I Don't Like Articles about Women in Technology
by Amy Hoy09/12/2007
Amy Hoy is a user interface nerd-designer-writer-educator-programmer-photographer-hyphenator extraordinaire.
Hi there. I'm 23 years old. I'm a geek. I'm successful. I'm a girl. And I don't like articles about women in technology.
But here I am, anyway, writing one. In part because the lady leading up the project is amazing and so I'd believe in anything she wanted to spearhead, and in part because I'm a thinking (read: opinionated) person and I've grown tired of watching the women in technology "conversation" go on the way it has.
The people who fuel that "conversation" are nothing but well-intentioned, I'm sure. But far more often than not, their good intentions get turned around, twisted, and come out all wrong. I think most mean to ask themselves deep questions such as, "Why is our industry dysfunctional?," "Why does my life kinda suck?" but end up, with something smaller, something that few would challenge: Where are all the women?
This is a topic that manages to avoid the real issues at hand completely, either accidentally or by design. This topic, instead, polarizes the industry and creates a counterproductive echo chamber of arguments and accusations, whining and invective. It's hard, they say, being a woman in a man's world. There must be somebody to blame. There must be a list of things that we can change to make IT woman-friendly. If only we could get more women, things would be better around here.
I don't blame these folks too much, though. The other questions are big and scary, and the answers are often correspondingly big and scary and may not reflect too kindly on those that ask them. It's human nature to try to avoid them. But, scary or not, there comes a point in your life where you must decide to tackle the big questions—and endure the sometimes-painful spotlight they throw on your life—or stick to the kiddie pool end of things, making waves but not really swimming.
Today, I'm inviting you to change your way of looking at the world. Today, right now, I'd like to share with you exactly how and why I've been successful when, supposedly, the odds have been stacked against me and my secondary sex characteristics. It's not romantic, I'll admit, but it works.
Drum roll, please. The secret to my success that I'd like to share with you is...
Take complete responsibility for your life, because nobody else will.
You can stop laughing now. No, really, that's it. I'm serious.
I truly believe that personal responsibility is one of the biggest goals towards which we should all strive. I believe that you only really grow up when you voluntarily take full responsibility for your own actions and outcomes, good and bad—and kvetching about women in technology is the antithesis of personal responsibility. No matter how you slice it, the arguments of something must be done; help must be given; someone must change!; or women fail because of something men do all feature the underlying assumption that someone else has power over you or insert-allegedly-marginalized-group-here. After all, a person must have power over you to grant you special treatment or quash your efforts. And that's just not right. I don't even mean that it's not morally right—it's just not accurate.
You have almost absolute power over your life's experiences because you have the gift of choice. You can choose to remember that a single circumstance is not an entire life; you can choose how you think about yourself and how you justify your successes and failures. You can choose to do the hard thing, the right thing, to level up. (Or you can choose to feel sorry for yourself and make your world small.) Even better, you are granted this opportunity a million times a day. If you screw up one day, or one hour, you can know there's another opportunity to take responsibility coming up very soon. We humans are basically choice-manufacturing machines.
Nevertheless, every day I see people—men and women—blame their "failures" on external circumstances that, they conveniently claim, are entirely outside their control: sexism, nepotism, inborn talent, luck, physical attractiveness (or lack thereof). They write off the success of others with the same excuses. These folks are shortchanging themselves to save emotional face. They're giving away their power to take meaningful action to improve their lives by refusing to claim any responsibility for it themselves. They're not victims of anyone or anything but themselves.
I won't lie to you: the path to real responsibility isn't all sunshine and unicorns. Being responsible requires complete honesty, and you may have to admit things about yourself that you've spent a lot of energy denying. And then you have to do something about it. And to do something about it productively, you must cultivate an attitude of humor and love towards your flawed human self—and believe me when I say it's far from easy. But it's the only way forward.
By this point, I know I've gone on way too long and probably waxed far too philosophical for most of you. But I'd like to leave you with a final, parting shot: Opportunities rarely just come to you—or anyone. If it seems to you like they come to me (or "talented" people), I can tell you that it's an illusion; if opportunities seem to slide to me more easily, it's only because I've left them a slick trail of sweat and tears and blood. The sum total of a person isn't a visible thing. You can't sense the lonely nights I spent in my basement with nothing but Photoshop and a burning desire to suck less, the hours spent obsessively editing articles, the forced socializing I undertook to overcome my shyness, or the humiliation I decided to risk to learn to speak well in public.
So I may be very good at what I do, and I may be financially and professionally successful, but it's not because I've got some special talent. At the end of the day, what I'm really good at is taking responsibility for myself, and all the rest has come from that. And none of it has anything to do with the fact that I was born a girl.
