience prepares you for that.

Ryan Stevens 07:18
Yeah, I definitely can see how hard you’ve worked to get to where you are and it’s crazy how like, even the littlest things like family life can change your whole life drastically. I was wondering, how was it? Because I know that you and Dad are currently in a divorce and I was wondering, before you met Jeremy (Step-Dad), how was it being a single mother raising two kids?

Stephanie Stevens 07:38
Yeah. So when I got divorced from your dad, my next job was going to be in Maryland and I knew that there was no way I could be a single mom, and traveled to Maryland with two small kids. So I was just fortunate enough that Aurora called me for a job interview. I was lucky enough to be able to work five minutes from where I live and it gave me the opportunity to not only learn a new field but to be able to be present, you know, at all your games and all of your activities.

It gave me a really good work-life balance. Because I was so close, I was able to go to have lunch with you guys, and then run back to the office and I think now with what COVID has taught us is that we do have the ability to be a little bit more flexible with the work from home. Although I still come into the office five days a week, I think there is some flexibility with the work schedules and I think that that’s going to overall, produce a better employee base and provide a lot of employees a better work-life balance. That’s good. How important do you think the work-life balance is to you personally? I’ve always been pretty work driven and I’ve always tended to put work first. But family is a strong second, I think that it’s important for everyone to have that balance. As you guys have gotten older, I’ve learned to appreciate the fact that family is the most important and that always should come first. I think I underappreciated you when you were little because you always feel that you had more time with your kids. But as they get older, you realize the time goes by pretty quickly and you don’t have that time and you can’t get that time back. So as you guys have gotten older, I’ve learned that and I tell all my more junior employees to appreciate that time and to take those moments and to be present at those events and those activities because you can’t get those back. So I think those are things that I’ve learned as a parent, and that I try and teach to my more junior staff that the balance is important because at the end of the day, if your family is not happy, you’re not happy, and there is a balance and there’s a way to get anything done. We just work as a team and as long as you’re operating as a unit and to get the mission accomplished, then everything’s successful.

Ryan Stevens 10:09
Yeah, I definitely could feel that I always appreciated how you always were able to show up to everything, because it always made me feel like I always had at least somebody in my corner. It’s interesting that you’re talking about the lone parent, and how important work was to you, and how you’re still trying to balance it. Because there was a bunch of research that was done on like, lone-parent homes and all that and I was always interested in that because obviously, I was a kid of a lone parent for a while. In 2020, they found out that about 49% of lone parents actually lived in poverty. So I was wondering how you were able to, fight that battle and because obviously, we’re pretty well off. I was wondering, what you were able to do and how you’re able to beat the odds and that sense.

Stephanie Stevens 10:49
Sure, yeah. I mean, I honestly think it’s just honestly the college, right? I mean, typically, when you go to college, you make a different level of money than if you don’t, and I’ve always taught you guys the same thing. But I always teach you guys to surround yourself with people that are always doing better than you and I tend to always follow that in philosophy, so I always get jobs with the smartest people, right? That’s why I work in aerospace, they are the smartest, the brightest of the bright, right? So you tend to look at these opportunities and be around the top tier people and those give you more opportunities than you might be if you’re hanging around, say, the lowest of the low, right and Aurora has treated me very well, and given me a lot of advancement opportunities that I wouldn’t have had otherwise. So that’s how I’ve kind of handled it and I’ve just been lucky. I’ve just been in the right places at the right time, I’ve worked really hard, I’ve achieved a lot. I’ve done a lot of great things for the business, and they rewarded me because of that.

Ryan Stevens 11:56
That’s good to hear. So I was wondering, because you’re talking about how much you feel like you’ve been, helped by Aurora and your aspects of your career, I was wondering, what were some personal experiences that you have had that showcase the difference in the workplace back when you first started to now because I know that you said there’s been a ton of changes, and I was hoping you could get more into that.

Stephanie Stevens 12:22
I’m sorry, say that? Could you repeat that one more time?

Ryan Stevens 12:26
Yeah, so what were some, personal experiences that you had that showcase the difference in the workplace now, back from when you first started your career?

Stephanie Stevens 12:36
Yeah, I think there’s just another level, the bar is just a lot higher, the expectations are a lot higher now than they were before. What women are capable of now as opposed to what they were capable of back then. You know, there were women who used to not work [outside of the home], right? They used to stay at home and take care of the family and now they’re leading companies and they’re running corporations and they’re having two jobs and they’re running their own businesses and I think it’s just it’s just the demand of the business and what I love about it is that anyone’s capable of doing anything it doesn’t matter, you’re not discriminated against by anything. Your color, your creed, your sex, or anything, it’s just who can accomplish what and how successful can you be and that’s all based on what you’re able to achieve. That’s what I’ve noticed is the difference.

