Importance of Women in Tech, Internet, and Web Development

submitted by metal from self.GenderCritical

Hello!

After the recent reddit feminist censorship, I have not been able to shake the feeling that it doesn't stop there, even though I have more hope more than I have had in awhile. (Thank you JKR and to the UK women showing up!)

I am posting as a call to all women in tech, programming, digital law, and computer sciences who understand the importance of our sex pushing forward as women in tech while not being silenced or shut out for simply speaking about the (very complicated) reality of sex based biology and how it affects our personal experiences, the questions we ask, and the way we support those around us. You are not alone.

  1. Are there any online spaces for gc women in tech, programming, etc?
  2. Are you a woman in tech who this resonates with? Do you have any ideas how we immobilize to protect women in tech, women only digital spaces, sex based statistical representation and tech scholarships for students entering the gender gap?

I went through a full stack web development bootcamp a few years ago. I have since changed my career path but still feel very passionately about technology and coding. After scouring the internet for a specific type of help, I thought I would reach out to this audience and see if there are any known groups, boards, subs, that would welcome a (slightly rusty) female dev! (fyi, I'm trying to clean, config, and revive my dev environment... )

[A bit about me] I have been learning and researching all sides of the arguments on GC - Originally coming from a place of 'women are women' ally, I have hit my 'peak' a few years ago, but lately I have been growing more and more concerned for all humans who are being stepped on, silenced and harmed at the hands of gender ideology.

As the world uses covid19 as an authoritarian free pass, the responsibility of women holding space in digital infrastructure needs reinforcement. More women working together and more women who understand the laws that protect the right to rational and respectful conversation.

If this speaks to you, I appreciate your input! :)

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[–]TurkishCoffee 11 insightful - 1 fun11 insightful - 0 fun12 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

So, Dev here, many years. and more than one degree.

  1. GC Women? not that i know of. Tech is super left and super woke in some of the worst of ways (look, I'm classical liberal/left libertarian, I'm not a giant fan of authority figures, fanatics, or restricting free speech or rights of the "wrong" people because it goes bad places). Women in development at least, ie programming/comp sci, devops. IT side of it (the other aspects of tech I would know less), are NOT real common. The numbers have been dropping for years. And the only way we get space is to do it under the most progressive of terms -which means trans inclusive. There's also an unusually high rate of transwomen in this field, who often started male, and they are the sort prone to the worst sort of dramatical hissy fit tantrums if they don't get their way.
  2. I resonate with it, but you're treading on dangerous ground in tech. So, James Damore was an asshole of a man, who got things a lot wrong. but he got one thing right- there are biological differences between men, and women. While he wanted to go off that lady-brain keeps us from being developers, the backlash was worse - and it wasn't just me that noticed. Any notion that there are sex-based biological differences in men and women, and that might impact our day to day lives or experiences getting into tech, got canned hard. Lest you be like James Damore. That lawsuit got settled too because Google also pretty much shot themselves in the foot internally with some of their "diversity" (not the real sort, the sort where you mock people you dont like and dimwittedly put it in a corporate system that can be reviewed and later subpoenaed by the courts).

between the extreme postmodern progressive tendencies, and the absolutism that there can't be any difference in men and women without either some asswipe turning it against women into sexism or everyone else refusing to have a nuanced and thus pretending it doesn't exist, leads to a very anti-GC environment.

In short, I don't think we can mobilize anything to protect women in tech, or digital spaces, or having sex based annnyyyyything until society at large realizes how regressive and insane the whole thing is. Tech is going to be the hardest place to do a damn thing because of those factors, and how few of us there are.

Not to be mean, but a lot of women left the field for others they enjoy more (no offense, really. it just happens a lot), leave to go become mothers (again. this is fine, but it happens more often), or never entered the field to start with. There aren't enough of us, there truly aren't, to get a dedicated GC woman space even if we wanted. Half the time we're lucky to get a dedicated trans-woman friendly "woman" space as long as we team up with marketing, sales, or other non technical roles at "tech" companies. (I confess, only at once company have i enjoyed those meetings and outings, and usually skip them these days. they also rarely are more than an interesting social club because the roles are so different between the different parts of the company).

