Comments for Words

Comment on Being a woman in tech is hard. by Greg

Greg — Wed, 29 Jun 2016 23:12:08 +0000

If you ever want +1 friend who isn’t a total d bag to play board games and code side projects and work on equal opportunity and antidiscrimination issues in IT or stand menacingly between you and a sex pest at a conference or strategically pretend to be your boyfriend for an hour to escape a dangerous situation, I humbly submit my application.

Comment on Being a woman in tech is hard. by gcb

gcb — Fri, 13 Nov 2015 21:25:37 +0000

As a guy who’s (a) taught computer programming at the college level and (b) worked in the industry for more than 15 years, I’m very sorry you’re putting up with such bull. I don’t know where it comes from, and it’s baffling to me because my experience in teaching proved time and again that there was zero correlation between someone’s gender and their ability to understand the technical intricacies of programming.

Comment on Being a woman in tech is hard. by Charles Tolman

Charles Tolman — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 23:31:15 +0000

What an awful story of misogynistic idiocy! As a coder with 35 years experience I have always bemoaned the lack of gender balance in this business. If any man on my team were to have done any of that stuff to I would have had them up in front of HR, and disciplinary action sooner than you could say ‘Jack’!

I have technically managed a number of women who have all been fantastic team members and highly valued people by ALL the team. I do hope work life becomes better for you in the future, and I hope that you do not suffer ANY such further experiences.

I don’t see why you should put up with the slightest aggravation because of gender. I would never tolerate it in any team I was a part of, whether I was a team manager or a team member.

I wish you the very best and thank you for your brave post.

Comment on Being a woman in tech is hard. by Rob

Rob — Thu, 22 Oct 2015 18:00:29 +0000

Take the dick picks to HR… I don’t know where you are in the world, but here in the UK this wouldn’t be tolerated. As a CEO – I’m gender blind… I don’t give a rats ass what you are as long as you can do your job. Any bloke in my company that sent you an unsolicited dick pick would be confronted and bounced out the door. I’d even make sure everyone knows why he’s gone. A bit of humiliation stops this behaviour.

Comment on Being a woman in tech is hard. by Rebecca Rachmany

Rebecca Rachmany — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 08:36:07 +0000

Thanks for sharing this. I studied math in the 80s and it wasn’t nearly that bad.
We’re doing something about this, namely, we are changing girls’ and boys’ images of girls in the media, starting with our upcoming comic book for girls. We could use all the help we can get in promoting these kinds of images of girls in STEM. We’re totally bootstrapped, and we’ll be releasing the comics on October 15th.
To support the project go to http://www.ganglysister.com our Thunderclap our product release at http://thndr.me/g90CvJ
If we can change perceptions at a young age, we’ll be able to encourage women in tech at all ages.

Comment on Being a woman in tech is hard. by Mia

Mia — Mon, 05 Oct 2015 10:29:07 +0000

The job I have now is the first job where I haven’t been screamed at, talked over, or told I’m an idiot.
We get treated well. Previously, i’d been told I’m too aggressive, and written up several times for being aggressive, but then my reviews applaud my abilities to work in a team, and how awesome I am at integrating into a team and getting along. You would think a severely aggressive person wouldn’t be a good team player… Yet males can act exactly the same and they’re labeled confident/assertive. In fact, males can be 20 times as abrasive and aggressive, and those individuals are never reprimanded.

The only way I can cope is to never bring my ideas forward, and never fight for a tech idea I believe in. Lately, I pass my ideas on to a guy to bring forward. At least then it will be listened to.
It has severely decreased my value as a programmer for employers.

Comment on Being a woman in tech is hard. by Elswyth

Elswyth — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 10:50:12 +0000

I’m truly sorry to read about what you went through. That all sounds awful and kudos to you for making it through that.

That being said, this has not been my experience as a woman in CS near your level of experience, at least not anywhere near the degree of awfulness that you describe. I did encounter a couple of issues, like the difficulty in making friends that you mentioned (it was possible but a lot harder than it usually is), and the one occurrence where a guy who was paired up with me for a group assignment automatically assumed that he should ‘take the lead’.

But I have never been sexually harassed by anyone in any capacity. My Professors were generally encouraging, especially the other women, and the few who were not were assholes to everyone. I was encouraged to apply for a grad school scholarship, and the Prof who supervised me in grad school research was amazing. My internship mentor has also been incredibly helpful as well as other colleagues.

I’m not saying this to discredit you at all or to invalidate your experiences, as I think they are important. I’m saying this to provide another account of a woman in CS, so that girls who read this won’t assume that every woman who goes into CS will inevitably have to face what you faced and won’t be scared out of it. I think some women do have it very hard, perhaps partly due to location or cultural norms where they live, or just pure bad luck. But it’s entirely possible to go through a CS degree and grad school and internship without having anything that you described above happen.

Comment on Being a woman in tech is hard. by Steven Pickles

Steven Pickles — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 03:46:36 +0000

The amount of bullshit that many women have to fight through only to become part of the embarrassingly small number of women in tech, is baffling. Somehow the already dehumanized image of women echoed by society, is further distorted when passed through the lens of the tech demographic. I see many signs of boys spouting deeply toxic ideas about gender that have innocently absorbed (through gaming culture, reddit, etc). With few real-world experiences with which to compare, these misogynistic views become their reality all too easily. So in closing, I’m sorry you had to go though this and I’m sorry that society still produces men that treat women like this.

Comment on Being a woman in tech is hard. by Kumar

Kumar — Wed, 30 Sep 2015 06:08:21 +0000

Hi Sami,
I’m sorry that this has happened to you. For what it worths, while I didn’t have you as a prac demonstrator specifically, all your online tutes/posts were really helpful, and while I’m only a first year, I think I’m qualified enough to say you definitely know your stuff… Hope you stick at something you obviously have a talent and a passion for.

Comment on Being a woman in tech is hard. by Shlomo Artzi

Shlomo Artzi — Mon, 28 Sep 2015 23:39:14 +0000

Sounds like a lot of the worst stuff had nothing to do with “tech”. It sounds like it sucks to be woman in a predominantly male group.
I wonder if the things that were not misogynistic are experienced similarly by other minorities. If a person is clearly easy to single out as “being different”, do they get the “this stuff is probably too hard for you” treatment?
The misogynistic stuff is awful and it might be worse in tech because the males are more socially clueless so they act more childish/stupid than average males. But I’m guessing a woman on a mostly male sports team would see similar tragedies.
I’ve been in tech, and when there’s one woman on the team – she’s “the girl”, when there’s two, they’re “the new girl” and “the other girl”. When there’s three, they’re “Mary”, “Jane”, “Emily”, etc. That is, past a certain threshold, their gender stops being special/unique, and they become just another team member.
So I think if you don’t want others to experience this, the solution is MORE women in tech. It doesn’t take many before the novelty wears off.