Ryan Stevens 13:42
I definitely appreciate that sentiment I like how it’s very hard work driven and very work ethic driven and it’s not so much like a call out for help as much as it’s a let’s get it done and let’s do this thing. So I think it’s definitely cool to see how a lot of ideologies changed definitely how back in way earlier times it was seen as women were supposed to be submissive and very homebody were not very out there and go to-getting Now it’s great to see that that has changed. I was wondering because I know you did mention being a lone mother for a while and you were speaking on that earlier. I know you’re saying all the things you learned from it, but what were some difficulties that you did face as a work workplace-related single mother of two?

Stephanie Stevens 14:28
Yeah, I mean, I think you as you know you feel like, you can’t be everything to everyone, right? You want to be the best mom and you want to be the best employee and you worry that you’re not meeting either, right? You feel like you’re letting both parties down and what you just have to realize is that your best has to be your best no matter what it is, you’re giving it your all and sometimes that just has to be enough. Sometimes I felt like I let you and your Sister down because I wanted to do more, I wanted to be the stay stay-at-home But that just was never in the cards for us. So I just knew that I had to do what I had to do to make us successful to keep a roof over our heads and to keep, you know, food on the table and I knew that was our priority. I knew that I had to make sure that you guys grew up to be successful adults. That was my main goal and so we just always strive for that. But I did always struggle with, you know, did I give you the most loving and nurturing environment because we were so driven by keeping a roof over our head, or, you know, food on the table. You do struggle with the balance between nurturing and providing for your family. I did struggle with that a lot and sometimes I look back and say, maybe I should have been a little bit more loving, and caring, but I felt like it was more of a survival tactic at that point. When you were younger, your sister was a little bit older. That’s just where we were. Then as you got older, you know, the financial was a little bit easier. So then the nurturing became a little bit more easy to attain because we weren’t so driven by, you know, just keeping the lights on type of thing. So, you know, that’s the kind of struggle that I had. But, I think we came out okay.

Ryan Stevens 16:26
Oh, yeah, I definitely agree you got no complaints from me over on this side, I definitely appreciate how much determination I feel like I have in myself, and how much like hard work, I feel like I put into whatever interests me or whatever things I do. I do appreciate all that. All the lessons that I learned from you and everything I was able to accomplish because of you, I definitely give you a bunch of credit for that. Because I feel like if it wasn’t for how you raised me, I wouldn’t have been nowhere near as accomplished as I am today. I was just wondering, you know, where do you think you developed that kind of like, mentality, that determination, that persistence to keep going, because I know that your mother passed away at a very young age, and I know that it was very hard for you, but do you think that might have been something that had to do with it?

Stephanie Stevens 17:11
I think that was part of it. I think my dad being in the military meant we were very regimented. Right, we get up, we work we do what we have to, I think that was a lot of my childhood. I think that was probably the main driver. It’s just the cadence that I was raised in. Then I just think it was just in my DNA, right? My dad was like that. My mom was not. But I think I just got a lot of DNA from your grandpa. I think you get a lot of DNA from me and your grandpa and I think that that’s part of the drive that’s just in our genetics. I think that stems from some of its military, but just some of his, you know, in his generation, he grew up on a farm and you got up and you worked. That’s what you did. That’s just the cadence that he worked too, and he just instilled that value in me. I still that in you and your sister, and you took to it probably better than your sister. But she still has very good work ethic as well.

Ryan Stevens 18:18
Definitely. I definitely remember all the stories you used to say when I used to be like one of those kids that used to sleep in super, super late. And now I’m super early to bed 9-10 P.M ish, maybe 8:30 P.M on some nights kind of person. I remember all the stories you used to tell me when I was sleeping in late, like, “I used to wake up and go help my dad with the hay bales. We used to be 5 am on the weekends”, and it kind of, you know, motivated me and kind of helped me put into perspective, like, hey, I can Iake up a little earlier and get some stuff that I don’t have to waste half the day away. Now it kind of makes me feel like when I wake up, I have an opportunity. So it’s kind of it’s kind of cool to hear how that translated. I was wondering, because of these challenges and difficulties, what did you change to adapt with the workplace? So like, I know, you said you were struggling as a single parent, and you kind of just push through it with your determination, but were there any, like changes that you felt occurred during that time?

Stephanie Stevens 19:21
I think you just have to change, you’re just you, right? I mean, there are things I just had to, change kind of my schedule, you have to change. There were certain times where I just had to do things, if you guys had a certain softball, or soccer, or baseball,l or whatever, I just had to get up and I had to leave. I had to maybe take a call in the car on the way home or you know, you had to put those fence lines or guardrails in place to be able to manage your life so that everything kind of worked as a well-oiled machine. So it was just really putting those guardrails up to make sure that every everything worked as is supposed to. Sometimes that was hard and sometimes saying no was hard, but you had to do it to make sure that everything worked as it should.

Ryan Stevens 20:14
Well, that’s definitely good to hear that you were able to overcome those obstacles to get to where you are today. But because of those obstacles, what were some valuable lessons that you learned?

