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

Here via vito_excalibur

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

I am a physicist working in industrial research and development. I don't know how my field compares to computer-related fields in terms of gender representation, but believe you me, physics is very much a male-dominated field. In school (starting in high school), I was more often than not the only woman in my physics classes, and even when there were other women, we were always <10%. At my current workplace, we have ~25 employees, 7 of whom are women--one is a business-person, one is an accountant, two are lab techs, two are biologists. I am the only physical-science/engineering woman--the people I work with directly are all men. This has been the case for all of my education and professional career.

I have rarely experienced anything I would regard as malicious sexism or harassment. Having said that, a big part of the reason why is that "not being full of sexist dickbags" is one of the criteria I apply to potential places of employment. I'd never go so far as to claim that there is no sexism in my field.

A bigger issue is unconscious sexism, and it's true that I sometimes feel I have less room to be mediocre than a male colleague might, and am judged slightly more negatively for being aggressive than I would be if I were a man. But, I don't think that's a reason not to be doing work in a field I find interesting and challenging (and financially rewarding).

As for myself, I'd much rather be in my situation where I have to deal with localized instances of sexism, but where I get respect for what I do, than be in a field which is devalued throughout society because it is female-dominated (e.g schoolteaching, nursing). At least I know how to fight back against assumptions that I am a secretary and not a scientist.

I am not a parent, but I have been a child, and one thing I have never told my parents (because it would make them feel bad) is that I clearly remember several instances from when I was a kid, where they subtley (and unintentionally) discouraged me from pursuing certain paths, because I wouldn't fit in. If I'd listened to them, instead of following my desires, I would not be as successful as I currently am.

Re: Here via vito_excalibur

[vito-excalibur.livejournal.com]

(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.

Re: Here via vito_excalibur

[noirem.livejournal.com]

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.