noahgibbs | A Request to Women Working in Tech

A Request to Women Working in Tech

A friend recently said something about which, as Shanna's father, I feel conflicted.

She said that as a woman working in technology, she wouldn't recommend that other women enter the field. She's a system administrator. So, while she's not a computer programmer like myself, she's in a very similar field with mostly similar interpersonal dynamics. That is to say, what she says almost certainly applies to my field if it applies to hers. And as an actual woman working in technology, her experience is going to be significantly more accurate than my from-the-outside impressions.

I'm not going to repeat her reasons here. Rather, I'd be very curious whether other women working in technical fields, especially system administration and/or programming, felt the same way. Anybody care to comment? When you comment, please let me know what you do/did in technology. For some of you, I'll know offhand. For many of you, I'll have forgotten. For anybody who comments, there may be other readers who don't know/remember.

Anonymous comments are turned on here. Technically I *do* log IPs and I don't see a quick way to turn it off just for this post, but you have my word that I won't attempt to match up anybody anonymous here with any specific person. If you're really worried for some reason, there are many fine technical measures to make that tracking ineffective at finding you.

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So your bad experiences mean that my good experiences are not real, or worth consideration?

As the mama of the kid being questioned for, I feel your experiences are worth considering. Between Noah's knowledge of the people speaking and what I am getting from what people write and my own personal knowledge I am seeing some interesting patterns in who has the worst experiences. I'm seeing strong indicators of how I should encourage my daughter to grow so she can avoid some problems. This is a big deal to me. :)

I've actually heard from other people that the older engineers, as you say 30-50, are tremendously better as well. It seems that most of the complaints center around younger guys in 'softer' professions and that is interesting to me. I kind of wonder how the intersection of current feminism is hitting younger guys. I am not by any means excusing the behavior, but I wonder why it is getting worse instead of better. I'm really interested in developmental psychology so it's quite a pattern to note. :)

I'm glad to hear it. I wish I knew what if anything beyond random luck caused good outcomes for women in IT, but I do know that no matter what having parents that support you and give you confidence in yourself is a blessing.

there's an entire set of circumstances that you aren't aware of, so you can certainly have that opinion. However, suffice it to say, that during her pregnancy and afterward, she was unable to do the job she was hired to do - and her insistence on pretending that nothing had changed, and belief that she was still doing the same amount and quality of work - when it was clearly not the case - caused harm to those around her.

I've worked in IT for 25 years; I've been a sysadmin and all other sorts of things during that time (I now run security for a company). I've worked in some really conservative places, and I've seen sexism in action but never let it affect my choice of work. I would absolutely encourage women to enter the field. If you ignore any sign of sexism and bulldoze your way through it, it tends to go away (or the sexists nurse their quiet grudges, which is just fine with me). Don't go looking for it, though, and don't spend every day thinking "OMG, I'm a GIRL!!" Just do your job as best you can and leave your gender at home.

(unsurprisingly) I basically agree with you. Women's choices are

1) working in a male-dominated field, in which they will probably have to deal with sexism at their work
2) working in a female-dominated field, which will be valued and paid less - which counts as dealing with sexism
3) not working, which is not really an option for most people throughout their whole lives.

There's no easy option, so you might as well do what you want.

There's a quote I like, originally from the bible but I picked it up from West Wing: Sufficient unto the day are the evils therein. Don't borrow trouble. And yes, I merely meant that things will be different. Better? Worse? Who knows. But I think that backing away from teaching Shanna to program from an early age because it's an awful field for women now is the wrong thing to worry about.

You guys are very conscientiously raising her to be her own person and I have faith in your ability to communicate that some people are assholes and assholes congregate with other assholes so you tend to find a lot of them together and to pick her assholes.

That said, I think it's good that Noah is now conciously looking for this particular form of misogyny in the world around him as being aware of it -> noticing when it happens -> being able to say "that's not okay" -> less misogyny in 15-20 years when Shanna may be looking for a career in programming or sys-admin or any field where similarly conscientious men have been telling other men to be people and not assholes. But I figured that was a given so I didn't mention it in my first resposne :o)

Also, don't discount the power of Barbie with her name spelt in binary across her bright pink shirt to change the hearts and minds of an industry.*

*yes, that was tongue-in-cheek.

I was wondering how long before someone sited that comic. It's on my short list of favorite XKCDs.

