I attended (one way or another) two events last week that got me thinking
The first was Girl Developers will Save the World - a session that had me a little confused as to whether that referred to me, or actual girls, i.e. those that are not yet legally classed as adults. The second was the Remarkable Women Twitter party the following day.
Today I was at the Girl Geek Meetup conference. I didn't advertise it much because I've said in the past I don't really agree with women-only events, and actually I felt quite uncomfortable telling you guys I was going to be there, knowing the majority of my readers weren't allowed to attend.
It's probably worth explaining why I went, so a) I can give you guys and excuse but b) conference organisers can see what people like me are looking for in a conference.
I discovered, through the power of the search words that lead to my blog, that there was an incident at JavaOne that once again opens the can of worms that is Sexism In IT.
This Makes Me Sad. I had a really positive experience at JavaOne. In fact, I would say it was the one conference I've been to in the last 12 months where I felt like my gender wasn't a problem - I even got away with wearing hotpants (tweed is business-casual, right??) without being mistaken for anything other than a developer.
Gah!! This is exactly what I was talking about - it's pink, it mentions shoes, and it's about as patronising as you can get.
Would the chart be different if your possible outcomes were Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Linus Torvalds? I bet for a start it wouldn't mention Jimmy Choos or choice of handbags. And it probably wouldn't be in baby blue either.
Let’s celebrate our IT women "Everyone" knows that there are more men than women in IT. That it’s a "boys" job. Not a lot of people know that the first programmer was a woman. Not a lot of people realise the number of women in IT is DECREASING. And has been since the 80s. In … Read more