Pustay Beaven: Every woman has a story, this is mine

I'm easy to overlook. I mean that quite literally.

At just over five feet tall, it's easy for someone to look over me and see what is behind me. I'm also soft spoken, so my voice gets lost in the din of crowded rooms or muffled by background music.

Over the years, I've gotten used to all the things that come with this. I've become comfortable with folks cutting in front of me in line—"Ope. Sorry. Didn't see ya!"—or repeating myself several times to ensure I'm heard.

Essentially, I've come to terms with being just a little bit invisible, maybe even forgettable.

And that has been as true professionally as it is personally.

There were plenty of times I was dismissed professionally. Forgotten. Overlooked. And not just because I'm short or soft spoken, but also because I am a woman.

Portions of my 20-year career in journalism prove it overtly.

As a sportswriter, things like RBIs and PATs routinely were mansplained by high school coaches.

A fellow sports journalist who didn't even know my name once took the liberty of sliding his hand beneath the hem of my skirt and moved his fingers to the inside of my upper thigh during an event we covered.

I know he didn't know my name because he never asked for it. Even when he was whispering in my ear for the duration of the hours-long ceremony in the darkened auditorium.

He told me my eyes were beautiful. He asked if my hotel room was nearby.

But he never asked for my name.

Honestly, I didn't know how to react, anyway. I was 20. And I had always been told that what was happening in that moment was just something men sometimes did.

I remember closing my eyes, fighting tears and trying to think about something else—anything else—all the while wishing for his fingers to just. stop. moving.

I remember thinking it was my fault for wearing a skirt.

As a rubber industry journalist, I was told by a source to "ask any of the men (I) work with" about connected vehicle concepts because he "did not have time to explain it to (me)."

At other points, the misogyny was less apparent.

My love for the work I do and the beats I cover is evident. I can't help that. Learning is what I love. Writing is my art, and I am an artist at my core. That passion—something I've always felt was a strength—was to others a severe weakness. One they used to dismiss me over and over again.

And regardless of how hard I worked or how well I did, I could not convince some of my male supervisors otherwise. They only saw my passion and interpreted it as raw emotion. Thoughtless, unplanned, unmoored emotion.

"Oh, Erin," they would tell me, "you are so passionate. You just don't get it."

These are not phenomena unique to me. Women across our industries understand. Because they have been there, too.

They know how it feels to be forgotten, overlooked, degraded and dismissed. I've heard their stories at conferences and in private conversations. And it's those stories that gave me the courage to keep moving forward. Things will change, they said, when you are patient and persistent.

And they were right.

Today, I am lucky. I work for and alongside three incredible men, all of whom have recognized potential in me, given me the creative freedom to do what I do best and trusted me to lead the way on big ideas—my big ideas.

And then they cheered me on every single step of the way.

Each of them—Bruce Meyer, Don Loepp and Chris Taylor—refused to look past me. They chose instead to look right at my potential and foster it. They saw my passion as a strength and took time to understand where it stems from.

More than that, they gave me a chance. And they never treated me with anything less than respect.

It's time for every woman in our industry to be that lucky, too.