About a month ago -- give or take a few weeks -- I was attending an online class when, while waiting for other classmates, my eyes caught on the pronouns of one of my classmates. It said, "She/Her/He/Him/They."
I thought, "Oh, right. Zoom now has a pronouns feature." And so my eyes went on and scanned the other participants in the virtual room, checking if any of them configured theirs.
I saw the box that was our instructor. And one of our class beadle. Then something caught my eye -- He/Him.
A sudden realization hit me as I decided to go look at the participants' list. While there were around two LGBTQIA+ in the virtual room, everyone else was male. I was the only female, and my feminine name definitely stood out.
i never really noticed.
To be fair, there were I think 3 of us girls enrolled in that class. It just happened that on that day, only I attended the online session. But it still bugs me -- how did the field of computer science end up becoming so male-dominated?
My supervisor at work and I, for a reason I couldn't really remember, got to talk during one of our 1-on-1s about the fact that I was the only female in our division (we're in the computer science field). And I was being honest when I told him, "I honestly didn't notice. I think I'm used to it."
I'm used to the fact that the room is full with men every time I attend technical conferences or meetings. Or that maybe more than 85% of the room is of men every time I attend classes. That all my instructors where men. That where I previously worked, there were only 2 of us women in a team of 10.
And I think the response I gave made him a little uncomfortable. He said it's a little jarring to know that I was so used to it that it didn't bother me more.
please don't point it out.
If anything, what makes me uncomfortable is when someone points it out. The first time I physically attended a bureau meeting, all the other divisions were very surprised to learn that I existed. They were shocked that in that team they all thought were men, I am at the very center.
"A rose between thorns," one of them said, and that particular comment unnerved me.
It made me curious if the fact that I existed changed everyone else's view of how my team and I work together. Did that fact make our work better? Did it make it worse? How did me being the only woman change anything?
And it bothered me every time someone notices and points it out, because it makes me think, too. It makes me question if I'm ever good enough. Or if I do just as great as my teammates did.
It makes me wonder if I should do more than just good enough to represent all other women in the field. They probably won't mind too much every time it's the "time of the month" and I'm just feeling sick and crippled all day, but it would trouble me because I don't want to give half-baked outputs. Noticing the situation makes me realize how some of my teammates seem to walk on eggshells around me. Or how I found it really difficult to connect with them.
but all these things make me want to become even better.
I was given an opportunity to participate in a project that empowers women and members of the LGBTQIA+ in the field of IT. I took the chance to enroll in many technical courses that I have always wanted to learn more about, get certifications in areas I never imagined before, and attend professional and personal development coaching.
It was during this coaching that I met other women in the same boat as myself.
One of them said to turn the situation into something advantageous to me. I still don't know how, but I've been doing my best to upskill myself more. There have been many initiatives to thin out the gender gap in information technology, and one of them is providing opportunities for career growth. I'm all for it and I'm going to take it.
the secret history of women in coding.
During the same 1-on-1 session with my supervisor, where we talked about the gender gap at work, he said the small representation of women in our field wasn't always the case before. In fact, there used to be a lot of women who worked a lot around computers before.
He sent me this article to check out and read, and my mind is blown. The article ended with this:
Will she look around, 20 years from now, to see that software has returned to its roots, with women everywhere? “I’m not really sure what will happen,” she admits. “But I do think it is absolutely on the upward climb.”
And now I wonder, too. Most of all, I'm hopeful.