At my summer student trades jobsite, everyone wore the same thing: an orange long-sleeve shirt and navy blue fire-retardant pants, both with reflective safety striping. Everyone looked the same. Well, mostly everyone.

My pants had ripped hems so I wouldn’t trip over them, my orange shirts looked large even in the smallest size. I stood a minimum of six inches shorter than everyone else, taking three steps to keep up with their two.

As a woman, I already had so many reminders that I was different from the rest of the crew. I didn’t want my femininity to be another one, so I hid it as best I could. I kept my hair in a low ponytail or bun, my pre-shift outfits were plain and boy-ish. And it worked; I felt like ‘one of the guys.’

Sure, it sucked to feel like I couldn’t have little bursts of joy, talk about pop music or complain about my period, but I figured that was the job. And since I liked the job, I had to like giving up being a girl.

I was in the trades for nine months before I realized that wasn’t true.

At my first official boat training that two other (all-male) crews had travelled up for, I stood alone as the only female in our department. One other woman was there, and although a solace, it was a stark reminder that we were outnumbered. Like any young woman would be, I was nervous. I knew some of what we were doing, sure, but everyone else had taken this training at least three times before. I didn’t speak up a lot because I was scared to be seen as just a girl who was in over her head.

But before we went out on the water, the other woman took me aside and gave me a pep talk that changed my perspective entirely.

“You’re among some of the hardest men and you’re thriving,” she told me. “They accept you. Give yourself more credit.”

It suddenly struck me that as much as I had been self-conscious about being a woman, everyone else was conscious about it, too. My femininity was never invisible like I tried to make it, but they didn’t care. As long as I did the work, it didn’t matter to them if I was a girl.

So I started to show some femininity. It was subtle — braiding my hair, playing Taylor Swift on the stereo, wearing dresses before shift — but it was enough to make me feel like more of myself again. To my surprise, my crew treated me the same. If anything, they seemed happy that I was happier.

If I end up working in the trades again, I’ll still struggle with being the only woman on the crew. My crew is “the nicest in this field,” but even then, it took eight months to gain everyone’s acceptance. I know, at least to some extent, I will be underestimated, glossed over and will have to work twice as hard for respect.

But I hope the pink nail polish under my gloves will be a reminder that I don’t have to hide my femininity to be accepted or respected — at least not all of it.