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I recently attended a panel discussion about women in technology. The fun thing about this panel’s thought leaders was how they were all men. I assumed this controversial choice was a canny move on the organizer’s part: You wouldn’t just invite four men to sit on an elevated platform and talk down to an audience of women unless you knew the men had something meaningful to say. Right? No one would create such an event unless they were positive they could execute something with powerful value-add. Foolishly inoculated by this trust, a colleague and I spent the day of the panel writing questions we (wrongly / naively / tragically) hoped would be hilariously obsolete. I’m passing along some of those questions now, in the hopes of helping any other women in technology.
Tags: annie swank, feminism, how does a person get on a panel, i would like to be on a panel someone make that happen, panels, tech, we should really have a tech category, women in technology
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I’m all up for throwing stones. Who wants to throw a bunch of stones right now?
#throwmorestones
Can we just burn it all down instead? I’d rather just burn it all down.
INFURIATING. I would have walked right out of that panel.
Or right up onto it.
Oooh, that’s an even better plan!
I really enjoy greatly infuriating my new (male) coworker because my first-stop tech advice of “try restarting it” and “unplug and plug back in” and “check all wires and cables are connected” works on about nine out of every ten tech issues in this office. He huffs and puffs and goes “well I imagine it’s something to do with the network or the common drive going down” and then my fixes work. And this irritates him beyond reason. It’s amazing.
Actually this always irritates me too (and I am a woman). I used to say things like “that cannot POSSIBLY work this thing just does not recognize the network AIEEEEE I need my emails on my phone!!!!!!!!” But eventually I just started turning things off and back on every time I have a problem, and now the only problems I have, the IT people usually say “hm, that’s … unusual. Let me get back to you.”
I’ve built my entire career in IT/QA/tech stuff by just asking questions and testing those theories. “What happens when I do this?” Also, googling the issues I’m encountering. Oddly enough, people will pay you a lot of money if you can do these things in a relatively expedient manner.
Googling the problem! I’ve become my dad’s de facto IT person (please note: zero IT background) by deploying the “turn it off and turn it back on again”/”unplug it and plug it back in”/”let me google that problem for you” solutions to everything. He thinks I am magic, even though I always tell him what I’m doing.
Yep! It’d be hilarious if it wasn’t just kind of sad how little people are willing to engage with a tech problem before just assuming it’s “over their heads”.
I’ve probably used math only a handful of times in 12 years… almost everything I do for money is about whittling down the possibilities until I have an answer.
I recently realized that the only reason I feel unqualified to work in IT at our office is that our actual IT guy is above and beyond what is actually required. I’m only reluctant to do it because I’m not sure they’d actually pay me more.
IT is often pretty poorly paid… it’s one of those things, like HR, that is consistently undervalued.
But, it’s usually in demand enough to find employment pretty quick in case of moving/company folding
Emasculation is God’s greatest gift. #blessed
“Is there an app to tell me if my emotions are valid or if I’m being “irrational” and “a bitch”?”
Hahaha, brb, gotta go laugh/rage-cry at how fucking apt this question is. It’s both funny and sad to me that the people who have said things to me like “you’re being too sensitive” or warned me about showing emotions in the workplace have all been my female co-workers. They’re not wrong to say it, and they’ve had to learn that lesson themselves the hard way – if you’re a woman and you show emotions at work you will be taken less seriously by the usually mostly male upper management. They’ve told me how their valid concerns and problems have been dismissed as female in-fighting or oversensitivity by male bosses because they didn’t express them in a 100% cold, rational/objective way.
So I get where they’re coming from, and I’ve even recently realized I have to be more careful about what facial expressions I make around my boss/co-workers when my (male) boss said to me that I don’t hide my feelings well. But it’s just really shitty knowing I have to police myself like this and that so many other women have to do the same thing. I don’t raise my voice, I’m not rude or impolite, I’ve never even acted angry at anyone, I’m completely calm and professional at work especially in front of my boss, but that’s STILL not enough, because GOD FORBID my fucking FACE show that I have human emotions behind that veneer of professionalism. And I can’t help but think, Men don’t have to deal with this. Men don’t even think about this, not in the same way and not to the same extent that women do. And it’s heartbreaking seeing my female peers and mentors passing this lesson down to me, knowing that they’re doing it for my own good even though they understand how wrong it is.
