Women in 2600
[Si]dragon (who is currently at The Fifth HOPE) recently posted in his weblog a very interesting summary of an impromptu panel of female hackers and geeks and the trials of being female in a male dominated industry.
Wow, that would have been a great presentation to sit in on. All of my geek friends know what I know/dont know and respect me as a geek and never consider my gender a factor in my intelligence. Most of the non-geek friends I have do not know much about computers, so really cant argue intelligently about a position I may have in regards to technology.
I was never concerned with (although aware of) sexual discrimination until I started working at One Call Systems, Inc. under a female manager. Before then, I had worked under a great manager at Classic Industries, Inc., and then at GreenMarketplace.com. My boss was a bit of a feminist, and even though her positions were extreme, it made me start to think.
Not until I expanded my circle of friends (of the geek persuasion) did I begin to notice my opinion having less of an importance to a males. It was quite annoying and truthfully made me more paranoid of the real-world situation that I would have to be 200% better than a male candidate in order to be considered for the same job. This fear was reinforced when a close friend suggested I make female-specific contacts in order to help my chances of moving forward in the industry.
I can take the sexual insults and whatever comments are usually made to women in a male-dominated industry (as long as its fair for me to make the same comments in return), but I will not take insults to my intelligence just because I am female. Unfortunatly it is true that a lot of “chicks” in this industry do not know as much as their countergenders, but I think that is attributed more to the minority representaion, lack of experience opportunities available and constant destructive criticism.
More areas of the industry are opening up to women, especially design, human-computer interaction and instructional design. By the pure nature of these disciplines, the same psychological and physical theories men use to defend their position of being more capable of mathematics and engineering, women are becoming definitive voices in a small but growing circle of experts. Hopefully the more male dominated practices of software engineering and security will open up to the same changes.
seele :: Jul.11.2004 :: General, Politics, Subculture, Technology :: 2 Comments »
The Fifth HOPE: Women in 2600
This evening, Elwing and I attended an unscheduled event called Women in 2600. It was a quickly gathered panel of female hackers and geeks to talk about what they face from their male counterparts. For the record, their handles are…
Awesome. Thanks for continuing this discussion. There needs to be more dialogue on this subject amongst the community. Go to the next conference and get on a panel regarding women’s issues!