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.
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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.