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women in technology
What is it like to be a woman
working in the tech industry?
Rebekah Cox, I've been working since I was 15.
Being a woman in the tech industry is awesome if you love
technology enough to push through the more difficult parts.
Right off the bat, a disclaimer: It's very difficult to answer
this question broadly. not all experiences are the same. However,
I can share my personal experience because it might
contribute to some larger themes. So, here's my answer . . . an
answer from a product designer who has spent over a decade
building products and has spent the last four years building
products and managing people in Silicon Valley[1].
act 1 - unfortunate reality
The Environment Is Generally Rough
Girls are raised differently than boys. not all girls and not all
boys are raised the same, obviously, but on average, girls are
more sheltered than boys in their formative years. Girls are
typically raised with kid gloves and rarely receive the hard,
direct, and tough feedback of their male counterparts. This
is important because the technical environment is tough and
has been built on a foundation of direct feedback, and there
are very established and elaborate structures that facilitate
nerd trash talk. So, if you enter this environment as a woman
without any sort of agenda or understanding of this culture,
the first thing you find is that if you actually say something,
the most likely reaction is for a guy to verbally hit you directly
in the face. To the guys, this is perfectly normal, expected,
and encouraged behavior, but to women this is completely out
of nowhere and extremely discouraging.
As a technical woman, this is your introduction, and the
first thing you have to learn is how to get back up and walk
right back into a situation where the likelihood of getting
punished for participating is one. How you choose to react
to this[2] determines the rest of your career in technology. If
it's too painful, you'll retreat to management, if you can tough
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