"Yeah, you're hearing that right."
That about sums up the response women—especially black women—often have to give whenever people express shock to find out that they're engineers.
So it makes sense that the #ILookLikeAnEngineer hashtag on Twitter went viral. Female engineers have been posting photos of themselves to discredit the idea that all engineers are men and also white.
It all started after commenters didn't believe that a female engineer who appeared in an ad was, in fact, an engineer. They thought that maybe the woman was a model.
Black female engineers—knowing all too well the feeling of not being believed, or probably having to work harder to prove their worth—participated in the Twitter campaign in droves. They posted such amazing photos and cool descriptions about the work they do. Check them out:
https://twitter.com/pam_yam/status/628558469050802176https://twitter.com/kishau/status/628560227542134784https://twitter.com/MIT/status/628395762154471424https://twitter.com/EricaJoy/status/628387591478378496https://twitter.com/daraoke/status/628625476051861504
They're badass.
For more of black Twitter, check out The Chatterati on The Root and follow The Chatterati on Twitter.
Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele is a staff writer at The Root and the founder and executive producer of Lectures to Beats, a Web series that features expert advice with scarily insightful people. Follow Lectures to Beats on Facebook and Twitter.