This is an interesting point. My experience working in tech was in a library where I reported to a woman (Linux sys admin) and she was assertive enough for 10 men. There was one guy, hired to a position that was senior to me but junior to my supervisor who was patronizing in his dealings with me, but I figured (and still do) that it was because I was in a junior position not because I was a girl. Oh, and I had a trainee who was also a girl. Of the four senior-level positions when I left two were women and two were men and the junior positions were all filled by women.

My mother has her masters in maths and double-minored in physics and theology. She taught, worked for IBM (in the 70s), and went back to teaching. When she was in high school her parents wouldn't let her take chemistry because they wanted her to take speech and typing so that she could get a job as a secretary. They honestly believed that was the only work out there for her.

I don't go over to the Technology resources department at my school much, but I think there's slightly more women than you'd usually see in equivalent tech departments at private companies. None at the highest positions, though, and I can't speak for how they're treated by their male colleagues. The men in TR that I've had cause to work with have never expressed anything to me that I think is sexist, but I also have 99% of my dealings with them via email, so I don't know if that changes anything. I like to think not).

(Even when I managed to corrupt a file badly enough that it brought down a server and refused to let any admin person delete it so we had to restore from backup, they were nice to me! I still have no idea how I managed to do that.)

None of the things the guy said to me ever related to my gender. He was just generally patronizing in our interactions while everyone else treated me like I'd been there long enough to know what I was doing. The worst part was my going-away card in which he wrote something about watching me grow and develop blah blah blah and um, he'd only been there two months and had nothing to do with my projects so up yours bub.

Not that being patronized is one of my buttons or anything :o)

Also here via vito-excalibur (thanks!)

I'm female, and work in computer security for a large public university. I've also worked for a small software group in a large company.

Many of the sexist experiences mentioned above have happened to me. I've had it implied to me that the only reason I had my job was that I sucked off the boss. I've had my sexuality openly questioned. The pressure to "be one of the guys" is extraordinary. Luckily, I'm fairly butch (in attitude, not orientation), so that's not such a problem for me.

Saying something, being ignored, only to have a man repeat it and get credit: happens every week. It's only recently that my calling a guy on a sexist remark gets him to shut up, as opposed to him turning around and calling me sexist for calling him out (wait, what?).

My group is actually pretty good, we're about 40% women, but I'm the only technical woman in the group. We had another, but she left. And my technical duties are being routinely taken away from me (however, it's unclear if that's because of me, my gender, or the fact that security is becoming an exercise in CYA, rather than actually, you know, securing things.)

But something which hasn't been mentioned so far in these comments (that I've seen) is the unrelenting presence of porn.

I've walked into a lab I supported (when a sysadmin) to find 1/2 of the screens full of mid-core porn. There are coding comments in security software like "oh, porn cache, save it!" Let's not even talk about looking at the DNS searches that I have to sort through to find infections.

I don't know of a single female technical person who hasn't had to deal with pornographic background images on a computer she's been called to support. I don't know of a single woman who hasn't 'stumbled' upon a porn stash on a computer she has to support (scare quotes because sometimes they're directed to the stash by the guy who owns the computer). I don't know a single female technical person who hasn't faced "you're on the rag, calm down."

And let me tell you how fun it is to inform a professor he's received a porn DMCA infringement notice.

Having said all that, it is slowly getting better. Hopefully by the time the current children are entering the workplace, things will have smoothed out a fair bit. I'm a firm believer in the idea that a lot of the sexism will die off as the old-school workers retire and/or die. But I *do* think that's what it will take - the hard-core sexists leaving the workforce.

Interesting. I really hadn't considered that aspect of a support job, because as a programmer you don't generally, uh, share porn with the other programmers. I suppose it's conceivable that somebody could have porn on their machine when you come over to ask a question or for a code review but I've never, never had that happen.

So I suppose it's possible as a form of harassment, but if that happened to another programmer I don't think anybody would say, "oh, yeah, that just happens in this job." Like, ever.

And yet as a sysadmin, somebody absolutely could, making it much more effective as crypto-harassment than it would be in my job.

