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

[loop.livejournal.com]

I've been a unix sysadmin for over a decade. I've experienced some well meaning but clueless "trying to be inclusive but highlighting that I'm different" type stuff, some annoying personal interactions when chatting over lunch. But nothing even remotely close to what other women here have experienced, and nothing that I felt affected my status at work, my potential for advancement, or pay raises. My managers have all been respectful (well, the one that wasn't also treated my male coworkers very badly too). I've always felt like I was perceived as a valuable member of the team.

I'd say that my socialization as a women/my personality has probably played a bigger role in slowing my career advancement, rather than external factors. I've avoided high profile jobs due to my perception of expected overtime and high stress, I've stayed in a technical role rather than advancing to management because I didn't want that responsibility. When I was more junior, I'm sure I doubted my abilities more than a man of similar experience would.

Working in IT can be demanding, thankless, high stress, disruptive to your personal life (long hours, being on call). So, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it on those grounds. But I wouldn't cite sexism as a reason for a woman not to go into IT, based on my own experience.