How Does Speaking up in the Workplace Really Make You Look?

I have worked the entire time I've been in school, undergrad and post-grad. As a master's level student I find myself the same age as people in my workplaces, or sometimes the youngest person and either way speaking up is a problem.

Balancing school and work is a whole other conversation, but since I have been doing it almost my entire life it feels like second nature. I was lucky enough to get a job on campus (a few actually), but the one that irritates me the most is one where I have an actual job title. I'm not just some part-time customer service someone with the same shift every week. Sure, I still have a customer service role but it comes with implied responsibility, leadership and expectations. I mean, I thought it did anyways.

It is the second year I've held this position, and the second year the position has existed. Last year, I was involved in meetings, made feel like my opinion mattered, helped with communications, shared my ideas. This year the majority of what I do is grunt work (I'm not going to sugarcoat it) and watch other people do parts of the job I used to do. What's the worst of it? Even if I say something, who cares, I am just a student, I am not a full-time staff (and that's been made clear), I don't have an office, or a phone extension, I don't know everything that goes on in the department and don't need to, so why should I really be irritated if that is the case? This is how I've been made feel anyways. The department I work in has undergraduate co-op students, regular undergraduate students, and other master's students but in a customer service role, same shift every week kind of thing. Working with some of them is great, I supervise staff working events in my role and most of the time just chat with them and close up shop. Some of the other students in leadership just do their job, they don't want to be involved, they don't want to get more out their experience like I do, its a job, I should be gaining skills and so far the only skill I've improved on is letting things go and saying nothing.

SO, why is this okay, that it's gotten to the point where I shouldn't have an opinion or it has become clear that no one wants to hear it? I mean as I write this i'm going "Is this the kind of workplace I would want to work in down the road?" "Would I want to watch someone have the same experience I did?" No! Of course not.

Here is the kicker though, I finally hit a tipping point so I asked if my supervisor was around. He was busy and proceeded to ask if everything was okay. Well, it wasn't so I said what was on my mind (short concise and lacking feeling - because no one likes emotions anymore) and all of a sudden he had time to talk. Making time to talk is great, but when you already have repressed opinions because you know they're all thinking "she's not a full time staff who cares" it makes it hard to have an honest chat because you know that culture exists already, so ultimately what they're doing is letting me vent and everything else will continue on the same.

My honest opinion, if I was a male, this wouldn't be happening. I work with few females at this particular job, the workaholic possessive type, and a lot of males. I've also grown up around consistent instances of women being jealous, not being nice because I am excelling and happy, the root of it being their own insecurities, but a situation I am familiar with all the same. Another women feeling threatened by me for no reason at all. If I was a male, the same attitudes, mannerisms, insecurities, wouldn't exist because if a male spoke up in the workplace about he felt about his job, the contributions he doesn't get to make to the department, inclusion, it wouldn't be taken as whining, overstepping his boundary, attitude or entitlement, he'd get applauded for speaking up and taking charge.