naominovik: Ada Lovelace Day: being the only woman in the room

Naomi Novik (

naominovik) wrote,
@ 2009-03-25 16:31:00

Entry tags:

adalovelaceday09, otw

Ada Lovelace Day: being the only woman in the room
For many reasons which do not require exploring at this juncture (ps to justinelavaworm, I think you have a fairy of choosing unreasonably good wine and I both thank you and curse your name), this did not get finished yesterday in time, but I really wanted to say something for Ada Lovelace Day even if belatedly!

I have been the only woman in the room. By that I mean that I have been the only woman coder (or close to it) in a lot of technical work environments These were actually quite good environments, on the whole, and being the only woman in the room did not mean for me being picked on or harassed or ignored. But even though people were not actively being jerks in my direction (and unfortunately this is not the case for many women in tech work environments), there were still a lot of small, hidden costs to being the only woman in the room.

It meant the whole room was set up for and full of people who in a really key way were not like me. And even though in many ways the room happened to suit me and I enjoyed hanging out in the room, it wasn't enough. Like most people, I also needed and wanted to be an active member of communities that had more people who were like me.

And the tech industry doesn't do very well for people who have multiple priorities, so that is a huge barrier to entry that reinforces itself. If you don't see anyone like you in the room, and you have to be in the room all the time, staying means being singular and alone. That is tiring in ways I often didn't even realize myself, except with time and distance, looking back. (And I would bet this experience also goes for a lot of POC who come from communities not represented well in the tech industry.)

This is the step past wanting a room of one's own. A solitary genius can make do with a room of her own, but we are social creatures, and what most of us want and need to be productive and happy is to work within a community of our own.

The amazing thing for me about the OTW's tech and systems groups is that this is exactly what we've built and are building, together. It is a community that feels designed more humanely, where it is understood we have other work and other needs outside the room, and where we are welcome to come in and out; where we can share our confusions and fumbling and ideas in the name of getting to the best endpoint, to try new things on our own without having to be instant experts.

And now I have a whole slateful of tech heroines filling this new room, including each and every one of the women in the OTW blog post, which also links to a bunch of their individual heartening and brilliant posts.

And to pick out one among them, who was also a hero for me personally long before the OTW was even an idea: jadelennox was the first tech geek woman I ever worked with professionally. She showed me how to patch cable and let me jump in and muddle around with systems work and hacking even though I'd been hired for a nontechnical job on the strength of my English major; she let me ask many stupid questions without ever once making me feel stupid, and all around helped put me on a path of confidence that I could figure all these things out. And these many years later she was willing to come aboard to build the OTW Systems team and get us up and running. \o/ Because of her, I wasn't the only woman in the room at my first job, which made a huge difference for me.

I will also hugely encourage anyone who's thought a little wistfully that it would be cool to know how to code but felt it seemed impossible to read zooey_glass04's amazing Ada Lovelace Day post, and to think about volunteering too!

In other exciting news, I am now on twitter also, where I am about to go off and link this post. :)

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interactiveleaf
2009-03-25 08:52 pm UTC (link)

I have been the only woman in the room.[...]It meant the whole room was set up for and full of people who in a really key way were not like me.

I actually have no idea what you're talking about.

I'm an adult woman, and I have often been the only woman in the room. I've worked in technical jobs in male-dominated fields. I was a gamer geek before gamer geekiness was cool (or mainstream, or populated by women.) Hell, I spent a brief stint in the Boy Scouts as a girl (I got kicked out of Girl Scouts for [redacted].) So one would think that my experience would parallel yours, but it doesn't.

I think that the difference may be that I don't regard the differences between men and women as fundamental. The people I was in a room with were different in details (which included plumbing) but, to me, the differences were all nothing more than details.

Possibly I've just been more privileged than I know. Possibly I just have never even recognized the issues that others see clearly. (As I am a teensy bit autistic, with the social skill and awareness flaws that tend to go with that, this is quite plausible.)

As for the rest, I would say to anyone who wants to learn anything--nothing is *intrinsically* hard to learn. It's a matter of learning the steps. Some things have a LOT more steps to absorb, and for these complicated things, retention ability comes into play. But overall--if you want to spend the time, you can do it.

