Oh, women in tech.
It’s certainly a subject that makes people uncomfortable. It makes other women in tech uncomfortable, techy men go on the defensive, and
people who aren’t even in tech go squirmy.
Why? Well because it’s all angry feminist talk, isn’t it?
Feminists! They’re angry, they’re ranty, they make you think
about things! And they fight. For their right to party. (Oh, and for equal pay and all that.) And some
feminists even like to fight with each other.
Feminist infighting is nothing new, and it should come as no
shock that there’s a bit of feminist-style infighting going on in the tech
industry.
You’ll be quick to point out that this happens in every
industry, feminist, tech or otherwise, and I am, of course, aware of this.
However, let’s just talk about tech today. That’s a big enough problem in
itself.
When we talk about this “women in tech” problem to other
techy men, it doesn’t always go so well. We argue. We fight. We write very long
angry blog posts about it. All of this is good, even though we’re fighting,
because at least people are talking about it, right?
However, when women start talking about why we need more
women in tech, things get sort of… awkward.
There are some women who don’t think that we need more women
in tech because, hey, they’ve never been treated differently because of their
gender. And if more women wanted to be in tech, then they would be.
There are other women who think the polar opposite, and say
the reason there aren’t more women in the tech industry is because of a depressing cocktail that consists of:
The lack of education and awareness that you can do things
in tech other than code.
The unhelpful sexist attitude of the CEOs and “big men” in the
tech industry.
Add a dash of sexual harassment and an array of baby-pink, sparkly gadgets and you have the infuriating combination of
reasons why most of us believe the male to female ratio in tech is ridiculously unbalanced.
But I also have another little ingredient to add to the
recipe of female-tech-doom: petty, ridiculous cattiness amongst other women in
tech.
No one likes to talk about this because we’re all guilty of
it. And no one likes to bring to light the fact that maybe, just maybe women
are also responsible for why there are so few of us in this industry.
In fact, when I brought this up on Twitter, I was told the
concept of women in tech being their own worst enemy was a “disempowering
statement”.
Disempowering, or reflective?
I’m not saying women are 100% to blame. I’m simply asking
why women shouldn’t take a little bit of responsibility in this matter.
Have each of us done all we can (within reason) to help and encourage
our female peers in tech? Or are we fiercely and unnecessarily competitive?
If there’s a younger women that’s asking for what tech events you go to to meet
new contacts, do you tell her? Bring her along? Or at least point her in the
right direction?
If we’re constantly stabbing each other in the back and
behaving as if we’re in a horrible episode of The Hills with twice the amount of drama and added Twitter Gossip
Fun - no wonder more women don’t want to
work with us.
And those of us who acknowledge that there is a need for
more women in tech – why don’t we be a little nit nicer to each other, too? Isn’t
it hard enough without - in no
particular order – the tech journos looking down on the bloggers, the bloggers
looking down on the PR girls, the PR girls looking down on the female
developers and the female developers looking down on the mobile geeks and the mobile geeks sneering at the girl
gamers?
It’s bad enough in this industry without some chick judging
your Geek credentials.
I’m not saying that the London female tech scene is necessarily
that horrific, but I’m not that far off, am I? And yes, you can argue that men
are just as gossipy as the ladies are, but men are not the minority, are they?
We are. There are fewer of us.
If you’re ever stuck in a situation where you need a bit of
help – whether it be searching for a contact, someone who speaks the same
language as you, or just a friendly face – we all know how grateful we feel
when someone smiles at us and goes, “Hey do you need help?” or “You look just
as lost as I am, let’s stick together.”
Being a woman standing in a sea of men at a tech conference
can feel like that.
So why so often do we turn our backs and walk the other way?
Why do we refuse the connection? Is it really that scary? Are we so competitive
and eager to smash the glass ceiling that you can’t even give a fellow geek gal
a, “Hi, how are you?”
We don’t need to pretend that there’s some merry little
sisterhood and that we all need to be BFF and share a bottle of rosé after
being friendly to another woman at an event.
You don’t need to be like, “Oh hey! Another set of ovaries
in the room, let’s talk about boys and Animal Crossing!”
But a general sense of common courtesy would be nice. Female
cattiness is a problem in all industries, this we know. But particularly in this
male dominated industry where a woman in a bikini on the cover of T3 is more
familiar than woman on the cover of Wired is – can’t we just get over
ourselves?
Retract your claws, hand her your Moo card, and maybe even 5 minutes of your life.
At the very least, you may just get another follower on
Twitter.
Cate Sevilla is the founding editor of BitchBuzz.com. You can follow her on Twitter as @cupcate.
