I’m not a woman in tech

My name is Maria. I happily identify as female. I work as an Agile Coach for a tech company in Cambridge, UK. I am not a woman in tech.

I grew up in Pjedsted, a village in Denmark, with my mum and dad and my little sister. I climbed trees – sometimes I fell out of trees I had climbed, I built a soapbox car – and crashed the soapbox car, I cycled in the fields, ran in the woods, built fortresses out of snow and spent some time in A&E. I also dressed up, played with dolls and dressed up the cat (which could have led to another trip to A&E!)

Some of the activities I’ve described above, requires society to give me a label.

Tomboy

I thought that’s what you call “a child”?

I actually spent some time thinking about this when I was a kid. It meant I wasn’t a proper girl, but I wasn’t quite a boy either.

Luckily, I didn’t give a fuck…

Or… It’s possible that I just didn’t get it.

In any case, I went about life, thinking of myself as mainly a girl but also “one of the guys”.

I played Diablo II, LoD so much that I clicked an imaginary mouse in my sleep but I also loved (the concept of) my high heeled boots.

After discovering that I absolutely *hated* studying English at the university I decided to do software engineering at a business college. I *loved* that! I loved programming! I loved the Advanced Algorithms and Data Structures class! I loved lots of really technical, computery  things that only men know about… Teehee…

I got me a job as a programmer right out of school. Whoop!

The ignorance started to wear off…

I still loved being a woman and I really loved working in tech!

But I fucking hated being a Woman in Tech.

“Woman in tech” is just another label I don’t need. Like tomboy. I feel like I’m a rare species. For you to ogle. Like in a zoo. “This particular one has brightly coloured hair; not an uncommon trait for a ‘woman in tech’.”

Maybe I’m representative, maybe I’m not, but don’t ask me to represent!

I don’t want your ‘exclusively for women’ support groups

I want inclusivity, not exclusivity.

You’re victimising me when you do that. You’re indicating that it’s most likely I need special, extra support. Just because I’m female.

You’re also indicating that “this is a women’s problem, best solved by women” but that deepens the divide, creating an “us” and a “them”. Just based on gender…

(I can understand your argument if you say that sticking together makes an already marginalised group stronger, like gay pride for example. I also wish gay rights == human rights. If you throw a parade celebrating women who did awesome shit in STEMM and invite the world to join, I’m in and I’m bringing pom-poms!)

I don’t want your special award

What is it about tech awards specifically for women? Have new studies shown a correlation between technical abilities and Y chromosomes? Don’t we all, in theory, have the same possibilities for succeeding in tech?

By creating special awards for women I think you’re belittling the impact and effort a group of humans are having in their field – just because of their gender. It’s behaviour like this that leads to the news headline being that ‘a man nearly beat his own record’ and in smaller text or below the fold ‘a women totally smashed any previous record into the ground’.

If you actually wanna say “look, women can do this too” – inspect your unconscious biases and nominate the women who deserve it for the not-only-for-women awards! Because I know there are a shit tonne of deserving women too…

(And I don’t even know why it’s just women… Is there an award for each non-binary option, or do all non-binaries have to share? Are XY-ers, who identify as female, welcome at DevelopHER?)

I am not the problem you’re trying to solve

Is it a problem that of computer science degrees earned, only 28% are earned by women? Or that the rate of women in computing has been steadily in decline since 1991? Or that twice as many women quit the high tech industry as men?

Well, I certainly think so, and I assume you do too. Studies are showing that more diverse teams have higher collective intelligence – here is some research from 2011 and you should google for more: Defend Your Research: What Makes a Team Smarter? More Women

Assuming we can agree there is a problem, I’d say it’s something like this: the problem is, that the tech industry isn’t able to attract and retain enough women.

I’m already here, people. So I’m not the problem you’re trying to solve.

It’s hurtful when you say “we need to solve the problem of women in tech” and “Maria, you’re a woman in tech” in the same breath…

Lose the label

Inspired by my friend Michelle, I implore you to lose the label. Lose all the labels! That is an important step on the path to inclusivity.

lose the label maria

 

 

 

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41 thoughts on “I’m not a woman in tech”

  5. FeepingCreature says:

    So, what do you think of Path of Exile? (If you haven’t tried, it’s sort of like a F2P Diablo 2 sequel-in-spirit that tries to avoid the dumbing-down of D3 for deep, meaningful character customization.)

