I have been reading/hearing a lot about women in IT these days but am not sure how I feel about it. The article above is nice point of view... But do we need to talk about women in IT?
When
I look back at my personal experience it was as recent as last year that someone
told me with a whole load of conviction "don't you think you are in the
wrong department; shouldn't you being a women be a BA or PM". That was not the first time and that will not be the
last. I can line a whole load of comments that I have heard but the fact that stood out about this particular comment was guy telling me this was not a douche bag by any stretch of imagination and I have seen my share of
them.
Have I ever been discouraged by comments like this? I think no - I
have been pissed but not really discouraged. But then I have never
questioned the fact that I wanted to be an engineer. I hear a lot of
talk about women questioning themselves - and I ask myself why did I not
question myself? Was it because my physics teacher in middle school was a women? female role model?
Was it because my parents never discouraged me? Probably to huge extent.
But one reason that I think always kept me going was because I loved it
- physics, maths, logic, computers I have enjoyed learning and am enjoying working in
this field. I didn't get into this to prove that women can do it... I
am here because I love it and it makes sense to me. 0's and 1's talk to
me.
And one more thing for every person who has discouraged me there has been someone who has encouraged me too.
Now back to my original premiss are women in tech something
special? Something to talk about? and after half a page of writing I still don't really know... but I know that there are very few of us.