I am going to voice a different opinion than most. I feel there is sexism both ways in a lot of workplaces. Men don't dare wear dresses to work. They have to suck up any kind of emotion. Etc. Male dominated professions are designed to work with those limits than with the female equivalent and sometimes that is a harsh environment to deal with. There are also pros to being a rare woman in a male field. Sometimes the guys listen more because you are female. There is good and bad everywhere and in different concentrations. The men get loads of crap in female dominated professions.

I don't think this stuff should in any way influence what type of work someone should do, male or female. The environment is one factor and it will affect different people different ways. I find refusing to acknowledge the sexism stuff allows me to sail right through it.

I was a physics major (one of three females) and the only time I was treated as different from the men was I got to dance more when we went out as a group and I got a lot of positive attention when I wore a short skirt. I never felt talked down to or treated less than anyone else. My experiences were based on my personality, not my gender.

When I was an engineering major (a different degree) I found I was having trouble due to my gender. It was the things that were there to help and empower women that was doing me in. There was Take Back the Night walks (about how women didn't feel safe in the dark) and I became afraid of my two block walk to my car. There was a study room with tutors available sponsored by the Society of Women Engineers and I began to question my ability to do the work and could this weakness be due to me being a woman? Once I figured out all this "poor women" stuff was eroding my belief in myself, I chose to ignore it and gained back the confidence I had previously and disconnected my abilities from my gender.

I worry that bringing some of these things to light ends up giving them the power to hurt when refusing to let them affect you makes them powerless. I am not saying that they should be ignored but maybe a more balanced approach would be better.

I have chosen jobs and a career where it seems my gender doesn't matter. I get paid the same as my male coworkers and sometimes more than people who I think do things more difficult than I do. I will admit that I am not someone that is at the edge of where the problem is. I don't want promotions, I am happy with my pay, my final profession is neither male or female dominated. My boss (female) wouldn't listen to suggestions from me but would from others because she had issues with me, not my gender. This keeps me out of a lot of the problems people are talking about.

I think raising a girl (and a boy) should be about being true to themselves. I loved math because I loved moth. If you instill in your child that they matter more than their gender, then there is a good chance they will have the tools they need to deal with the idiots that feel gender is an issue.

Being made aware that there are a lot of gender based stupidity in IT type jobs would be good. It isn't about her gender, it is about other people's limitations and if she wants to deal with it. Not recommending a job in IT to a woman sounds like letting the gender issue win. It all depends on the woman involved. I think I would do great in IT (if I had major skills rather than minor skills). I find ways to use someone's stupid attitudes to get them to do what I want. Sales on the other hand, I would probably run into problems there. That is just me.

And hope you don't mind my chiming in.

I am in robotics, another _very_ male dominated field. I have also experienced a lot of sexism, some of it rather illogical (for example, assumptions that the 5' girl must be the assistant when doing demos with some rather large robots, while there is a 6'+ guy standing there...). There are a couple of things I think should be mentioned though:

Most fields now need programming experience. This includes both arts and design fields (programming background helps shorten the learning curve with a lot of design software), and science related fields (a lot of not-directly-related-to-computers science labs advertise for people with programming skills to provide them with support).

Any programming experience in any technical field will only help, in the long run. When Shanna grows up, she will have the choice to continue in a programming heavy field or move into a field that is light in programming (but still has some). The point is, though, she will have learnt, by the time she gets there, what the field will be like in terms of sexism.

There are some fields like biological computing which I have seen have a lot more equitable gender ratio - and they are severely starved for programmers.

I would say encourage her to learn programming, because it will help her (I spent a lot of time in high school being the go-to person for programming problems, because the guys tended to be a lot more condescending when providing solutions - it did wonders for my confidence in my own abilities)
I do not think the negative effects will become a problem until much later in life - around the age of 19 or so, by which time she will be old enough to decide if she does want to switch to a different focus, and she will still have enough time to successfully make the switch.

We pretty much have to deal with it with "oh, yeah, that just happens in this job," if we want to keep said job, and not make enemies all over the place. And sometimes it's true.

But I have had it used as cyber-harassment, and it's no more fun than any other kind of harassment. Hostile work environment, and all that.

I've worked in tech for 13 years, originally as an application developer and product developer, then for the last 8 as a build/release engineer.

I have been lucky: I have never experienced harassment or discrimination, at least not that I recognized. It is possible, even likely, that my male coworkers have been paid more for the same work (thought that's hard to say with my work as a release engineer, where I'm the only person doing my job), but I have never learned that to be true for certain.