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  6. Hi Maria thank you so much for this article! As a person, a dude, with pursuits some “masculine” and some “feminine” I just wish the collective desire for inclusiveness outweighs the need for pigeonholing, and making overly simplistic cause and effect assumptions, especially in regards to today’s challenges regarding race and genders.

    We are living in a truly wonderful era where the shackles of mere survival for survival sake are lifting. Where there’s the potential for culture, civilization, and humanity to flourish. We have issues in the West and it’s better to deal with them honestly, then allowing these potentials to decay. To honest work, and good play, I wish you the very best.

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  9. flaizeur says:

    ha, love it. feel the same way about any segment specific categorical groups or recognition, like ” history week!”, or ” pride group”

    you’re literally acknowledging that, “i support the idea that i am less than you because of “

    Liked by 1 person

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  10. Bob says:

    Why are we upset that so many women don’t choose STEM? We don’t care when they don’t choose garbage collecting. Or sewer inspecting. Or crab fishing. We’re not upset when many men don’t choose special education. Or elderly care. Or home health.
    Why can’t we just let whoever wants to go into whatever field they want? (And stop counting jobs by sex and saying, “We don’t have enough [insert sex here] in [insert field here]”) Some women, but not most, dig STEM. Cool! Some men, not most, dig early childhood education. Cool! Can’t we just leave it there?

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    • Women made up over 35% of the CS workforce in 1985, while now it’s less than 20%. What changed? The introduction of the personal computer, which was marketed almost exclusively to men. Until the 1830s, all teachers were male.

      There’s nothing inherently male or female about liking STEM or liking early childhood education, it’s just how we’re socialized. Shouldn’t we, as a culture, strive to socialize ourselves so that all professions are viewed as equally desirable to any sex individual?

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      • Ola says:

        Yes, there is. Male fetuses on average develop with higher levels of testosterone which leads them to be more drawn to “thing” oriented careers and less so to socially oriented careers. You can see this in action very elegantly… In university, cell biology was an even gender split. biochemistry had a bit more men. Chemistry even more men. Physical chemistry even more men, and physics was mostly men. The more numbers oriented (ie. dry) a subject is, the more men it attracts, proportionally speaking. There isn’t anything better or more desirable about these fields.. they just attract a different type of brain. All professions *should* be viewed as equally desirable, but like Bob said, I don’t see anyone having mass campaigns to get women into garbage collection.

        Liked by 1 person

      • Joe says:

        I am actually totally apathetic as to who joins the ranks of any given profession.

        However, let’s not be exclusive. Why is there such a big outrage about tech/programming and not petroleum engineering or shaft mining or offshore oil drilling?

        Other than that, I don’t really think focusing on gender, sex, race, or sexual orientation as denotations of diversity is going to get you diversity and inclusivity. When you highlight that certain physical attributes are rare in an environment, and you’re instituting policies and initiatives to work around merit to get those physical attributes to be less rare in an environment, you do nothing but breed resentment, patronization, and dismissiveness towards those individuals – ironically generating more of the thing you claim to decry.

        If you want to increase the amount of diversity of physical attributes of people in tech or any other field, you must, ironically, stop focusing on the group you wish to increase, and instead focus on everyone. Code schools and code workshops just for women is so counter-productive – you’re literally setting someone up to be a token X wherever they end up. Instead, teach them the skills to be a programmer who happens to be X.

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    • If everyone shared your opinion, then we wouldn’t need to “care” about women doing something that’s not “traditionally for women”, but the fact that you can easily name several professions that are traditionally for either gender means that we– that is, the collective societal “we”– aren’t yet to a point where jobs/careers are genderless. We need to push back on the gendered-ness of jobs by praising women joining in. Once everything is FINALLY balanced, THEN we can be indifferent.

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  11. Far McKon says:

    I don’t know your experiences or what you have been through, and it sounds like you have been treated pretty fairly. I think that is a good sign the tech community is growing in a good way.

