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Cranky girl geeks

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

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5 thoughts on “Cranky girl geeks”

  1. Appppppplllllauuuuuuuddddddssss! 😉

    The one that particularly irks me is ‘Girls dont want to be technical’….. um… helllooo!?? 😉

    Hmm.. got me thinking about a virtual event for all the geek-girls I work with in SL… thanks!! 😉

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  2. Who says we can’t or shouldn’t do this geeky stuff ? It never ever stops does it ? In fact for over a century there have been women doing the geeky stuff around the world .. but they often got overlooked when it came to the recognition.

    I’ve just completed 35 years as a materials engineer in manufacturing & got the 25 year gold watch 10 years ago – moved from undergraduate cadet through to currently manager with responsibilities for a forensic engineering team, quality management team and laboratory admin group. The career has taken me to every state in Australia and to Japan and New Zealand. Loved doing it all … and have been into webpage design since 1996 (during a 12 year stint as a local government alderperson/councillor) before finally getting into wikis and blogs in 2008. And along the way produced a daughter (now 15 yrs), plus collected prizes for cooking and knitting … why not ??

    Just keep on doing what is your passion!!
    cheers
    KerrieAnne

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  4. I was at a conference late last year aimed at high school girls thinking about going into IT. The number one job aspiration we heard? “Games Programmer”. Not, secretary, not graphic designer, not web admin, not salesperson/marketer – games programmer.

    Totally stoked at that.

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