I have usually been the only female working on the tech side, or one of very very few. The technical writers have all been female, and some of the QA people, but it's been very rare for there to be other female programmers.

Generally that doesn't bother me; I'm not a particularly feminine person, and a majority of my friends have been male. But occasionally it strikes me as odd.

I'm very uncomfortable with the idea that women should be encouraged not to enter the tech fields. I think it is important to be prepared for the fact that there won't be many other women. I think a huge number of women are almost certainly treated badly and discriminated against. But my personal experience has been that tech is an intellectually stimulating and financially solid field to be in, and I wouldn't like to see women discouraged from it, and would prefer for them to have encouragement and support.

I'm a developer, ten year's experience, VBA, Access, loads of SQL and enough .NET to fire up a website.

I have had nothing but respect and professionalism from the male programmers I have worked with. Some career concern but nothing particularly concrete.

I left my last job because of sexism - but not from any man. From a woman. It has always, invariably, been the women who have caused problems because they are unwilling to accept me over my male predecessor.

In the case of my leaving the job, the female moo of a secretary was rude, duplicitous, lying, condescending, backstabbing and disrespectful. She had no respect for my knowledge or authority, she refused all requests for assistance and behaved as if her requests took priority over the rest of my busy and stressful working day. She also took copious amounts of time off because of motherhood and I was expected to make up for it in the task which was of shared concern to us.

Towards the end of my job I made it clear to my manager that I would no longer have any dealings with her. I would not meet her, I would not speak to her on the phone, I wanted nothing to do with her. I thoroughly bad-mouthed her to everyone in the company before I left. She deserved it. And it really was the last straw with women and their attitude.

NOTE: I am NOT up for discussion about how there might be something wrong with my attitude towards mothers/secretaries/etc. I am not open to being "re-educated" by any other woman reading this thread who might presume to know my life better than I do and pronounce I'm wrong or sexist or not a proper feminist.

That said, I see no reason for women to be deterred from this field. I'm kinda surprised there aren't more. Thankfully all my male managers were on my side against the moo.

" I don't know a single female technical person who hasn't faced "you're on the rag, calm down."

Wow. No body has ever said that to me in the workplace. Argh, that's not good.

(Sorry for the double-post; I posted accidentally non-anonymously.)

I'm a female programmer. I've been in industry for about a decade, but I've been a math/science nerd my whole life and I grew up in a family steeped in tech.

The people who have already commented have done a better job of covering the space than I feel capable of, this year, so I'm going to go on a slight tangent. I don't know if this has been brought up already, because reading the comments was bringing up too many negative emotions for me to finish, but I want to make sure someone says it.

Support will make a big difference in whatever path she chooses. Lots of modern sexism revolves around deniability and brushing things off as "no big deal". Having people on her side who believe her when she says "John was being an ass today because I have boobs." or "I can't tell if they didn't hire me because they were looking for someone with more database experience or because I'm female." or when something's hitting her that's too subtle for her to tease out and explain and defend in the face of someone else's disbelief -- that's gold.

It's likely that she will see sexism in places you don't. It's also likely that she'll go through at least one period of ranting about men or boys in a way that will upset you. Be on her side anyway.

Make sure there are middle-aged and older women in her life who are good role models in various (tech or non-tech) ways. Let her know that competency and wonderfulness don't just belong to males and a few token pretty girls.

Above all, though, be on her side, even when it's hard or complicated for you to do so. She needs that bone-deep knowledge that there's someone who thinks she's kick-ass, without any "for a girl" or "and really hot!" attached. She especially needs it if she's going to live in these particular shark-infested waters.

Very well said.

Personally I didn't find ignoring sexism to EVER bring my salary up to meet that of my less qualified co-workers. At one job where I was a senior sysadmin I made about $30,000 less than a co-worker with no skills and one year of experience.

And bulldozing got tiring. After 10 years of being a female sysadmin, I switched to a pink collar profession where I do the same work for half the money, and I don't need to bulldoze through anything. And I'm not tired of pretending the problem's not there all the time.

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A Request to Women Working in Tech

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Re: Still worth it, but "people skill" development is important

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Oh for crying out loud ...

Re: Here via vito_excalibur

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Re: Here via vito_excalibur

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Came upon this question while browsing...

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Re: Oh for crying out loud ...