Sorry to be terribly negative about this, but, tech is not going to be the place to launch GC movements and spaces from. I think tech women would join non-tech centered spaces that are GC. Honestly though, GC isn't..GC isn't required as an ideology for a tech-focused space. We all tend to tunnel vision a little too much. It'd just be nice for there to be less sexism if your usernames are female or less brogrammer behavior when females are trying to learn in a male dominated space- I've found it's less the corporations and companies and more the programming "community" and open source spaces. GC wont get us that directly, either (i mean, i'm not saying it wont benefit us in general, but it's not going to get us what we need from tech the most for women). I'm seriously considering trying to figure out how all of my usernames read "female" and trying to hide my gender online completely on a new github/gitter account. I think things will go a lot better if I do - while retaining my actual identity of course in my day job and on my professional profiles. Which you better believe, are apolitical as possible and not a shred of GC statement in them.

[–]ThisReality 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I don't buy the "James Damore was fired for saying there are biological differences between men and women" argument. He was fired because he put the idea out there, in an internal manifesto for all his coworkers to read, that women and minorities were less suited for STEM work than men. How did he think that was going to go over with his colleagues? I can't think of a place I've ever worked, including conservative companies in conservative areas, where his memo wouldn't have gotten him fired. Even people who agreed with his points would mostly know that you don't say that shit around people you need to work with.

[–]uroborosjohnson 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Yeah there's nothing in anyone's DNA that makes them less or more able to write code. The modern world is so far divorced from whatever conclusions people try to draw from evopsych bullshit. In fact, when female owned companies get beyond the initial funding hurtle, they often do quite well.

Also, someone here pointed out the irony that for all of TiM's talk of having lady-brain, they seem to congregate in fields that stereotypical "lady brains" wouldn't. Exaggerated brain sex ideology is a cover for misogynists, no matter what side it's coming from.

[–]TurkishCoffee 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

So, he was fired for a lot of reasons - frankly good ones. My point was, the backlash of him and his stupidity, made talking about biological differences - which aren't related to ones ability to do tech - in the context of tech impossible. I'm not saying he shouldn't have been fired.

The "wanting to go off about lady-brain makes us incapable" part was exactly what i was referring to. He took the concept of differences, and used it in terrible untrue ways. The backlash, then was to ban all mention of differences.

[–]uroborosjohnson 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I agree with you here but I honestly don't trust society to ever have a conversation about brain differences without using them to reinforce biases against women, which are typically so deeply ingrained people (including scientists) don't realize they have them

[–]candiedDagon 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I’m interested in all this. I’m a Compsci student. I was waffling on whether or not to focus on cyber security, and now see the importance of protecting free speech on the internet and have a renewed interest.

[–]TurkishCoffee 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Cyber security is neat. I never got too heavy into security but, i always wanted to. Never was sure back in the day of too many ways to learn things without also getting myself into trouble...I'm more of a security-aware developer (and it's shocking how many devs dont give the first thought to obvious security flaws. nevermind the subtle ones. Yikes). It's a really interesting (and rumor has it although I can't confirm really well paid) part of the field.

[–]anadventure 8 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 0 fun9 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'm a woman in IT and this is definitely a problem. Most 'women' in IT around me are actually my male colleagues who are wearing bras and changed their name to something feminine. They'll be getting the special support funding for encouraging women in tech now.

[–]onemoredaydream 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

They'll be getting the special support funding for encouraging women in tech now.

itsfreerealestate.jpg

[–][deleted] 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

Young women need to be encouraged to go into stem. The recent developments show this is all to clear. Wish I could consider it, but I’m too old and too poor.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I wouldn’t know where to begin; so self-teaching isn’t an option. Guidance costs money in tuition, which I can’t afford.

[–]lavender_menace 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Harvard has several free courses you could look into. Maybe there’s something for you too.

[–]unexpectedly_local 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'm tech-adjacent. I don't work on the tech explicitly, but I work at a hardware company. When I joined there were a few young women at the company. Covid times laid most of them off except the one actively into the hardware aspect. I think women just need to buckle down and get into the dirty bits. Explicitly work on hardware, software backend, all that kind of super male dominated aspects of tech companies. Too many women "settle" for frontend or webdev or get into similar positions like me as part of Office Admin, HR, customer support. In that position, there is no influence. From what I hear of my male coworkers, hardware engineers and data center people are hard to come by. When the pool for "fresh blood" is limited, they tend to choose more meritocratically. I will say that hardware does not seem as progressive, but it is an industry largely made up of boomer males so take that as you will.