Ana Redmond launched into a technology career for an exciting challenge and a chance to change the world. She was well-equipped to succeed too: An ambitious math and science wiz, she could code faster, with fewer errors, than anyone she knew.
Source: www.latimes.com
Funny how that works. Companies really need to listen to we females. Our different perspective can often help, as the one example that was given for the woman who made the improvement on the website then got shot down.
I’m reminded of just a few years ago, when I was getting started in grad school, that I signed up for a mentorship program online that was supposed to be geared towards women in engineering and tech. When the person I was matched up with tried to talk to me, he shot down why I was even getting involved in technical communications. He thought it had no future at all, and questioned why I’d even get my degree in the subject. It wasn’t like he was encouraging me to go into programming either, but he wasn’t exactly encouraging. Glad I dumped him and the program and did my own thing anyway. But I still see those barriers in very subtle ways. I still don’t feel like I have much of a voice in matters. Even today, I was in a conference call about localization, and I told them that I study this topic on my own time, read the book (see my review of Val Swisher’s Global Content Strategy), so I do have a good idea of what I’m talking about, and I was trying to encourage a top-down look at globalization instead of the bottom pushing up from local to global.
Anyway, I think they heard, but I don’t think anything is going to be done about it, but I can say that I got it off my chest, at least. Was it because I’m female? I’m not sure. But I do know that women are not considered as smart very often in tech stuff, and it really burns me.
What about you? What are your observations in the work force?
–techcommgeekmom
See on Scoop.it – M-learning, E-Learning, and Technical Communications
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