Return to Women in Technology.
Showing messages 1 through 14 of 14.
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Why should you be better
2008-08-08 07:44:27 everybear [View]
I thought your article was refreshing and thought provoking and your are right. I have been in the "industry" for a long time and wish I wasn't and that I had chosen something else. I have found that you have to be better than your male colleagues and if you mess up it is a much bigger deal. The point of equality is not having to be better than your colleagues to get the same response and to put up with your treatment and keep your mouth shut. I feel that the sexist attitude is getting worse not better. If I was a young woman today I would not work in IT for anything for the reasons above and because your skills become obsolete so quickly. Get out while you can.
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Do we live in the same world?
2008-01-02 17:21:47 Diyfilms [View]
I'm glad to hear that you don't feel discriminated against working in the tech sector. You and I must live in different universes because the world I live in thinks it's really messed up that approximately 1.5% of open source developers are women, that women bloggers are harassed and openly threatened for expressing their views considerably more then male bloggers, that women are significantly under represented as tech experts in the media and at tech conferences. Your attidue of just deal with it and move on and is disheartening.
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The situation has shifted
2007-12-25 04:25:28 aspiala [View]
These days, if a boss makes my life difficult or prevents me from getting ahead because I'm female, I can quit, and be certain of the fact that better bosses exist out there for me to find. However, it can be discouraging to walk into conferences where you feel like the lone freak from Planet of the Amazons visiting the Planet of Men Who Only Wear XL T-shirts. (Certainly not discouraging enough to make me give up or even consider changing my career, but enough to make it annoying, and wish that would change.)
I've been wondering about the gender ratio, and while women aren't actively prevented from joining in these things, the one thing that still seems to be the case is that girls simply aren't expected to be interested in tech, and it's still only a minority of parents who would think to take their daughters to expos titled "Toys for Boys". (I remember meeting women in college who didn't know how to operate a screwdriver!)
But as more tech documentation written by women gets strewn around the web, perhaps more young uncertain girls will also get the message that coding is a pretty gender neutral activity.
So I think what Amy's doing in practice, which is moving ahead with what she wants to do despite obstacles (which IS easier today, thanks to women who faced larger obstacles before us) AND then writing a blog where she shares information about the details of what she has learned and how she did it, IS helping get more women into tech.
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Ya but..
2007-10-13 11:30:28 maurbrown@gmail.com [View]
How come there are so few women in technology? And I'm not asking that because I'm scared of bigger questions. Geez, nice try. I'm asking cause I'm curious. Twenty years ago when I went to school for my computing diploma, there were equal numbers of men and women. Last year I went back, and there were only about 5 women in a class of 30 men. Why? I'm just asking, and it has nothing to do with being afraid to ask questions or endure uncomfortable insights about myself.
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Wrong argument
2007-09-27 16:23:45 jkauzlar [View]
It appears to me that you're responding to the wrong question that prevails in this issue. You're basically saying that technology is a man's world, so get over it. The real question is 'why is technology a man's world?' Is it because it's still in its relative infancy and the 'male-ness' hasn't been properly filtered out from the male-centric days of the 60's, or is it a part of the discipline, like, say, carpentry, that attracts the singular features of the male mind (if you submit that the male and female mind has differences)?
There's no question that any women who applies themselves as much as a man does can perform just as well, but I, frankly, know of few women who spent their teenage years studying manuals of operating system calls, or playing around with an obscure technology just for fun. I'm just speaking statistically, here.
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hubris
2007-09-20 11:45:50 monxton [View]
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Future of Women in Tech
2007-09-16 01:40:30 LaurieMac [View]
Loved this article. I think it should be seen as a huge step forward that today there are women in tech who do not feel that being in this industry is a daily struggle, that while the discrimination and stereotyping do still exist, it is not an insurmountable obstacle. Obviously, this is thanks to those who came before and laid the groundwork for this viewpoint to be possible, but to put out there that being a woman in this industry doesn't have to be a battle can only make it more appealing to young women looking to enter the field. While the numbers are still far from equal, and it is important for women to be more visible and get more involved, maybe it is time for women in tech to just be people in tech.
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Not a Binary Wrold
2007-09-14 06:13:19 dikelmm [View]
Does anyone remember what happened to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. years after slavery was illegal and Frederick Douglass walked the earth? I would say he took full responsibility for his life - but he got killed for it. He and Mr. Douglass were extraordinary men. Most people cannot live such lives. Were the Jews and others killed in the Holocaust failures? These seem to be extreme examples, but not all things that happen to you are within your control. Events such a those described above lurk just below the surface of almost any society. And they lurk in ours big time. Hatred, distrust, discrimination are the stuff of eveveryday life, even if you feel you have not experienced them. It is not a binary world - with either genocide and slavery or complete harmony. There is a flux in between.
