there's something off to me about putting all the 'women in tech' in a room and making them feel special, sectioning them into too comfortable spaces, breeding too special treatment so they then milk the identity by 'being a hot girl in tech.'
i admit, i milk those identities for the perks. i identify as a 'woman in tech' to get in diversity programs and beat the odds of being a normal applicant in the pool of potentials. but do i really deeply associate my identity and values around the fact that i'm a woman? do i really intentionally 'other' myself so that i could convince myself i deserve special treatment because i'm different?
if we really cared about promoting gender equity then it wouldn't matter what gender people were in a board room – we wouldn't even notice the differences and wouldn't need to point them out. but i've gone to meetings were i was called out for being the 'powerful woman in the tech' and that draws attention to me being different and not equal to the others.
celebrating 'how many wonderful women we have gathered together' is the problem.
it’s like saying 'they are successful' and are a girl and so it makes them more special.
like obama is the president and 'wow he's also half black that makes it even more unbelievable.’
it’s not that despite what he naturally is that he is special and defies the norm. what would be ideal is that he’s special without needing to point that part of his identity out.
for a lot of this year, i felt like i needed to feel special for being the only girl in the room. i wanted to be different and it only fed my fire. i surrounded myself with guy friends. it made me feel powerful to be the only one in the room that was a girl. i was special and was good enough to blend in as one of them.
but i didn't realize this only undermined myself.
earlier this year, some guys told me to change my profile picture to the hottest picture of me. i listened to them. it worked. i got more followers. but inside, it felt dirty. it felt like i was using this as bait to reel in people, and people cared about my opinion because i was in the upper quartile of what a girl thought, and not in the upper quartile of thoughts holistically, regardless of identity group.
if part of the hidden agenda of a design studio is by recruiting attractive asian girls to appeal to the target audience of men, that is a viable tactic that appeals to our primal instinct. recruiters for tech companies are often pretty girls from sororities to appeal to the target audience of male developers. but a part of me feels like this feeds into the problem, of accepting and exploiting this current state of the world rather than trying to untangle this deeply entrenched problem of gender inequity.
i want to have my thoughts acknowledged, not because i'm a girl and despite being a girl, but to be heard regardless of what pretext in which i’m viewed. i want my thoughts to be valid even while they are separate from my identity. i want to be heard because of me, and not because i'm a girl.
related things
brotopia spills all the tea on gender inequity in tech
this article on “girls are as good as boys at math”
grace hopper and rewriting the code have me thinking about this more since on one hand they are very helpful resources, but on the other i feel like this category of relating on gender identity is far too broad
this video on incels by contrapoints
i tweeted this in the summer and some of these comments are concerning
Ahh i love this little reflection, happy for you and all of your achievements. As someone who is a bit further down the line of the working world, I would give an encouragement to use all the titles and designation as much as it benefits you :)
There's no need to feel bad about it, you have earned your place today. Even when you think there are no biases played in others' accomplishments, especially historically represented demographics like male, white, etc. there are a lot of privileges and windfall they have received to get where they are. Go you!!
struggling to embracing my identities while feeling trapped in them... thank you for sharing your thoughts