Stephanie Stevens 20:26
So the thing I learned the most is to listen more than you speak. So in the beginning, I tended to talk a lot, I’m a talker. But what I learned a lot is you learn a lot more if you just listen to people. There’s a lot more you learn, a lot more when you listen than when you talked. I learned the best times of the morning, are those quiet times when it’s just you. You have time to think and to focus on what you have to do in the day and just to give yourself grace and to give yourself time in the morning to plan out what’s important to you and what you need to do for the day. Planning is key. The other thing that I learned is you always have to plan for A, B, and C. So plan A doesn’t always work plan B sometimes doesn’t work. So you always have to have a plan C in almost everything you do. If you have those three plans, most times you’ll never be disappointed. Because it’s very unlikely that all three plans fall through. So as long as you have those three set in place ahead of time, most of the time, you’ll be successful.

Ryan Stevens 21:49
That’s definitely good. Keeping it simple. I like it. I like making sure that you make time for yourself. Because I know sometimes with how much you work, it’s definitely a difficulty in that aspect. What were some expectations that you had come to expect when you first began your job? How do they affect you today? How did they affect you when you first started?

Stephanie Stevens 22:12
It’s funny, so when you first started out the job before you have kids, you have this vision and you know, you’re gonna be the head of the company. You’re gonna run the whole place and you’re gonna make all this money and it’s all about you. Then what you learn as you become a leader, and you have a family is actually not about you. It’s about everyone else. If you’re a good effective leader, you realize that pretty quickly. When you talk to people, it’s not about what you say it’s how you say it and how you adapt your style to what you say. I’m a pretty direct person. But I have people that report to me that aren’t and so if I talk to them very directly, they are offended. They want me to ask them how they’re doing, and how their kids are doing. You know how and what’s going on in their lives. I have other people who if I ask them, how was your night last night they will be like, “What, What are you talking about”, they like to be handled very directly but I realized it’s not about me, it’s about everyone else in. I’m here to be their cheerleader, their champion to get them to their careers into the next level of what they want to do in their life. Once I realized that, both as a mom and as a manager, I became more successful maybe I didn’t hit the top of the pay scale or didn’t become the vice president. But I became more confident in who I was as a person. And I think that for me, is all I needed.

Ryan Stevens 23:54
That’s really good to hear. Do you think that management position and dealing with all these types of people helped, because I know typically you’re more of a stay-at-home person, you enjoy your out time but in essence, you really enjoy your alone time. So do you think this helps you become more of a people person?

Stephanie Stevens 24:12
Yeah, I mean, I think I’m an extrovert. But then because I do it all day long. I tend to be an introvert more at home, especially the older I get. But I also think as long as you can count your true friends on one hand, you’re doing good in life. So yeah, I think it helped me. I think that I’ve learned a lot about myself and management, a lot more about myself than other people, and things that I can improve on about myself that I didn’t really notice when I was what we call an independent contributor or just an employee that you learn about yourself that people point out when you’re a manager that you might not see when you’re just an employee.

Ryan Stevens 25:01
Yeah. So with that, I wanted to ask you one final question. So compared to back when you first started to compare to now, what do you think are some things that you look differently at work? Like maybe like, how do you enjoy coming in, like what gets you motivated compared to when you first started to now?

Stephanie Stevens 25:21
Yeah, so when I first started, as I said, I think I was pretty centrally focused, it was more about me, me, me, me. Now, it’s very tested team-focused version driven. It’s about getting people excited and getting to the end goal together as a team, we have a really great team. I would put my team up against any person or any team in the world, they might not all be the strongest. But from a strength standpoint, we are the strongest because we function strongly as a team and I think in the beginning I thought I could do it myself, but you can’t get there by yourself. I think at the beginning of my career, I thought I could do it all by myself. What I realized is it takes a village to get missions accomplished and without certain people with certain expertise, nothing gets done, and nothing gets accomplished. So I’ve learned a lot about how a team works, how to interact as a team, how we all are focused on the same common goal, and just what a true functioning team means and what work environment, a positive work environment means and, how it functions properly. I’ve worked on pretty dysfunctional teams in the past. I can finally say, in my career, we’re pretty close to family here. I know, we always say you can get fired at work. So it’s not really family. But this team operates really efficiently because of the way that we operate and we all move to the same common goal, even when sometimes we might not agree with the direction. We’re all mission-driven. We all know we have to get there. So that’s kind of what I’ve learned over the years.

Ryan Stevens 27:14
Well, that’s great to hear that you take a lot of pride and joy in your team and that you have so much confidence in them. Definitely good to hear and it’s definitely crazy. All the life stories that like I remember hearing about when I was little and getting a whole new grasp on them now. So I really appreciate your time and thank you for answering these questions. It was a real pleasure.

Stephanie Stevens 27:34
Well, thanks for interviewing me. Yeah. All right.

Ryan Stevens 27:37
Well, that’ll be it for the interview. I appreciate it. All right. See you in a couple of weeks, I guess.

Stephanie Stevens 27:44
Yes. I’ll see you in a few weeks. Yeah.

Bibliography:

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai