A Request to Women Working in Tech
Jun. 1st, 2010 08:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
noahgibbsA 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.
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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no subject
Date: 2010-06-02 05:04 pm (UTC)i work with two wonderful women.
both far more competent than yours truly.
when we're in meetings we play this game:
the women make a suggestion that everyone ignores. we wait a couple minutes. i make the same suggesting with the same exact words and everyone listens.
we see this *all* the time with the other technical people (all men) who won't even *respond* to emails the women send.
if it's imporant and time critical then it has to go thru me.
if my 17 year-old daughter wanted to work in computers i'd encourage her to start her own company that caters to female clients.
then again...
if my 17 year-old daughter wanted to be an automobile mechanic, i'd give her the eame advice.
generally speaking, i think there's a million-billion dollars out there to be made for *any* kind of business that doesn't treat women like jackasses!