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I read clueless leaders keep blasting at the tech industry for not hiring women or treating them fairly. I've seen majority of women in tech companies do less work than their male counterparts. Then there are the women that really do shine in their positions but paid the same as male but they don't get promoted because they don't go to any social events or speak up at meetings.
The ones that do get promoted at tech companies are all about power, they are usually clueless about tech and all about how to manipulate the males workers. Their whole IT career is about how to get promoted and not have to do any tech work.
Another problem I see is that many female tech workers don't have the pedigree. They excelled during college but in a tech job you have to keep up with the industry. You can't expect the job to give you training for everything.
I can't recall the last time I can talk to a female IT worker about tech industry stuff unless she works as an account sales manager but then she only knows product offerings and not real useful tech conversation.
I worked with a female co-worker that expects to get trained on every new product or process we have. She is lucky to have received training but she just never gets it. The skillsets required at many tech jobs today is enormously difficult when management is clueless and they expect the workers to pick it up without training. The American way today is to give their workers "Cliff notes" about a new product and have them call the product support for free training.
In many dev ops groups, it has become more difficult for Proj managers to get projects done when women often take more sick days than men do or family leave and they have every right to do so. However, in the neverending demand to get things done quickly. Companies resort to hiring temps and contractors to come in and do the work. In the end, those women that haven't accomplished very much due to their family circumstances gets pushed down or weeded out.
Then there are the IT depts that are ran predominately by women. They make up majority of the IT dept heads and all the male workers do the heavy lifting and no promotions. Those places the men worked for awhile and leave because they realize it's a dead end job. Those IT depts don't work out very well unless they pay a lot in order to keep male workers that don't mind no promotions.
I was once in a group of 4 with 1 female who is pretty good at her application development work. We were all in crunch mode to deliver some deadlines but for some reason she's always able to get out of collaborative work and leave all the heavy lifting to the guys and avoid responsibility. It seems a lot of IT depts have this double-standard where the male IT workers have to perform the heavy lifting and the female counterparts are allowed to leave at 5pm and not participate.
These are my personal experiences at various IT depts big and small. If politicians like Hillary talks about fixing the problem with these divisive vote buying talk, it's not gonna work for me.
Mod comment, March 19: This thread has been cleaned up twice. Personal attacks and other inappropriate posts have been deleted. People, remember that it's fine to express a differing opinion on a topic, but NEVER insult the intelligence nor the character of another member. And NO gender-bashing on either side.
I am a female Electrical Engineers & have been working in this field for almost a decade now. There were very few women in my (or any) engineering class so obviously there are going to be less female engineers/technicians in jobs as well. I love maths & science but maths was not popular with women so a lot of them opted for biology & went into medical fields. That seems to be the norm. Maths is an essential subject for technical fields so obviously when you don't have women opting for maths, there wont be many women in technical jobs. Just like there are less men in nursing.
I read clueless leaders keep blasting at the tech industry for not hiring women or treating them fairly. I've seen majority of women in tech companies do less work than their male counterparts. Then there are the women that really do shine in their positions but paid the same as male but they don't get promoted because they don't go to any social events or speak up at meetings.
The ones that do get promoted at tech companies are all about power, they are usually clueless about tech and all about how to manipulate the males workers. Their whole IT career is about how to get promoted and not have to do any tech work.
Looks like most of your assumptions are from movies, sitcom stereotypes about women in technical field. Sure you might have come across 1 or 2 women like that but you cannot generalize the entire gender based on these limited examples. In my old job as well as my current job, there is only one other woman in my team. We have always been flexible with our schedules, work very competently & are always self-learning. We have done night shifts as well without giving any excuses. If a woman starts depending on a male colleague to carry her, I bet my life on it that he is going to expect "favors" from her. A self-respecting woman will work hard to prove herself in a male dominated industry & wont exchange favors. Its less complicated to invest extra time & work to reach your goals. So in short, no we don't sleep with our male colleagues to get help with our projects. Its mostly a boys club where they hangout after hours & bond over football. So women in the team feel isolated & ignored. Our customers assume we are not in charge & they go to our male colleagues, who often turn to us for answers. I am very visible at workplace so my mistakes are also magnified, compared to others. I walk a thin line & have to be alert, competent all the time. As for social events & speaking up at meetings, I have a hard time shutting up. Same with my other female colleagues. Women talk more than men, especially in social situations so its more difficult to sit quietly. There are plenty of female tech forums that meet & discuss the latest trends & exchange leads for new jobs, customers. I used to be a part of one & it was very active.
