I Am Not A Woman In Tech...
As some of you may or may not have realised, I am not actually a woman in tech... nor am I a woman at all! I can hear the shock from here. But I think it's time that we start celebrating and normalising women in tech roles. I am a big believer in equality, which is why normalising women in tech is more important to me than celebrating women BUT in order to get that industry equality, we need to celebrate the women we have and show the rest of the industry just how amazing women can be in a tech role!
I obviously can't speak for the difficulties and adversity that women feel day to day in the workplace or when trying to get a job; alls I can do is write about my experiences and hope it has a positive impact on the community! I have read and heard about some shocking questions being asked during interviews that have nothing to do with the person other than their gender
My Experiences
I've been in the web and software industry for over 10 years and I can probably count on two hands the number of women I've worked with and I could probably count on one hand the number of women in technical roles. The majority of women I have worked with, in an IT department, have generally been Business Analysts or Project Managers. Were they good at their jobs? I think every woman I've worked with have been exceptional at their jobs... maybe they felt the need to work harder whilst they were in a predominantly male environment but I like to think they were just very good at their jobs.
As I said, I've worked with very few women in technical roles; I am pleased to say that I've worked with more women in tech in the last 2 or 3 years than in the rest of my career combined and guess what? and here's a hot take for some of you... women make good software developers!
Are They Out There? Or Is The Stereotype Correct?
Within the 6 months or so I have thrown myself into the world of Tech Twitter and what an eye opener it has been... I've connected with so many exceptional and inspiring software developers and I am happy to say that a lot of them are women! Honestly, I could write a huge list of the women who's content I love reading, who's work I look at and think "I wish I was THAT good!" but then this article will just be a huge list of names haha! When I say it's been an eye opener, what I mean is that I was always thought a lot of women didn't have an interest in tech which is why the role is predominantly male but seeing the amazing people on Twitter, it really highlights the issues we have in the industry... but that's for another article :P
Like I said at the start of this article, I want to work in an industry where the right person is hired for the job regardless of gender but there needs some noise made about how fantastic the women in the tech community are before it becomes normalised
It's The End :)
Well that's alls I'm going for this topic otherwise I'll start ranting! I already follow a lot of great women on Twitter but I'd love to broaden that following... drop some Twitter handles of women that I should be following on Twitter in the comments section :)
And then my last request... lets spread a little positivity and tell one (or more) female software developers how great they are :)
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