'Depending on the toad is the stone'. This is a phrase that is constantly heard by those who attend the courses taught by Adela Kriland. Teaching is another of its facets, transmitting what I have learned, in a way that is most humanly communicable.
By Richard Santa
Studying engineering at a time when there were few women in these faculties and about whom it was assured that "they were looking for a husband", helped to form the strong character that Adela Kriland was instilled in her home since she was a child, so that she could fight for what she wanted.
Combining that humor and sympathy, which she shows to those who know and love her, with the strong character that characterizes her and that make Adela Kriland unique, she agreed to give an interview to AVI LATINOAMÉRICA to talk about her, her beginnings and history in the industry, her fight against machismo that still, inclemently, it does not end.
"I'm 51 years old and I started working when I was fourteen, I have a good time here. The technology side has always caught my attention. I was going to a dentist because it was easier, but I stood up and said to my father, 'I'm going to engineering.' When I introduced myself, there were 280 men and three women. And the students were considered MMC (As long as I get married), we were the beautiful pieces of engineering."
Facing her father to study electronic engineering was only the first of a thousand struggles that Adela has had to face because of this decision. In college and then in professional life, things were not easy at all.
"The moment I raised my hand in class, the teachers pretended I didn't exist. I made a point of not leaving myself and with more enthusiasm I graduated with the highest grades of my generation. And she was the only woman at that graduation. Two of them did find someone to marry and new ones I convinced to finish the race. They are all great friends. And now, when I meet your daughters, I tell them: you are going to give it, because now it is easier. Although there are still few female engineers."
Engineering has given it everything
His life has been marked by engineering and technology. These have influenced her professional success, in the formation of her character, in making great friends and even allowed her to meet the man who would later be her husband. But not in college, as everyone expected.
"In my final work at the university, I had made a digital projector and that's why a teacher, who had a laser projection company and they were going to do an integration with teams from the United States, invited me to participate in his project so that I could make the equipment. He didn't really ask me, he went to my teammate Martin. He said yes, but he had to be with me. No kidding. I could be in front of him and they would talk to Martin and he would turn around and ask me."
In the end, on the day that the screening was to take place, on September 15, Martín got sick and it was up to Adela to show that he could. "Since that time I've always been in the big leagues. Life has given me the opportunity to go further and I have had friends who have helped me a lot."
Those kinds of experiences were continuous in day-to-day work. He remembers that in one of his first events it was with a laser that had many technical considerations, very high power. To connect the electrical energy he came with his diagram, everything as it should be. "I arrived with the person in charge of the energy and he turned and said to me, "Who is going to tell you?" I showed him my little hands and told him these. And he said, "And you think I'm going to leave her?"
Before, when I was the boss, they said, "And is a woman going to send me?" She answered clearly and forcefully "Well, if you don't want a woman to send you, go find another company."
She acknowledges that she has cried several times, but she has had very good friends, who consider her brothers, who do not hesitate to help her when she needs it, who have said 'don't treat her like that'. He always has a big guy by his side who says 'this is my little jewel, don't touch it'.
"I've had to fight, but I've had someone to lend me a hand and get me out of the quagmire. It hurts me that it is so because my character is sweet, even if no one believes it. When they hit me where it hurts, let them tell me who is going to do it, little by little? That's where the green man comes out."
Camouflaged machismo
Doing a laser event in Canada she met who is now her husband. He is Swedish and went to Mexico but could not live in that 'disorder'. Then Adela made the decision to be with him and went to live in Sweden.
"When I got married, I met the company I work with and I decided to represent it in Mexico, because here I was where I had all my networks and doing them on the other side was difficult. My husband is a bohemian artist, a dreamer, he loves this, but I felt lost from the technical side and Dataton saved me."
Settling in Sweden, Adela hoped that the conditions of machismo there would be different. But no, it was camouflaged. "In Mexico it is obvious, men feel entitled not to take you into account, in Europe they do not, but they do not pay attention to you either. I had to tell my husband to tell them to do something, and why don't you tell them you? And I answered him, because they don't listen to me. When he would go and tell them, there if they understood."
"Once they were going to do a beastly nonsense, I hit him twice and told him you don't do it because I say it. And he answered me, who are you? I said: find out, but in principle you don't. They went to tell my husband why I spoke like that, so beaten. But the man didn't know what he was doing, no matter how Swedish he was."
The current struggles
He comments that now the situation with machismo has changed a lot, since he has earned recognition from the industry. But, unfortunately, he has yet to live through those kinds of episodes.
"Where I have faced reality very hard again, is when I have to go to the Arab countries. Every time I go to those countries I have to confront the men and say to them: If you want this to come out, find four men to do it for you or let me do my job. I have already earned my place in the world, if you do not believe it or it does not serve you, look for another."
When they talk to Dataton and tell him they need to do a job, they say Adela at the company. But for the Arabs it is not clear that Adela is a woman and when she arrives, "Oh god! Pretend that they are a hundred years ago there than in Mexico." After five years they already know her and when they call her for a project, they already know what they have to put up with. Although they are always impressed that a woman comes to take care of the technical.
Therefore, she takes advantage of this interview to make a call to women who want to be in this industry: "do not leave each other, that there is how, there is a way, you can and there is always a way for women to support each other. Because it is one thing that has happened to me, among women we do not help each other much. It's harder to find a woman to help you than a man. I hope it's already changing. I have a lot of hope in the new generations, there are many girls interested."
Long-standing family support
Adela Kriland is the eldest daughter and only woman among four siblings. And it is they who have always stood up when there are people who need to see a man in front. They go and plant themselves.
She says that the Latin American market is a bit directed towards men and that is why sometimes they do not believe that a woman can and has dedicated herself to that. Luckily, she had a father who always helped her not to see herself as a person who doesn't have the ability or never see a woman from that point of view.
Adela considers herself a very energetic woman. "I don't ask, I say, because if I doubt, they're automatically going to tell me or know. My word was worth half of what a man said even though he had no idea what he was saying. With the time and experience I have, hardly anyone is going to tell me that they don't know. What I have done is learn twice or triple that of any of them so that at any time, there is no doubt that I do know. For me it's more motivating, it's a challenge. That has made me more capable. The problem is that now men are a little afraid of me."
She says she's now being called Maleficent, after Disney's remake of Sleeping Beauty. "They tell me it's not bad, but I haven't seen the movie, I'll have to see it. It's that I tend to get very angry when someone doesn't respect the fact that because I'm a woman you can do things."