Quote:
Another problem I see is that many female tech workers don't have the pedigree. They excelled during college but in a tech job you have to keep up with the industry. You can't expect the job to give you training for everything.
I can't recall the last time I can talk to a female IT worker about tech industry stuff unless she works as an account sales manager but then she only knows product offerings and not real useful tech conversation.
I worked with a female co-worker that expects to get trained on every new product or process we have. She is lucky to have received training but she just never gets it. The skillsets required at many tech jobs today is enormously difficult when management is clueless and they expect the workers to pick it up without training. The American way today is to give their workers "Cliff notes" about a new product and have them call the product support for free training.
In my last job I worked mostly with 2 software packages because that was our niche. In my new job we offer more flexibility to our customers with software so in the last year I had maybe less than 10 free weekends when I was not learning a new software. I used even some of my vacation time to catch up on the new job. Its a jungle out there & if I slip, I will be replaced in a heartbeat. So performance reviews, promotions, bonuses are all about your abilities to keep up. Its a cut throat industry & everyone is on their own. I have to work more hard than my male colleagues because they share information amongst themselves over a beer whereas I am left out of the loop because I have to go home to cook dinner for my family so no happy hours for me. Information is easy to find so I always turn to the internet to keep up. About training, a profit-oriented company is not going to send a worker for a training that will be denied to the other workers. As you very well know, software training can range to several thousand dollars & loss of company time so if I am going for a training, its with a group of people signed up by my company. Most of the time I am handed a virtual machine image, a user manual for a new software & a deadline for the project. Sure I can ask my senior colleagues questions but their availability is very limited because of their own deadlines so I am on my own to figure out the project from a half baked user manual & youtube videos & online training courses.
Quote:
In many dev ops groups, it has become more difficult for Proj managers to get projects done when women often take more sick days than men do or family leave and they have every right to do so. However, in the neverending demand to get things done quickly. Companies resort to hiring temps and contractors to come in and do the work. In the end, those women that haven't accomplished very much due to their family circumstances gets pushed down or weeded out.
Then there are the IT depts that are ran predominately by women. They make up majority of the IT dept heads and all the male workers do the heavy lifting and no promotions. Those places the men worked for awhile and leave because they realize it's a dead end job. Those IT depts don't work out very well unless they pay a lot in order to keep male workers that don't mind no promotions.
I was once in a group of 4 with 1 female who is pretty good at her application development work. We were all in crunch mode to deliver some deadlines but for some reason she's always able to get out of collaborative work and leave all the heavy lifting to the guys and avoid responsibility. It seems a lot of IT depts have this double-standard where the male IT workers have to perform the heavy lifting and the female counterparts are allowed to leave at 5pm and not participate.
These are my personal experiences at various IT depts big and small. If politicians like Hillary talks about fixing the problem with these divisive vote buying talk, it's not gonna work for me
About the sick days, I think I agree with you as raising kids is often a mother's job so she has to bend backwards for it. I don't have kids yet so I hardly use my sick days but I don't know how it will change in future.
