Honestly having been a "female developer" for 10+ years my main thought on the subject of being that is it's just a job. And it's a job that's really not for everyone. I've tried to sell a lot of people I've worked with in other fields on it, both men and women, and there are a lot of things that keep people away from it. And most of them are not related to gender.
I also have learned to have a healthy suspicion of companies that seem too obsessed with the "women in tech" thing. I usually find they seem to just be doing it because out of causes you could pick in tech, it has little downside for the company and even serves as a recruiting tool.
I've started to think this as well. I believe people, when confronted with dicks at work, are going to attribute it to something that differentiates them from the majority. Someone made a comment that insults your intelligence? Well they must have said it because you're a woman, black, gay, etc. In reality, I think a lot of us go through similar experiences and attribute its occurrence to different characteristics.
Unlike most of the other commenters, I'm not a huge fan of this article. From the article, it seems the author hasn't really experienced much, if any, gender discrimination at work. That's great; it really is refreshing to hear stories of women in tech who are judged purely on their merits, as they should be.
However, her two takeaways from her experience are, "your skills will speak louder than your gender," and, "to become a female developer, you only have to do what any other smart dev would do...[i.e. work hard]." I think the problem is precisely that many women have found these statements to be false. Many women that are smart devs have gone into the tech sector with good skills, but found that they are still judged unfairly by their gender. The fact that this women hasn't experienced that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist for others.
Also, the claim that if you work hard and have good skills, then your gender won't matter has the (probably unintended) implication that if you do find others discriminating against your based on your gender, then you must not have the skills or the work ethic.
I really don't know to what extent gender discrimination exists in the tech sector, but I think we should be careful to avoid over generalizing from individual experiences and we should be especially careful not to suggest that discrimination only happens to the developers whose skills aren't good enough to overcome other people's stereotypes.
Being female, and a developer, and having worked in several other fields, I think people overestimate the sexism in tech and underestimate it elsewhere. I'm ashamed to say I was one of the "who needs feminism?" women in my late teens and early twenties because I have had a good experience in tech. Then I took a journalism job...and actually experienced it for myself and saw so many other women experience it.
Sexism is everywhere, at least in tech there is a fair amount of awareness that it's at least an issue. In writing I found it was just taken for granted.
And in writing/journalism I found it way more depressing to see SO many women as a total percentage of the profession and then the gender breakdown of the people in charge. In tech there aren't that many of us, but almost all the ones I know are in good positions.
I agree. At the same time, I get the feeling that the west coast must be a very different place compared to the east coast. I've worked for six different employers in the tech scene here on the east coast, and I've yet to see any sort of gender discrimination in the workplace. I'm not denying that it happens, because I'm sure that it does. But either it's far more frequent or much more overt in other parts of the world.
well, on the other hand, the toxic environment you describe would be also weird for men that do not want to participate on it. i still haven't found it on tech (i did when i was working on a news room, and i quit, as did a lot of people of all genders, because toxic is toxic. i will not blame the whole gender/race/religion of the few that throve there, but the individuals)
I love this piece! So refreshing to read after all the one's that are underhanded, SJW-style feminism. She says focus on mastering programming while working with likeminded people in good environments. Finds that this can get her places. Encourages events to bring other women in tech or help them navigate obstacles but wisely warns against detrimental effects of overdoing gender part.
Need more articles like this. Not just realistic but also motivational.
Clicked through to her site, and the tagline is "True && False of two Female Developers"... True && False evaluates to False... so, lies by two female developers?
Not a criticism - I get what she meant, but it's amusing.
If you're just starting out, and not doing this, you won't get very far, at least not very fast... if just starting out is in school, or out... It takes at least 5 years to master any skill/craft... and even then given the churn in tech, specifically with development, you have to put more in to get to a good point.
I don't do as much on my own time as I used to... but I absolutely did for the first decade of my career.
It's interesting because I and most other female developers I know got into programming like this. When I try to sell it to other women I know who are looking for a better line of work, I think this is the biggest obstacle for them. They just don't want to do it/aren't interested. Whereas when I was a teenager I'd happy spend all night modding games or making websites about ponies.
This is decent view, which is extremely rare when it comes to the topic at hand.
From my perspective I am a person that throughout the majority of my life has been considered turkish in germany because of my looks, until people get to know my actual heritage. Yet in the US I'm just considered a random white guy. In Germany turkish are not really considered a minority and the degratory terms are overlayed by more and more political correctness (Ausländer, Migrationshintergrund - someone who's parents immigrated sometime in the past, Musel - nowadays it's ok to hate muslims and beard means muslim anyway right).
For a long time in my naivity I did not know why I got that special treatment. Why I was the first to blame when something went wrong, and why people would think it's funny when I'd vote for the more complicated Goethe book in German class. Oh you speak very well German may I ask where you learned that?