I spent my lunch hour today talking with a coworker about patriarchy and women’s attire and the meaning of “professionalism”. The office is definitely the number one place in my life where I most wrestle with the question of falling in line with the mostly-sexist script versus being myself…. and where I’ve most witnessed the “women perpetuate the patriarchy, too” phenomenon. It sucks to be around it, and it sucks more to have to willingly and knowingly participate in it.
It’s small comfort, but I do remind myself that the men *do* have to deal with it, in the sense of the script of “acceptable man things” not having a real entry for emotions, in the office or out. (And yet they still have them, and deny that they have them, nuh-uh, and then the blaming everyone else for being emotional… it’s a terrible script that’s been handed out for everyone to participate in the conference table read.)
I asked this before, but now that I accidentally found this tab again (I have, like a hundred tabs open and tend to lose a few now and then, rediscovering them months later) and it seems that my inquiry was probably deemed trollsome and purged.
Since I do have an itch and would like to have it scratched pseudonymously, I will ask again (though perhaps in a more sensitive manner)
Sincere question:
What is the benefit of allowing your coworkers know what you really think and really feel ?
It seems to me that doing so would be about as pleasant and useful as stabbing myself with a rusty syringe found in some decrepit ditch, but many women (and some men) I know seem to imply it is some great benefit/privilege.
So… why would you want to show you real emotions to your coworkers ?
I’ve got that opposite problem, where I don’t show emotion very well, and am usually direct to the point of bluntness: traits that people often characterize as “masculine” or “dude, you’re like a dude.”
People at work sometimes think I’m a bitch for exhibiting the same characteristics as my male coworkers. It’s only in vulnerable emotional moments when people say things like, “Look at that: you ARE a person!”
Annoying.
At a recent “Women and the Law” retreat, we had a two-person panel to discuss how to help women overcome the obstacles they, in particular, face in trying to advance to leadership positions in government service. It was one woman, and one man who didn’t seem to understand what he was supposed to talk about. The takeaways from his part of the discussion: (1) sexism doesn’t exist because *he* judges people on how good they are at their jobs; and (2) a lot of women don’t want to work as hard as men – and that’s not a criticism! That’s just the truth! – so he tries to accommodate their requests for part time work.
The Women and the Law group in my area is otherwise completely awesome, and it’s made up of kick-ass women. I think they just assumed that someone who accepted an invitation to speak about how to help women overcome obstacles would be able actually to speak about how to help women overcome obstacles.
Well it sounds like he’s trying but they refuse to stop being women so there’s only so much he can do. Poor guy.
I think they just assumed that someone who accepted an invitation to speak about how to help women overcome obstacles would be able actually to speak about how to help women overcome obstacles.
You’d think the people who put together panels would learn pretty darned fast that there’s a whole subset of people who will presume to be experts on anything and never shut up, even if you haven’t put them on a dais and given them a whole room’s silent attention. But that’s clearly not the case.
…and those people are… men
I recently attended a panel discussion about women in my specific (growing) tech field. The panelists were all women. It still wasn’t a good panel, because the panelists were all about in-jokes and one of them even said “no, this field isn’t that sexist, look that guy in the back likes pink.” Yes, there was a passel of men there, standing in the back drinking beers and chiming in on occasion. The audience asked good, thoughtful questions about mentorship, about what to do when you feel discriminated against, about what we can do to close the gap between the number of men and the number of women in our field, but didn’t receive any decent answers from the panelists – just bluster, denial, and pats on the panelists’ own backs for holding the panel. It just made it very clear that this field (a) doesn’t value less tech-y folks (of any gender) (b) has a big in-group/out-group culture and (c) needs a ton of work.
Hmm…was this a specific language conf?
“Is there an app to tell me if my emotions are valid or if I’m being “irrational” and “a bitch”?”
You don’t need an app, honey. Just look down. If you see breasts, you’re being an irrational bitch.
Corollary: if you don’t see breasts, you must not be a woman, carry on.
Women in tech are “invisible” to Panel assemblers, journalists, researchers and many others. It must be our super power. We should wear brighter colors and start throwing some figurative rocks. Big rocks
#throwmorerocks
“figurative”
In response to the tags, I know a little about how one gets on a panel!
I am on the organizing committee for a small science fiction convention, though not the programming committee, so I have a vague idea how panels happen. I assume it’s similar for other things, though for larger events probably you need more qualifications. Unless you’re a dude who wants to talk about women in technology.