There is a difference between making excuses and not trying or, on the other hand, working hard and smart your whole life and seeing little reward. This happens to many people in this world. You do not realize how fortunate you are, even if you are working hard.
If you think you have done it alone, without family, school, and other society support, you are wrong. But it is a young, successful person's perspective. It is based on your experience. But your experience is not the only experience. You are in the elite of this world, whether you know it or not. Some of your success is due to luck, or fate, or providence or God or whatever you choose to call it.
I would be interested in the perspective of a person with superficial knowledge of social history after 20 or 30 more years of living and learning something beyond IT.
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And now for something completely different...
2007-09-12 19:37:18 AmyHoy [View]
Gabrielle and Sdeckelmann, thank you very much for the compliments. :)
Gabrielle, I think the attitude thing is really the most important part so it's a good one for us to agree on! If we run into each other again sometime, I'd love to chat.
Sdeckelmann, I really smiled at "engaging and brave," thanks! Some day, if you get to know me better, you'll see it's really just stubbornness ;) But for now, I'll take it!
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Perspective?
2007-09-12 19:33:06 AmyHoy [View]
Shelley,
Am I condescending? Or are you condescending to me? Let me say, gently, that neither you, nor anyone else who reads this article, has any idea what kind of difficulties I've faced in my life. (You probably want to ask, do I then claim to know what every reader has faced in his or her life? No, but I'm not talking about — or to — a singular person, either.)
But I will say that my success isn't because I don't have, or haven't had, problems, stumbling blocks, or enemies. I'm successful because when I come up against a problem, I either fight it, or shrug it off and route around it. The vast majority of people I know who are truly successful have the same approach to life. I have a lot of anti-hero models for this in my life, as well, who have demonstrated to me the power of negative thinking and painting oneself as the victim.
There have been extraordinary men and women all throughout history who we know of because they flouted their traditional roles, dictated to them by societies much less forgiving than ours, and made it work. Many of them were not especially privileged. Many of them were uneducated, of the wrong race, or even born into slavery, or, as you may guess, female.
I'm not comparing myself to them, certainly, but I wonder what excuse we have to complain when people like Frederick Douglass have walked the earth.
I respect what you are trying to do, but I still think you're going about it the wrong way.
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choice
2007-09-12 17:31:59 gabrielle [View]
Hi Amy! I've been to your talks at OSCON and really enjoyed them. They're full of useful info & I love your presentation style. Glad to see you here.
I'm tired of certain aspects of "the conversation" myself, and I really appreciate that you brought up the subject of choice. While I don't agree with you on all your points, I think you are spot on with this one: "You can choose to do the hard thing, the right thing, to level up. (Or you can choose to feel sorry for yourself and make your world small.)" Choosing a positive attitude can go a long way, even though it is often the more difficult choice.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
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Refreshing perspective
2007-09-12 11:24:03 Selena Deckelmann | [View]
Amy,
Your writing is so engaging and brave. I've been to one of your talks - and it was fabulous.
My hope is that other women who share your perspective can speak up - maybe not about their experiences as women, but just about their experiences.
To your statements about individual responsibility, and I would add that "having a sense of humor" - which I know you have in abundance - is critical.
I don't know if you and I would agree about what (if anything) needs fixing in our industry, but I would love to talk to you sometime and find out.
-selena
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Perspective
2007-09-12 08:44:10 Shelley Powers |
[View]
Amy, you're 23 years old, and you're judging the entire industry and others experiences based on your own and assuming that people expressing concerns are somehow not taking responsibility.
Doesn't this come across as rather insular, and frankly, even a little condescending?
Consider that it is probably many of the "women in tech" articles in the past that have helped you achieve your success today, the same as it has been the hard work of other women to give you control of your body, as well as the vote.
Most of the women in tech articles in this series, as well as elsewhere, are not by women who are saying they're failing. Many are by women who are quite successful, but are concerned about the declining numbers of women, and that measures taken to halt this decline are failing. They're discussing these issues to get others to think on the problems, and push for solutions.
Even my own 'rants', as most people would call them, at those who put out, say, books and conferences with little or no women participating has some positive effect -- if for no other reason it forces them to look at their decision process and see where it has failed. And the decisions processes have been failing.
What frustrates me more than anything on this issue is the women in technology who have been relatively successful and don't see that the state of women in IT is a problem because they, you really, aren't having any problems. You speak out then, and give those who like things just the way they are, an excuse to continue business as usual.
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Introduction to Feminism
2007-09-12 07:42:24 jilly22 [View]
Please author and others read this:
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/the-faqs/faq-roundup/
IBTP, kthx
