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Submitted by Natalie Ferguson on Wed, 06 Aug 2008
"building up the female way of doing things"
Who knows what that is? All I know is that every group, regardless of it being women, geeks, ping pong players etc establishes a general 'way of doing things'. I think in the tech industry, there definitely is, I could list various details, but that's not the point. All I'm saying, is that if the tech industry was dominated by women instead of men, it would look different, and I want to find out and build that difference so that the entire community benefits from some diversity.
The reason I used my company as an example is that since it became female dominated, the culture changed immensely, HUGELY. It made me start to think that the text books and studies weren't a bunch of rubbish and that there actually is a culture here worth exploring, that provides an equally (if not more) successful environment for creating and growing startups and businesses.
"the reason why girls still shy away from tech is because when they go for it, they are expected to act like a guy"
Following on from my previous statement, there is no 'female way'. When you go to tech events or are even part of a male dominated company, there appear to be a lot more loud debates, self promotion and to be honest (although I know a lot of guys will jump on this, but I wouldn't say it unless I had experienced it more times than you could call freak incidents) Sexism. If you don't roll with the punches, you don't really relate to your companions and are always a little bit on the outside. This is not to say men are BAD, or that it ALWAYS happens, it's just not how I do things, and not how many girls/guys do things. (And I recognise many guys don't appreciate aspects of the current culture either).
Stephen, I'm not sure of your experiences, but I generally find that it is only the person in the room who feels uncomfortable that notices it, everyone else thinks the party's going great. "it smacks of sexism to me" - I find comments like that a little ignorant. I wonder if you have ever experienced true sexism, because in my experience, this is not it. This is a debate about females in technology. Comments like that are the kind that close down debate and are the kind I've heard many times as soon as women start to come up with our own ways of solving our own problems. What it boils down to is that there is a gender gap. What I find amusing is that mainstream tech events struggle to attract 2 females, female only tech events in the same city have 50 + attendees. Maybe it is because we are all a bunch of sexist pigs who are out to isolate men and get our own back. Maybe it is because of the reasons that we are trying to explain here.
"building up the female way of doing things"
Who knows what that is? All I know is that every group, regardless of it being women, geeks, ping pong players etc establishes a general 'way of doing things'. I think in the tech industry, there definitely is, I could list various details, but that's not the point. All I'm saying, is that if the tech industry was dominated by women instead of men, it would look different, and I want to find out and build that difference so that the entire community benefits from some diversity.
The reason I used my company as an example is that since it became female dominated, the culture changed immensely, HUGELY. It made me start to think that the text books and studies weren't a bunch of rubbish and that there actually is a culture here worth exploring, that provides an equally (if not more) successful environment for creating and growing startups and businesses.
"the reason why girls still shy away from tech is because when they go for it, they are expected to act like a guy"
Following on from my previous statement, there is no 'female way'. When you go to tech events or are even part of a male dominated company, there appear to be a lot more loud debates, self promotion and to be honest (although I know a lot of guys will jump on this, but I wouldn't say it unless I had experienced it more times than you could call freak incidents) Sexism. If you don't roll with the punches, you don't really relate to your companions and are always a little bit on the outside. This is not to say men are BAD, or that it ALWAYS happens, it's just not how I do things, and not how many girls/guys do things. (And I recognise many guys don't appreciate aspects of the current culture either).
Stephen, I'm not sure of your experiences, but I generally find that it is only the person in the room who feels uncomfortable that notices it, everyone else thinks the party's going great. "it smacks of sexism to me" - I find comments like that a little ignorant. I wonder if you have ever experienced true sexism, because in my experience, this is not it. This is a debate about females in technology. Comments like that are the kind that close down debate and are the kind I've heard many times as soon as women start to come up with our own ways of solving our own problems. What it boils down to is that there is a gender gap. What I find amusing is that mainstream tech events struggle to attract 2 females, female only tech events in the same city have 50 + attendees. Maybe it is because we are all a bunch of sexist pigs who are out to isolate men and get our own back. Maybe it is because of the reasons that we are trying to explain here.