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

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

The places I've worked haven't had a problem with deciding women were incompetent. However, that hasn't been the complaint I've heard from the women I've heard complain of sexism. Generally they were competent and acknowledged as such (disclaimer: not always. Some places do that badly too).

The problem I've heard discussed lately is that the guys they worked with tended to make them uncomfortable (example: telling a lot of dirty jokes) and when confronted, tend to intensify that behavior rather than toning it down.

On the one hand, I don't remember seeing that in my workplaces. On the other hand, I'm much less sure that I'd notice that than that I'd notice discrimination based on ability.

But yeah, the complaints I'm hearing currently aren't directly based on ability. Maybe that's progress? I don't feel qualified to say one way or the other.

So yeah. I'm not seeing much sexism either, but it's been pointed out to me that I'm looking in the wrong place.

[ef2p.livejournal.com]

The places I've worked haven't had a problem with deciding women were incompetent.

My last experience working with a female programmer came down to the the fact that she wasn't a good programmer. It wasn't her being female, it was she couldn't code worth a damn. I did use what she wrote, but I did a lot of editing of it myself.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Sure. As with male programmers, that happens.

[judith-s.livejournal.com]

The problem is that if you encounter only one female programmer, it leads to this (http://xkcd.com/385/).

I'm no longer in tech, but my industry is largely male as well (although 15% female partners at my firm now). Sexism is real, but unfortunately it's real in every industry. I actually think that tech on the whole is less sexist than a lot of other fields.

[noirem.livejournal.com]

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

[karenbynight.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, I don't remember seeing that in my workplaces. On the other hand, I'm much less sure that I'd notice that than that I'd notice discrimination based on ability.

I'm not convinced that people are as capable as they think at noticing discrimination based on ability. Sure, the really blatant one-on-one discrimination. But, in my experience, when you have 10% women in a technical group, that 10% is rarely in the bottom half of the group in ability. And they're never the least-able person on the team. (Sometimes the least experienced. Never the least capable.) That is the visible effect of invisible ability-based discrimination: the men that are on the lowest 20% of the curve shamble along, still able to find jobs. The women that are on the lowest 20% of the curve get pushed out of the field entirely.

Look for non-normal distribution of ability, and look for places where the ability curves for men and women don't match, and you're seeing the tracks discrimination leaves behind.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

yes, this.

[cassidyrose.livejournal.com]

This. So much this. I have been steeped in the tech industry for years and it has been my experience that men are, in general, cut a whole hell of a lot more slack in terms of ability and job performance than women.