The industry hasn’t always treated women fairly, but now it needs them.
The oil business just 30 years ago was a lonely place for the few women who chose to work in it. Rayola Dougher, senior economic adviser at the American Petroleum Institute, says attending industry conferences made that clear.
“I’d look out and there’d just be a sea of blue suits,” Dougher says. “It was a little lonely for a while but now I see more and more women.”
Amy Myers Jaffe also started her career back then, as a journalist covering the oil industry. Today she’s executive director of energy and sustainability at the University of California, Davis. She says the environment early on wasn’t always comfortable for women, even on the white-collar side of the oil business.
“You had these stories that would circulate about hunting trips or fish fries where the industry was in the practice of having prostitutes attend,” she says.
As an expert on global energy policy, Jaffe often is invited to speak at oil industry conferences. One that stands out in her memory included a hospitality suite with women at the front door, wearing not much more than bathing suits.
“I remember joking at the time — maybe we should get a suite and hire the Chippendale men,” Jaffe says. “And that would make the industry understand what it’s like to be a woman executive and have to go to a hospitality suite with these women greeters.”
It took a while, but most of the industry got the message, she says — conferences are more professional now. But women are still underrepresented in the oil business.