This is a lovely post, and Ada Lovelace is one of my heroes, and you linked to a great post as well. Thank you.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

kira_snugz
2009-03-25 09:30 pm UTC (link)

*high five for girl- boy scouts*!! though i didn't get kicked out, i got sick of the fact that when we went camping, we set up our tents inside schools, no matter if it was lovely outside. and we weren't ever allowed to have fires (and by that i mean outside the schools) or do anything fun.

i think every female boy scout had different experiences being the only girl. i had an older brother in my troop who would protect me from teasing from most of the boys, and then belittle me himself. he ended up quitting, and i eventually made patrol leader. Which was weird and lonely and made me feel like a bitch, no matter what i was trying to get my patrol to do.
so then i talked a bunch of girls into joining.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	interactiveleaf 2009-03-26 12:01 am UTC (link)
	high five backatcha for the image of setting the school on fire. I like you. :) (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	kira_snugz 2009-03-26 01:56 am UTC (link)
	i'm good at setting things on fire. unfortunatly for me i have not quite gotten this power under control. Thankfully the guys at the firehall love me/my baking and are very happy to rescue my house on occasion. and take me camping, because they are not so good at lighting fires. lol (Reply to this) (Parent)

	fires lauradi7 2009-03-26 01:09 am UTC (link)
	How odd, and unfortunate. I came from a background in which the Girl Scouts were smug about being able to start a fire that lasted with only one match, while the Boy Scouts we knew used lighter fluid and no particular skill at all. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: fires

kira_snugz
2009-03-26 02:01 am UTC (link)

ohh we weren't allowed lighters/fluid. We had to be able to light a fire with three or less matches, less than 2 square inches of paper, in all four seasons, and during rain/snow (with dry kindling, and damp wood)

in girl guides we only talked vaguely about fire. Usually we we had to learn campfire songs.

we had a routene in girl guides that involved crafts, feild trips , and we rotated crafts nights and field trips to the same 4 places every week, then threw in a games night once every two months. it was slightly stifling.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

tacky_tramp
2009-03-26 12:00 am UTC (link)

To me, the difference is this: Our society treats men and women differently. A man has not walked through the world and been treated like a woman (which involves being on the receiving end of a lot of sexist crap, obviously). A woman has not walked through the world and been treated like a man (which involves heaping helpings of male privilege). If you're not tuned into that difference of experience, that's good for you in that you're not noticing people shitting on you for being female, but it's also bad for you in that you're not noticing people shitting on you for being female. :)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

linjes
2009-03-26 04:29 pm UTC (link)

Yes -- men and women are treated differently -- and neither male nor female has walked in the other's shoes. Which means possibly the view presented of "heaping helpings of male privilege" may not truly exist -- nor may the implied "receiving end of a lot of sexist crap".

Individuals frame the situations and then define events within the frame they have created.

When my son was diagosed with a learning disability there was a book recommended by the therapist. The theme of the book overall was that people see what they expect to see, and people behave towards others the way the other expects them to [in other words each individual creates a frame in which events happen and it is their own created frame in which they define/interpret events which happen to them].

Perhaps interactiveleaf's frame is more accurate? She did not EXPECT to be "shit upon" because she was female and therefore wasn't?

(Replies frozen)(Parent)(Thread)

	tacky_tramp 2009-03-26 05:04 pm UTC (link)
	I'm really not interested in debating whether or not sexism and male privilege are just a matter of "perspective" and "frames." Have a lovely day. (Replies frozen)(Parent)

	Freezing this thread naominovik 2009-03-26 05:17 pm UTC (link)
	There are multiple frames of experience, and our expectations do influence the treatment we receive, as do many other factors. However, if you want to use that as a justification for dismissing other people's experience of prejudice and privilege as somehow their fault or inaccurate, please go elsewhere. (Replies frozen)(Parent)

naominovik
2009-03-26 03:11 am UTC (link)

Clearly there are people out there who *are* wholly comfortable being the only "X" in a room and sounds like you are one of them. I think I myself am a lot more comfortable with it than the average person, and count myself extremely lucky for it; that's how I was able to build the skills to help create the OTW and coders space.

But to steal from Bella Abzug, the struggle we face today is not whether an unusual woman can be comfortable in the tech world -- it's whether a female schlemiel can be as comfortable in the tech world as a male schlemiel.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Interesting

auroramama
2009-03-26 12:17 pm UTC (link)

Or who don't identify themselves as an X in a significant way. Sometimes, for some people, the distinction in question isn't the important one.