There's plenty research on all the shit you have take when you're a foreigner in Europe. Fun fact, being Romanian or Italian can be just as bad depending on where you are in Germany.
When we talk diversity it's a whole different story. Being a white spanish dude in northern Europe can be diverse. Americans in their ignorance will see "just two white caucasian dudes at a conference".
I liked being in the US precisely because I'm considered just another white guy. Yet what absolutely utterly pisses me off about american culture is how disengenious it is.
Despite having had to spend days at the police station for forgetting my ID or getting assaulted by security guards and then getting sued in the most absurd kangoroo court i've ever been to.
Now to get back to the argument, for some reason in the US I have white middle class women, who's parents can just lash out 60k a year for an Ivy league school (an amount most Südländer as they call them will never make in their lifetime) and who haven't had a hint of discrimination in their lifetime tell me that I should keep my mouth shut and just take whatever they say and:
"what do you know, you're way too white anyway" - that's the level at which the discussion is happening.
I wouldn't even care that much if these people weren't so hell bent in destroying the only safe haven people like me had. I'm not even sure why they're doing it.
The only reason I'm at the place in my life I am right now, is because whenever I got back home from all the shit I had to take in school and elsewhere I just went online hung out in IRC and did random stuff. Very few people actually knew me in person. When I'd talk too much shit and not do anything they'd shut me up. Oh you read the dragon book and wrote an LR parser? Now we're talking.
There were some lunatics in there, but you know what, it didn't matter. Because whenever I wanted to learn something from them. I was demanding that someone I don't know, devotes his time to me for free. I don't get to make demands in that position, if you think differently something is wrong with you. It's called entitlement.
Most discussions are not about women in tech, they're about culture or work etiquette. I'm not saying you can't be actively pissed about it, but they're two different things.
I once wore a Jacket at an Erlang conference in DC(I thought that's what they wear in the capitol). It was the most awkward moment in my life in a tech environment.
It's a bit similar here in Australia - you can have a team that is made from anglos, greeks, and russians, and it's "not diverse" because all the faces are white.
I've found the same in the US as a non-native (but white) - my ethnicity is discounted, I'm lumped into a very peculiar bucket and my opinions don't count. Pretty weird experience. Is it really diversity or just a different power trip?
Pretty cool article though. We all became developers so we can build things: we have that in common I think.
Because they usually don't have very good/strong arguments for the points they're making, so people find it easy to disagree with them. In addition, most are written as propaganda (not this one though).
Can we have the link changed to be the Medium post[0] that this is copied from please? The site currently linked hijacks the scroll and has annoying popups trying to get you to subscribe.
Sorry for being off-topic / ranting, but why do sites feel the need to hijack scrolling behaviour? Is it me or does this make following the text much more difficult? Instantly threw me off reading the rest of the text...
Yeah, same here :/ I expect scrolling to work one way and scroll by the amount I'm used to, not the amount the author considers good for them. I closed the article after skimming a few sentences, because it was too hard to follow the flow when I couldn't scroll properly.
Oh boy another "I worked so hard because im a woman in tech" post. Everyone in tech works hard regardless of gender but some people choose to brag less than others.
I never really look at the gender of the comments, or even look at the pictures, if there are any... I would suspect a lot of people are that way.
Once upon a time, I was in IRC having a discussion with someone about the electronic art scene... it was a few months later I discovered the person in question was even a she.
This is in particular one of the things that's great about open source, online communications, and github culture... it really doesn't matter your gender, race, or anything else, so long as you make an effort, you'll generally fit in just fine.
[+] [-] mamoswined|10 years ago|reply
I also have learned to have a healthy suspicion of companies that seem too obsessed with the "women in tech" thing. I usually find they seem to just be doing it because out of causes you could pick in tech, it has little downside for the company and even serves as a recruiting tool.
[+] [-] atom-morgan|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmsiler|10 years ago|reply
However, her two takeaways from her experience are, "your skills will speak louder than your gender," and, "to become a female developer, you only have to do what any other smart dev would do...[i.e. work hard]." I think the problem is precisely that many women have found these statements to be false. Many women that are smart devs have gone into the tech sector with good skills, but found that they are still judged unfairly by their gender. The fact that this women hasn't experienced that doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist for others.
Also, the claim that if you work hard and have good skills, then your gender won't matter has the (probably unintended) implication that if you do find others discriminating against your based on your gender, then you must not have the skills or the work ethic.
I really don't know to what extent gender discrimination exists in the tech sector, but I think we should be careful to avoid over generalizing from individual experiences and we should be especially careful not to suggest that discrimination only happens to the developers whose skills aren't good enough to overcome other people's stereotypes.