    Most of the people I know who are for (and attend, and benifit from) ‘Women in Tech’ or female-centric awards events got involved in them because of repeated shit behavior. Year after year, of constant discrimination, assuming the knew or did less then men, or being overlooked or not listened to. Repeatedly and insultingly treatment.

    Which is to say, they didn’t set out to be a ‘Woman in Tech’ Women in Tech came about as a flag to where that behavior would not be allowed, the way it is in the broader community.

    Hopefully, if or when the tech community solves these internal problem, those things will evaporate as they are less needed.

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  12. When women say stuff like they are ‘one of the guys’, they are tokenizing THEMSELVES.

    I appreciate you sharing your thoughts (and I definitely agree on the no special awards section!), but when you start the piece saying that you liked guy-stuff and that’s why you got into tech, you are part of the problem. As long as people continue perpetuating the idea that tech is a male field because liking computery things is a male trait, we will have less women going into tech.

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    • Non sequitur says:

      She didn’t say she got into computers because she liked “guy stuff”. She got into computers because she hated studying English. She brought up the “guy stuff” to say that it’s not really guy stuff…it’s kid stuff…but it still earned her a pointless label. Her entire thesis is that there are no such things as “guy stuff” and “girl stuff.” Just stuff.

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      • Although I would add that it seems fairly clear that the author made a statement about being ‘one of the guys’ as part of her development as a child. It seems a bit harsh to hold that against her.

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  14. ReturnToNormalcy says:

    THANK YOU for restoring my faith in humanity.

    Things have gotten absolutely insane lately with hypersensitivity and mollycoddling. Those virtue signalling white-knights who claim to be standing up for the rights of minorities and the oppressed don’t realise that they are demeaning the hard work and accomplishments of those very same people.

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      • Anonymous Coward says:

        Do you review or read other people’s code?

        I am asking because I am trying to determine what “working in tech” means nowadays. If I work for Google HR, do I “work in tech”?

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      • It’s probably been 3-4 years since I wrote production code.
        Do you think it only counts as ‘tech’ if you (still) write code? (Because in that case, the title is literally true ;-))
        I endeavour to help teams set better goals, plan, write stories, be responsive, take care of their users and the quality of their products. How to communicate and influence. Does that count? (In your opinion, I mean)

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      • Anonymous Coward says:

        IMHO you work on the business side, not on the technology side. But I consider Agile to be a dangerous cult, so I’m biased against your job from the start 🙂

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      • Don’t get me wrong – I don’t like my title. I’ve changed my email signature to stuff like “here to help you continuously improve” or “want assistance solving a problem?” It doesn’t have to be “agile” – it just has to produce valuable software without killing you with process (or something, I’m having beer and should probably put my phone away)

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  18. alice says:

    I was thinking about this very thing recently. I have some colleagues who are working on a program to encourage middle school girls to pursue STEM education. While listening to their proposals I was thinking of myself as a twelve year old girl, and how none of their ideas would have appealed to me and may have even alienated me. But I also realized that, as a woman who did pursue an education in a STEM field without any additional encouragement, I’m not really representative of the young women they are hoping to attract. And after reading this, I’m no longer sure what it means to be a “woman in tech” or just a woman, in tech, but thanks for this thought-provoking piece.

    Liked by 1 person

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  20. You’ve written something compelling and important – start with basic kindness and humanity, then build from that. If a ‘non-majority’ colleague gets labeled and special treatment, it lessens the basic kindness of listening to them and valuing them as a fellow human.

    Thank you.

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  22. I recently gave up to all the frustration with being called a Woman in Tech and wrote a very very similar piece.
    Very much agree on all above.
    I’d frankly say my main problem with ‘being a woman in tech’ is the Women in Technology monster that keeps creeping onto me everywhere I turn…

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  23. hoshomoh says:

    Good piece you have here. I have been saying this for a while now, guess what? Women are the problem, they like the label. We are all techies. Why group into sex. I will actually start referring to myself as man in tech.

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  24. Joana Carvalho says:

    Exactly how I feel! I’m a Performance Engineer and you seem to have taken the words out of my mouth! I have an issue with shoes an lipsticks but I also have to decide if I will spend my money on shoes or on the Steam Sale. I’m a woman, who happens to work in tech.

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