I do identify as a woman, though. I've noticed being the only woman in a room in a fairly mild way, perhaps a bit less marked than in your post. I've been fortunate, and I'm well aware that I've been privileged in most other ways.

For what it's worth, the only times I've felt really scared and isolated is when I've been the only person in a room who is obviously intellectual. Intelligent people are everywhere, but there are places and times where it's best not to show it. I'm very bad at not showing things.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Interesting naominovik 2009-03-26 05:23 pm UTC (link)
	Or who don't identify themselves as an X in a significant way. Yes, although I would bet it would also matter a lot whether other people in the room identify them as X. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Interesting auroramama 2009-03-27 01:14 am UTC (link)
	Brr. Yes, it would. "Their faces, O my sisters! Their faces filled of light!" (Reply to this) (Parent)

naath
2009-03-26 12:27 pm UTC (link)

I'm generally comfortable being the only person-with-female-genitals in the room, but *only if* there are other people in the room who are like me in ways that I consider important. I would be very unhappy if I were forced to be in a room with a bunch of Conservative Christian Straight White American Men for instance.

But I think I'm a bit weird as female people go, so I wouldn't want to generalise.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

marared
2009-03-25 09:26 pm UTC (link)

I've been in technology retail for almost ten years, and for the first several years, when I went to regional meetings for the tech associates, I was literally the only woman "in the room" as well, until the computer-literate kids (including the girls) born in the mid 80s started graduating from school and entered the workforce. I never felt a disconnect with my coworkers or my fellow tech guys, though - on the contrary, they were thrilled to have a girl around who was fluent in Geek, Pop Culture, and Vulgar Jokes. Then again, I've had a lifetime of being the outsider who never really fit in with any particular group, so I've never had to have a group of people who are Like Me.

Customers are another story. Several times a year, I'll pick up a phone call and the customer on the other end will say in a very snarky/impatient tone of voice, "I ASKED to be transferred to someone in ELECTRONICS." "I *am* in electronics; what can I do for you?" "...oh." Or the man who bet my cashier ten bucks that I wouldn't know what I was talking about with regard to networking products. (he lost.) Or the man who refused to talk to me altogether because I was female, and demanded to speak to one of the male associates, and stomped out when none of them knew anything about tech and referred him back to me. *facepalm*

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	doriscrockford2 2009-03-26 11:28 am UTC (link)
	I have to say your icon just made me splurt my coffee. ;) (Reply to this) (Parent)

casirafics
2009-03-25 09:54 pm UTC (link)

Sometimes I wonder what the hell is up with my corner of the world versus the rest of it. I've never been the only woman in the room. For a while there I was on a team of tech producers with four girls and our token male (seriously, we all joked about it), reporting to a female engineer. These days I report to a female info architect. There was one guy in the middle, but given that he's gay, it still kept the geek stereotype meter dialed pretty low. ;) my coworkers at the time? Three women.

I count myself both lucky and slightly bewildered every time the topic of being the only woman and dealing with the issues pertaining thereto comes up, because, uh... where are you people? Come over here! We have cookies!! ;)

(Reply to this)

(Screened Post)

	naominovik 2009-03-26 03:06 am UTC (link)
	I'm sorry, I don't allow unsigned anonymous comments (nontrivial ones anyway). If you'd like to post again signing your words, I'll unscreen your comments again, but until then this thread will be screened. (Reply to this) (Parent)

cavaticat
2009-03-25 10:06 pm UTC (link)

You were just on NPR! And you, madam, are on the right side of justice.

Here's what I wonder: what if, upon buying a physical, tangible book, or even a Kindle copy, you received some kind of DRM unlock key? Granted, people could share them, sell them, steal them, etc., but if it works for just about every digital product worth its salt, why shouldn't it work for books? Consumers could pay, I don't know, .50 more or whatever, pay for the right to copy the book, essentially, and then you, the author, could be fairly certain that the folks using the text had already paid the full purchase price of the novel.

Maybe a stupid idea. But an idea, in any event.

(Reply to this)

mbarr
2009-03-25 10:18 pm UTC (link)

I'm in tech. SA, in fact. I'd love to have more women around, as it makes the whole room a happier place. We can't even manage to find female SA's, though. We have 2 coders that are female, so that's working, at least a bit, but no one on the systems teams.

