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Recently I read an article that talks about the myths that need to be debunked about women in tech. They are five of them and they are things
like “you have to work alone” and “you work with nerds.” Women 2.0 put it out, which is normally a
good resource for women in the tech world.
This time however, I scrunched up
my face and asked, “How is this specific to women?” It isn’t.
If you are going to write an article called women in tech myths, perhaps
you should start with items that are SPECIFIC to women and that men do not have
to face. What this article does instead is
debunk stereotypes about tech, not about women. None of the items listed are
about women, except maybe the first
one. It reads “you have to be a math
whiz.” This one is includes women as
stereotypical Barbies who spout “Math class is hard,” but it also includes a subtle
racial stereotype. And I can do is sigh
at the many different levels of wrong in this.
My favorite item on the list is
that you “work with nerds,” after which the article proceeds to argue that
engineers were wildly diverse. And interesting.
Um, yeah.
Like most populations comprised of
people, there are the uber nerds, the people who are so into whatever that
there is nothing else, and then there is everyone else. This one is definitely NOT about gender. I know plenty of women who are uber nerds in
this profession. I love working with
them.
I admit and am the first one to
argue that there is a dearth of women in tech, but the problems that women face
in tech are things like 1). Not being taken seriously. (Yes, still). 2) The Brogrammer culture which can look a lot like rape culture, 3) being stereotyped as a people person
because I am “a girl and they are more social” (hunh?) 4) not having enough mentors who are my same
gender and finally, 5) what to wear (No, seriously. It’s like this: a tee shirt and I am trying
to be one of the boys, but anything fashionable and I am trying to be Nina Garcia. I have to be both conservative
AND edgy. YOU try it). Men have none of these issues.
Granted, the most important is
number 2, which is a larger systemic issue and is a rant for another time. This is followed quickly by 1 and 4, which
are career killers. Finally 3 and 5
happen on a daily basis but are not only specific to tech. The “what to wear?”
question is a women in business question, and is aimed at those of use who
missed the junior high training of lip gloss, shiny hair and eyebrows. We were reading instead. Or wearing black embellished with
skulls. The point is, we did not fall
into traditional forms of femininity and this is one of the reasons why we are in tech.
The point of all of this is that
false feminism exists all around us, even in tech, where women are arguing
stereotypes that are not women’s issues.
Maybe this is the point. Tech needs women’s voices to actually address
women’s issues. When we make a post that seems to be about women, but isn't, it is s form of removing power form the real issues. This, to me, is so not okay, and does nothing to further the argument that women belong in tech.
