A Request to Women Working in Tech

[noahgibbs]

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.

Comments

[rehana.livejournal.com]

Hmm. From the reasons people have given, I'm probably the wrong person to ask because I want to be "one of the guys," wouldn't even think about wearing (or buying) a skirt, and don't want kids, ever.

I will say that I haven't run into much overt sexism, or any detectable suggestions that wanting kids mattered.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

i was at a women's interest group meeting for my employer a few months ago, and brought up sexism in the workplace. one of my (female) coworkers said that it really wasn't as bad any more because team meetings weren't held at hooters, like they were at one of her former workplaces.

not having meetings at hooters is a very *very* low bar.

i wear tshirts and jeans all the time, and big stompy shoes. i wore sundresses to work twice last week, which is more times than my coworkers have ever seen me in a dress previously, but it was 95f here and i was going for dressing as coolly as i can.

my team lead still was explaining on the phone to someone else (about another coworker) that if the company wanted its employees to get married, they'd be issued wives.

the part where i'm pretty butch, and i don't care if you swear in front of me-- doesn't make the workplace not sexist.

[rehana.livejournal.com]

You're right--I'm just saying that I wouldn't have noticed a lot of things people have mentioned here. "Nothing I've noticed" may well be a low bar.

[rehana.livejournal.com]

Oh, and it's not that I didn't encounter any sexist people. But they were rare and not in positions of power.

[skamille.livejournal.com]

The pedigree you have may have more to do with this than a boyish appearance. I dress extremely girly-girl these days (you might say almost as a dare for the people I work with to stereotype me), and I really don't ever get any problems. Of course, I do fear the changes having kids might cause, but that's a problem for every woman everywhere.

[rehana.livejournal.com]

And that would explain why I don't see the other major complaint in this thread, the "you can't do math because you're a girl" stuff. Another reason I might be the wrong person to ask.