We've had 1 applicant in the past 2 years that was female. She got an offer elsewhere before ours... but we're just not seeing the folks applying. I'm on the board of national SA nonprofit, and we've discussed it a tiny bit, but welcome thoughts. There just aren't enough female SA's, and many of those that I know have left the field.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

naominovik
2009-03-26 05:32 pm UTC (link)

Well, to be wildly self-serving, you could join the OTW Systems team and help mentor new volunteer sysadmins! :D I don't know if that would lead you to potential hires for your own company, but you would at least be helping create more potential hires in the world at large.

Or if you'd pass along to others on your board or in your SA org that we are always looking for new volunteers, either experienced sysadmins or fledgling ones who might want a welcoming safe space to practice in and learn in, and a cool project to contribute to, that would be awesome, and that one of the things we really want to do is help encourage and mentor new volunteers who are much more likely than not to be women.

It's frustrating, as one of the things that gets in the way of that is that we do suffer from a shortage of sysadmins and coders, and so very often we end up struggling to carve out time for mentoring, but it is our ambition to work towards that goal, anyway.

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	mbarr 2009-03-26 06:27 pm UTC (link)
	Well, as long as you need a linux SA, I'd not object to helping. You'll have to point me over there.. I'd want to look at what they need to do, but this isn't necessarily the right place to ask those questions. (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	naominovik 2009-03-26 06:36 pm UTC (link)
	Hey, that's in fact exactly what we need (we run Debian). \o/ Just drop a line to volunteers@transformativeworks.org and let us know what you're up for doing, and they will hook you up with our Systems team to answer any questions you might have. arrow00 is the chair right now, I'll let her know you are potentially interested. :D (Reply to this) (Parent)

	holyschist 2009-03-25 10:18 pm UTC (link)
	Thank you for making this post--I like men just fine, but I understand the need for gender-balanced and primarily (or only) female spaces as well, and while I'm rarely the only woman in the room in my field, its male nature can be very frustrating at times. (Reply to this)

majkia
2009-03-26 12:11 am UTC (link)

I was the only woman in the room more times than I can count. I joined the Air Force in 1971. I was nearly always the only female officer around, and was the second female ever to graduate the programming school for officers that year ( the first woman graduated about 4 weeks ahead of me). My entire 20 year career was mostly me and a ton of guys, most of whom were fighter pilots, and who drove me mad.

(Reply to this)

	inkasrain 2009-03-26 03:48 pm UTC (link)
	I apologize for interrupting an erudite and significant conversation, but... Hurray for twitter! (Reply to this)

Something of Interest (Perhaps)
(Anonymous)
2009-03-31 01:50 am UTC (link)

Mrs. Novik, I am a big fan of your Temeraire series books. I find them fascinating and interesting, able to intrigue me in many ways. I have therefore made myself a site based on your series, a kind of gaming via blogging/typing. It's quite interesting and if you happen to have any time, I hope you might stop and take a look.

The website is http://z8.invisionfree.com/temeraire. I hope you are not offended or disappointed in any way of my site, it's merely for some fun between people.

Thanks again and eagerly awaiting book 6.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Re: Something of Interest (Perhaps)

partofla
2009-03-31 01:57 am UTC (link)

(Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

	Re: Something of Interest (Perhaps) partofla 2009-03-31 11:54 pm UTC (link)
	Oh and it would be awesome if you left a message or something just to indicate you visited (if you do). (Reply to this) (Parent)

Tech for a long time

jmacleve
2009-04-01 02:04 pm UTC (link)

I fell into IT in the mid-80s, when PCs started to exist in business. The first one I ever worked on had a floppy and no HD. You swapped disks in and out to boot up, start Lotus 1-2-3 (which was about it for software at the time) and put in a disk to save your work -- all 5 1/4 inches.

Maybe I was just always in the right place at the right time, but I never remember feeling odd because I was "the only woman in the room"; it was harder being the only IBMer in a room full of Mac users (seminar on interoperability). :) Over the years, I did hardware and software setup, phone and desktop support, training, coding, server setup, cabling -- a little bit of everything.

I'm not in IT any more -- after being downsized (after almost 20 years in the field) I decided to switch tracks; I'm now doing graphic design; still using technology, but differently. Ironically, I'm still the "go-to" person for app support and I back up our IT guy when it's necessary. It's been fun!

