Caught up with Pia Waugh on the road trip to Yass the other day. We were talking about girl geeks and some really annoying things we keep hearing.
And we’re not the only ones. A number of my geeky girlfriends have been discussing women and technology for a long time.
We’re all a bit annoyed that we keep hearing messages like:
‘IT is a masculine area‘ – no it’s not! There is nothing inherently masculine about typing on a keyboard or fiddling with a screwdriver. Just because there has traditionally been a preponderance of men working in an area does not mean the job requires a lot of testosterone.
‘Girls don’t want to be technical‘ – actually some of us do, we like to learn how things work and tinkering with hardware and software. Some of us learn new programming languages just for fun or decide to learn all about Linux because it seems cool to us.
‘It’s OK to say you work in IT if you don’t know any technical stuff‘ – actually if you work in sales, marketing, HR, etc related to technology but don’t know anything about technology then you don’t really work in IT. You work in sales, marketing, HR, etc – and there is nothing wrong with that. How would you like it if all the geeks started saying they worked in sales, marketing, HR, etc?
Anyway we’re planning to do something about it – so keep an eye on things over at Silicon Federation, e.g. International Women’s Day 2009 lunch on 6 Mar 2009.
UPDATE #1: OMG it’s not just me! Check this out –
It still Sux to be a woman working in IT (Subtitle: Catherine has a rant)
UPDATE #2: Those people in the picture are from left to right – Pia, @Stilgherrian & @ApostrophePong