March, 2009:

That was yesterday, though I didn’t know about it until today. Interestingly, you’d think I’d have heard about a day commemorating women in technology, given that I qualify, but then again, I really don’t care for this flag-waving much.

When I was a teaching assistant at UBC I had to mark an assignment where students had to write a short paragraph on a “woman in computer science”. They were given a list, with Ada Lovelace included, along with some female UBC faculty, and other women in various universities around the world. It was the throw-away question in the assignment, and rather dull most of the time to mark; though I was mildly amused by some students’ attempts at delicate political correctness in talking about a transgendered woman (at a university somewhere in the US). Can’t remember her name, but I recall her faculty page had a picture of her in a bikini (though sadly, nobody mentioned that).

It was also odd that one of the women listed, and written about, was the new wife of a family friend’s ex-husband. I marked those assignments with a sneer on my face, so as to show proper respect.

I have rather mixed feelings about “women in technology” organizations and events, which I’ve talked about before. On the one hand, I’m thankful that my boobs didn’t get in the way of me doing computer science, and that I still managed to pass math despite my lack of counting stick. And though it’s impossible to entirely avoid it, I’ve rarely felt like I was treated differently in my career (the few times being from older men, who knew the truth about how women really just want to be coddled).

There was the one event I went to years ago, where at the opening talk the organizer lady brought a few women up onto the stage and asked them to talk about how they had to overcome ill treatment or stereotyping to get to where they were today (as university faculty, or scientists, or whatever). And they all said that they didn’t have any problems like that. Which made me smirk, because obviously the organizer was trying to create some drama and a feeling of camaraderie for our “plight”, and failed. Next time, invite the older, bitter ones, eh?

In laughing at this, I should remind myself that Mom was “influenced” into switching out of Mathematics and into French back at Acadia University (Nova Scotia) in the early 60s. She was also nearly expelled for playing cards, and for leaving school grounds one evening to see an organ concert, so it’s only surprising out of context; but it still smells like crap, regardless of the flowers planted over it. Sometime between her and me, society decided it was okay for women to play with numbers, so there has been a change, and I should be grateful for that.

I was at a job interview back in January where the first interviewer, a human resources chick, was so overcome with excitement because I was a woman, and they had so few women at the company, so they were always hopeful when they were interviewing one, especially for a tech role. And I’m sorry to say that was a turn-off for me, for two reasons:

1. While I think it’s awesome that I am a woman and a database administrator, I don’t think that my ovaries are a reason by themselves to hire me, and
2. I am hesitant to work at a company with so few women in it.

It seems I lucked out at some of the companies I’ve worked for, where there were several women in IT besides myself, and at one place I think it was 1/3 women developers at one point. They were all really hot too, which is surprising because you wouldn’t expect it, or at least I wouldn’t. I’ve also been at a company where I was the only female, and while the guys treated me well enough, I wasn’t one of them, you know? So part of the reason I told the company after the interview that I was no longer interested was because I didn’t want to be the one girl in a team of all guys-of-a-different-culture-than-me-which-isn’t-known-for-its-equal-treatment-of-women. Also, they kept talking about how I’d be on call one week in four, and I believe I’ve already had that pleasure.

So I don’t really know if I’m for making some special celebration on behalf of women in tech. Yes, there were all the women long before me who had to fight for the ability to go to school and work in such masculine fields. Surely people like myself should be aware of them and be thankful. But I’d sort of also want it to be forgotten in a way, as if it were just normal for women as well as men to work in IT and the sciences, just like how we all shared classes in school and didn’t think anything of that. And it can’t become a non-issue if we make it special, and celebrate it, and make kids write papers about it, and make it a priority to hire women in technology and encourage girls to study computer science. I don’t want us to have skipped over equality and into overcompensation for past wrongs; I just want to be one of the guys, you know?