(Reply to this)

	(Anonymous) 2009-04-28 09:23 am UTC (link)
	Sorry for going off topic, but I haven't found anything on when the 6th book will be released. Not that I'm asking for the exact date, but roughly, when will it be released? (Reply to this)

	jadelennox 2009-04-30 10:49 pm UTC (link)
	I just found this post this afternoon, when I was spending some time on the big Ada Lovelace compilation page reading people's posts. And I am totally awed. ♥ Also, if there was anything even slightly non-technical about you back in the day? I DO NOT REMEMBER IT. (Reply to this)

azurelunatic
2009-05-04 12:27 pm UTC (link)

I was the only woman in the room in high school electronics. Happily, I never felt uncomfortable, and I rarely realized how odd the demographic breakdown was at the time. It was only in retrospect that I realized that actually, there were no other girls in there.

Possibly akin to

marared's experience, I may be geek first, woman second. I do not recall an only-woman situation where I was made to feel uncomfortable because I was a woman. Unfortunately, the same did not always extend to my sexuality. I have almost never experienced an attack on my own sexuality no matter the company, but it's not just the male who does not realize that one should not talk trash about gay men (in specific or in general) in front of bisexual women.

When I first started night shift at my previous tech support job, the previous only woman on the team greeted me with somewhat desperate gratitude. It was not that the boys on the team were bad, or made her unwelcome or uncomfortable, it was just that it was nice to have a chat with someone else with ovaries from time to time. Our "girl talk" tended to be "let's escalate the spam to the team lead while he's on break" and "can you believe Trevor tried to eat the LED light-up ball" more often than it was about my romantic interests or her pregnancy/nursing, but it was still a welcome relief. Later, more women showed up on the team.

(Reply to this)

t_eyla
2009-05-09 10:34 pm UTC (link)

I'm very sorry to be abusing this post and going off-topic with this comment--I looked for a contact post, but if there is one, I was too incompetent to find it. :|

I'm a level one television production student at Southampton Solent University and am conducting a research project on how the web 2.0 network helps promote writers of fiction, both those published and those hoping to publish. I'd be interested in

a) how web 2.0/the internet has helped you publish/promote your work

and

b) whether you think the internet is an apt (and perhaps still widely ignored?) platform for writers to gather readers and promote their work.

I realize that your busy schedule doesn't leave you with much time, but I would appreciate it very much if you could spare a minute for this. If you would prefer to keep this off your journal, I'm also reachable via e-mail (teyla86 at gmail dot com) or PM.

Thank you very much for your efforts!

(Reply to this)

	lobelia321 2009-06-07 10:57 pm UTC (link)
	I like 'a community of our own' rather than Woolf's room of her own. I like it a lot. (Reply to this)

(Reply from suspended user)

thegelf
2009-11-14 12:31 am UTC (link)

I'll admit I stumbled across your LiveJournal looking for more Temeraire book 6 information, but that's not why I'm commenting. :)

I'm commenting because I too have been the only woman in the room. I have been for years, but it's been getting harder to deal with the longer I'm out of school. In college I was the comp sci department's token female for two years, and I was only minoring. I majored in physics, where I was usually one of two women in the room (but I helped hire a female faculty member!). I was a student sys admin/help desk staffer, and once again the only female. But while it was something to notice and giggle about, it definitely wasn't an issue. We were all brains there to learn, and the peripherals really didn't matter.

After school I was hired by a company that specialized in database programming, and I was one of two female employees. The company was very much an old boys club. The atmosphere was focused on making money, and lots of it. Their idea of camaraderie was getting sloshed. Not just drunk, absolutely plastered, and then bragging about it at work afterwards. I don't know if it was the lack of women which contributed to the atmosphere, or if it was the atmosphere that contributed to the lack of women. Like your experience, professionally it was fine. My competency as a coder was never questioned by any of my coworkers or clients, nor was I discriminated against or picked on.

Now I'm back at school for a masters in EE, and the politicization of gender is incredible. There's mutterings from male grad students that the female grad students are only funded because we're women. And killing that rumor is hard, because it's probably partially true. Though even if they did fund every woman grad student in the department, it would hardly make a dent on the number of men who were also funded, there are that few of us.

So far, for me, being the only woman in the room is fine as long as there's women outside the room willing to form communities, and money isn't involved. But I hear you on finding the room set up for others fundamentally not-like-me! I'm constantly asking them to reach things down from the top shelf. :)

(Reply to this)

(38 comments) - (Post a new comment)

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