Comment Re:from a woman dev (yeah I'm posting anon) (Score 1) 545
I wish we could all correlate these stores, in some way, to actual companies. I don't deny that this awkwardness exists, but in twenty years working among a lot of women (and various nationalities, sexual orientations, and trans*) I have only heard of two negative stories from one close female friend in the late 90s and never witnessed any sort of this behavior. As just a completely rough guess, I would say a quarter or even a third of my colleagues are female. Their gender is never relevant. it is never made relevant. Their advise, contribution, and insight is never questioned because of their gender. They are at every level of the ladder from front desk secretary to security to janitorial to customer service to tech support to sales engineer to engineering and development to research to helpdesk to IT to human resources to management to CFO.
I'm not dismissing that it is a concern in some areas of the industry, perhaps. I'm not dismissing the fact that certainly some individuals have individual experiences that impact them (though I don't think those experiences can be said to certainly be constant for everyone). I'm just saying that I've been an adult working with adults in an industry where they all act like adults and it is difficult for me to get a real picture of where these places are in the tech industry that jobs are being denied based on gender, educations are being denied, promotions are being denied, or people with something to contribute are being told to shut up or ignored or something. Are these all young people in startups with no experience acting like its still a frat-house and sorority or something? I mean, a woman coder in (in my experience in this industry) would be about as much a curiosity to myself or anyone I work with as a coffee pot in the break room.