Discussion on "We've Been Here Since the Beginning"

Abbey Perini · 2022-03-11T15:54:37.811Z

I am tired. This is not a blog I anticipated writing. My plan was to let Women's History Month pass me by as much as possible. ...but I'm tired. From March 2020 to August 2020, I started learning to code basically in isolation. I talked about it a lo...

Indeed, we've been here since the beginning. Wow! One of the best things I have read in a while. Way to highlight the awful, inconsiderate, unfair and, honestly, just ridiculous things we go through as women, Abbey. Some of which I thought happened to me alone and usually don't say anything because I don't want to seem petty (shame on me). Thank you, Abbey, for this comprehensive, informative and very relatable article. Like you said, it's very tiring. But we cannot let any of this discourage us from doing whatever we want and building great stuff for the world. Go us! ;)

Thank you for the compliments and for reading! Sorry to hear you've had similar experiences, but glad this made you feel less alone. 💙

Instant follow. Thank you for writing this.

It's frustrating that my skin color and genatalia prevents me from being taken seriously - when others are just assumed to be technical.

I don't have a solution either, but I'm grateful women like you are pointing out this culture of othering.

I'm so sorry to hear you've had similar experiences. I definitely grew more and more frustrated with people trying to act like every example was a one off when it was clear others are assumed to be technical. :(

After I wrote this I saw Kristi's perspective: dev.to/kristiperreault/overcoming-our-biases-supp…

Her suggestions for what you can do to support women right now are so great!

Abbey Perini

Sweet, thanks for the rec

What a great article yes I agree the tech world and a lot of careers in general are dominated by men. It's this old thinking that is holding the world back. Too many people have this image of women staying at home while the men go out and work.

It's such a dated mindset which does not reflect the world that we live in. Hopefully this bias goes away in the future because our lives have changed a lot this century.

I tried to restrict this article to just debunking the stereotype that women are not suited to programming. Mostly because unlike other stereotypes affecting women in the workforce, it goes viral on Twitter like once a quarter and it's so incredibly easy to refute. Not to mention it highlights how easily a career can flip from women's work to men's work and how that flip is usually driven by high salaries.

It's easy to acknowledge that the "get back in the kitchen" mindset is prevalent and hope it goes away. It's another thing to think about what you can be doing on a regular basis to challenge it and the people who still cling to it. Women are being underpaid and driven out of tech every day, so we don't have the luxury of like ignoring it and hoping the pay gap closes soon.

Hey Abbey Perini, thanks for sharing your story with us... It's crazy (as I see in the comments) how easily the women can relate to your blog post...!

Let all of us be strong and connected! 🙌💜

What an excellent and eye-opening article Abbey Perini. I feel really sorry for all the things you had to abide by during your tech career. Luckily there are companies who are not looking at whether you are a woman or man but appreciate your knowledge and skills. I am also lucky as I work in such a company. 😊 Cheers, Miki

True - it does take creating an inclusive culture to make women feel welcome in tech. Unfortunately, the quoted comments weren't just said to me in a professional context and were all said to me by multiple people. We'll have to keep working to bring that inclusive culture outside of the companies where you can currently find it. That way women won't have to spend time trying to discern if it's a company with an inclusive culture and won't have to hear this kind of stuff everywhere.

The real question is how do we break this cycle of erasure and devaluation in and out of the workplace?

Completely agree Abbey Perini.

I will think about what can I do to aid women in tech. 😊

Reminds me of these couple of really telling moments in Robert Cringley's "Triumph of the nerds" where he goes from reciting damaging stereotypes about women in tech to almost immediately interviewing or referencing women in tech.

E.g. this moment, where he's saying "this is boy stuff!" and then the 30 seconds later he's interviewing Christine Comaford, CEO of Corporate Computing International, who is talking about relational database design... but first he has to ask Douglas Adams for his two cents? As if he's more qualified...

Or this sequence, where he basically spends a lot of time on the "Men love coding because women are illogical!" nonsense, then shows footage of women programming the ENIAC, and then cites Grace Hopper's invention of COBOL!

Some rather wild mental gymnastics must have been going on in the minds of every man involved in that documentary. Somehow it manages to reference so many moments when women were instrumental, crucial contributors to the history of computing, and yet rewrites history so as to erase women's place in it then and now 😡

AND STILL, as made evident in the comments on YouTube, computer science lecturers are still recommending this documentary to cohorts of budding programmers! As if it isn't feeding them a harmful script right from the beginning of their careers!

Infuriating.

You have put your views so honestly! I loved this article about discrimination based on gender existing in workplaces. It's true that a lot of work is still left to be done to create equality between genders and roles in technical fields. Thanks for taking us through the contribution of women in history of technology , ENIAC and IBM.

"male-dominated world" what on earth is that? And to think we're supposed to somehow do the work to break this bias when we weren't the ones to put it there in the first place is disturbing! I was the only female at the time in my technical analysis group, it was daunting, I had to leave for the sake of my mental health! I pray my daughters (when they're here) have a better time cause...💔

Sorry to hear about your experience! 💔

I loved this. Being a woman in a male-dominated world is exhausting. Being a woman in tech is even more so, I'd say.

It's crazy how I've experienced every single thing you've shared on here. I feel we're still far from breaking the gender bias, really hoping in the next few years these conducts aren't a thing anymore... but there's still so much work to be done!

So sorry to hear you've had similar experiences! I have been encouraged by the response to this, so maybe more people are willing to do the work!

Great article! Honestly people just need to shut up and let women work. All the grandstanding and trying to make some ass backwards comments ain't helping anyone. Like you pointed some of greatest advancements in computer science were made by women.

Discussion

We've Been Here Since the Beginning

Responses(10)

Recent in Forum

Search Hashnode

We've Been Here Since the Beginning

Responses(10)

Recent in Forum