Ways to get on a panel:
1. Think of a panel that would fit at a panel-having event you are probably already going to, and that you would like to be on and are qualified for. Propose the panel to the programming committee and say you’ll plan it. This is probably the option with the best odds, but if it succeeds you’ll have to do work like recruiting other panelists, planning the discussion topics, and writing a description for the program.
2. Be recruited by someone you know who is doing option 1.
3. Be friends with someone involved with a panel-having event who knows that you are knowledgeable about a thing discussed on that event’s panels. Be invited by them.
4. Be well known locally for your knowledge about a thing that is discussed on panels, and be invited by a programming committee for a local panel-having event.
5. Be a university professor and be invited by the same people as in option 4, except through the university’s PR department.
6. Be well enough known for something that your presence on panels would entice more people to buy tickets to a panel-having event, and be invited to be a guest of honour. Probably the event will pay your travel costs and a per diem. The downside is that you will have to be on multiple panels and act friendly all weekend. This one might only apply to science fiction conventions, I don’t know.
I have been to more than a few of these things, and the odds are not that no women applied, but that the organizers didn’t know any women to ask.
Right, yes, I am definitely not saying that any of this is a method to fix organizer cluelessness. This was specifically in response to the “how does a person get on a panel, i would like to be on a panel someone make that happen” tags. So this post was written mostly with the goal of telling the tag writer how to get on a panel somewhere.
If the goal is to fix the sort of terribleness that inspired the article, then yes, women applying to run panels would be insufficient. I can think of things that might help, but I suspect they’d all be a lot of work with little reward or acknowledgement and only mediocre odds of success.
This is so proactive and helpful! Thank you!
I mean, this is definitely not guaranteed to work, and if it does then that still only adds a few panels with women and doesn’t really change the system that makes them rare. But for any women who want to address one aspect of the problem by being on a panel, I hope this will help.
Probably looking up some stuff about the specific event or type of event you’re interested in would be wise, though. I don’t know which bits of this are generally applicable.
Of course, you can always get on a panel if it’s about “the role of women in tech”. But only that.
Um, no. Sorry. That panel is full.
See, because that’s such a very important topic to us, we made it a priority to fill it with top industry professionals before we even announced it. So there’s no space left to consider adding you.
Well, yes, they are all male. We did say top professionals, and for some reason that is totally and completely unknown to us, most of them are male.
What do you mean, that’s a problem? That sounds like reverse sexism to me. It’s complainers like you who are holding back women in tech, you know. You should come to this panel, you might learn something.
now i’m laughcrying, you are too correct
PLEASE CAN WE HAVE A TECH CATEGORY AND ALSO A WOMEN IN TECHNOLOGY CATEGORY?
I work in tech and my department is made up entirely of women. Granted, there are only three of us, but still! All women! Sometimes I forget how lucky I am and how unusual my experiences are.
Yeah I work at a company where all of the top leadership positions except one are held by women, and we have a ton of women who do IT here in the office. It makes me so proud!
Can we just burn it all down instead? I'd rather just burn it all down.
but seriously, they had a panel ABOUT women in tech and it was 4 guys only? That sounds uber Republican, like the famous Congressional panel about birth control, casting director Darrel Issa.
And seriously — don’t we/you need to PROTEST, complain, make noise, demand change and apologies?
I just came over to the site right now cuz I needed relief after reading the latest selection of Included Ones and seeing that women are 2 of 16, well with shared credits we can stretch the score to 4 of 16 — and mine is a field thought to be taken over by women. And I know I should do some EFFECTIVE complaining but in truth – i don’t want to stick my damn boobs out. Cuz then I’ll never get in. ? Oldest trick in the book. sigh.
Also PS you’re great – and I didn’t realize how old this thread is… it’s so evergreeen!
I asked this before, but now that I accidentally found this tab again (I have, like a hundred tabs open and tend to lose a few now and then, rediscovering them months later) and it seems that my inquiry was probably deemed trollsome and purged.
Since I do have an itch and would like to have it scratched pseudonymously, I will ask again (though perhaps in a more sensitive manner)
Sincere question:
What is the benefit of allowing your coworkers know what you really think and really feel ?
It seems to me that doing so would be about as pleasant and useful as stabbing myself with a rusty syringe found in some decrepit ditch, but many women (and some men) I know seem to imply it is some great benefit/privilege.
So… why would you want to show you real emotions to your coworkers ?
As I have been working in technology field for around 10 years, so had seen that there are companies where all of the important positions run by women, It feels me so good!