[+] [-] mamoswined|10 years ago|reply
Sexism is everywhere, at least in tech there is a fair amount of awareness that it's at least an issue. In writing I found it was just taken for granted.
And in writing/journalism I found it way more depressing to see SO many women as a total percentage of the profession and then the gender breakdown of the people in charge. In tech there aren't that many of us, but almost all the ones I know are in good positions.
[+] [-] groovy2shoes|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattlondon|10 years ago|reply
The fact you're reading it, digesting it, and we're discussing it can only be a positive thing.
[+] [-] profeta|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nickpsecurity|10 years ago|reply
Need more articles like this. Not just realistic but also motivational.
[+] [-] nicolethenerd|10 years ago|reply
Not a criticism - I get what she meant, but it's amusing.
[+] [-] arvinsim|10 years ago|reply
This is the only thing I disagree with. Although this would be good for your career, it does not work for all types of people.
[+] [-] tracker1|10 years ago|reply
I don't do as much on my own time as I used to... but I absolutely did for the first decade of my career.
[+] [-] mamoswined|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mattlondon|10 years ago|reply
For a lot of us, we're really blessed to do something that we actually enjoy.
[+] [-] rjzzleep|10 years ago|reply
From my perspective I am a person that throughout the majority of my life has been considered turkish in germany because of my looks, until people get to know my actual heritage. Yet in the US I'm just considered a random white guy. In Germany turkish are not really considered a minority and the degratory terms are overlayed by more and more political correctness (Ausländer, Migrationshintergrund - someone who's parents immigrated sometime in the past, Musel - nowadays it's ok to hate muslims and beard means muslim anyway right).
For a long time in my naivity I did not know why I got that special treatment. Why I was the first to blame when something went wrong, and why people would think it's funny when I'd vote for the more complicated Goethe book in German class. Oh you speak very well German may I ask where you learned that?
There's plenty research on all the shit you have take when you're a foreigner in Europe. Fun fact, being Romanian or Italian can be just as bad depending on where you are in Germany.
When we talk diversity it's a whole different story. Being a white spanish dude in northern Europe can be diverse. Americans in their ignorance will see "just two white caucasian dudes at a conference".
I liked being in the US precisely because I'm considered just another white guy. Yet what absolutely utterly pisses me off about american culture is how disengenious it is.
Despite having had to spend days at the police station for forgetting my ID or getting assaulted by security guards and then getting sued in the most absurd kangoroo court i've ever been to.
Now to get back to the argument, for some reason in the US I have white middle class women, who's parents can just lash out 60k a year for an Ivy league school (an amount most Südländer as they call them will never make in their lifetime) and who haven't had a hint of discrimination in their lifetime tell me that I should keep my mouth shut and just take whatever they say and:
"what do you know, you're way too white anyway" - that's the level at which the discussion is happening.
I wouldn't even care that much if these people weren't so hell bent in destroying the only safe haven people like me had. I'm not even sure why they're doing it.
The only reason I'm at the place in my life I am right now, is because whenever I got back home from all the shit I had to take in school and elsewhere I just went online hung out in IRC and did random stuff. Very few people actually knew me in person. When I'd talk too much shit and not do anything they'd shut me up. Oh you read the dragon book and wrote an LR parser? Now we're talking.
There were some lunatics in there, but you know what, it didn't matter. Because whenever I wanted to learn something from them. I was demanding that someone I don't know, devotes his time to me for free. I don't get to make demands in that position, if you think differently something is wrong with you. It's called entitlement.
Most discussions are not about women in tech, they're about culture or work etiquette. I'm not saying you can't be actively pissed about it, but they're two different things.
I once wore a Jacket at an Erlang conference in DC(I thought that's what they wear in the capitol). It was the most awkward moment in my life in a tech environment.
[+] [-] vacri|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skeolawn|10 years ago|reply
Pretty cool article though. We all became developers so we can build things: we have that in common I think.
[+] [-] sridca|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomp|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] glassie|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LukeB_UK|10 years ago|reply
[0] https://medium.com/art-marketing/being-a-female-developer-6f...
[+] [-] dang|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atomical|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] domrdy|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] StavrosK|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] crufo|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] madmax96|10 years ago|reply
The hijacked scroll was annoying though!
[+] [-] unknown|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] throwaway21816|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwawuy222|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] pg_is_a_butt|10 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] frogfuzion|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tracker1|10 years ago|reply
Once upon a time, I was in IRC having a discussion with someone about the electronic art scene... it was a few months later I discovered the person in question was even a she.
This is in particular one of the things that's great about open source, online communications, and github culture... it really doesn't matter your gender, race, or anything else, so long as you make an effort, you'll generally fit in just fine.
[+] [-] throwawuy222|10 years ago|reply
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