About heavy lifting, if I am carrying a huge box, I get offered some help from stronger male colleagues & I am not saying no. Just like I often bake cookies for them but not expect the same from them. If there is a birthday or a gift for a colleague, I am always given the task to arrange the gift or party. Some things are just natural to that gender & we cant change that. I don't expect my male colleagues to wear an apron & bake or buy a cake for someone's retirement so don't expect me to carry a 100lbs box. I am asking for help when needed & that's what team is all about. A lot of my male colleagues push me ahead when it comes to customer presentations. I am great with making pretty powerpoint presentations, dressing up for meetings & using humor in my presentations. So they are "using" me as well but I don't mind it. If you are talking about project heavy lifting, I can't recall even a single project where I had less work than my colleagues. The task assignment sheets are visible to everyone & the work load is always fair. I have had male colleagues leave projects in the middle for surgeries or their wife having a kid. Me & my team ended up taking extra work to support them.
I am not just speaking about myself but for other female techs out there as well. I have worked at different customer sites & I am a very social person so I tend to make friends easily & these topics about male/female dynamics come up. I also have a big network of other female engineers & techs. I admit we are less in number but we are striving as hard as anyone else to survive. Companies are not partial towards us at all. They are profit oriented & greedy. Our job doesn't end after we leave work as we are raising a family as well so I would say we are not afraid of hard work & do multi tasking all the time. If you had a couple of bad experiences, please don't generalize. Hillary is a politician & will manipulate people to support her. If I had a one on one with her, I can set her straight.
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Looks like most of your assumptions are from movies, sitcom stereotypes about women in technical field. Sure you might have come across 1 or 2 women like that but you cannot generalize the entire gender based on these limited examples. In my old job as well as my current job, there is only one other woman in my team. We have always been flexible with our schedules, work very competently & are always self-learning. We have done night shifts as well without giving any excuses. If a woman starts depending on a male colleague to carry her, I bet my life on it that he is going to expect "favors" from her. A self-respecting woman will work hard to prove herself in a male dominated industry & wont exchange favors. Its less complicated to invest extra time & work to reach your goals. So in short, no we don't sleep with our male colleagues to get help with our projects. Its mostly a boys club where they hangout after hours & bond over football. So women in the team feel isolated & ignored. Our customers assume we are not in charge & they go to our male colleagues, who often turn to us for answers. I am very visible at workplace so my mistakes are also magnified, compared to others. I walk a thin line & have to be alert, competent all the time. As for social events & speaking up at meetings, I have a hard time shutting up. Same with my other female colleagues. Women talk more than men, especially in social situations so its more difficult to sit quietly. There are plenty of female tech forums that meet & discuss the latest trends & exchange leads for new jobs, customers. I used to be a part of one & it was very active.
I worked for one of the largest financial company in the US, just about every women in IT working there is looking for that lucrative non-hands on IT job. I'm not generalizing, this is my accounts based on over a dozen year of working experience in the NYC area. I've met some very good female IT workers but the majority of them are as I described.
Quote:
In my last job I worked mostly with 2 software packages because that was our niche. In my new job we offer more flexibility to our customers with software so in the last year I had maybe less than 10 free weekends when I was not learning a new software. I used even some of my vacation time to catch up on the new job. Its a jungle out there & if I slip, I will be replaced in a heartbeat. So performance reviews, promotions, bonuses are all about your abilities to keep up. Its a cut throat industry & everyone is on their own. I have to work more hard than my male colleagues because they share information amongst themselves over a beer whereas I am left out of the loop because I have to go home to cook dinner for my family so no happy hours for me. Information is easy to find so I always turn to the internet to keep up. About training, a profit-oriented company is not going to send a worker for a training that will be denied to the other workers. As you very well know, software training can range to several thousand dollars & loss of company time so if I am going for a training, its with a group of people signed up by my company. Most of the time I am handed a virtual machine image, a user manual for a new software & a deadline for the project. Sure I can ask my senior colleagues questions but their availability is very limited because of their own deadlines so I am on my own to figure out the project from a half baked user manual & youtube videos & online training courses.
Certainly you're holding your end of the bargain well enough to keep you working. I was speaking with another female co-worker in the dept and her advice at the IT job is to learn the process how things getting done around here don't invent anything or invest your time troubleshooting. Finding the right group responsible or can take ownership of a problem is more important. She's a VP so she's done well in her position without being technical.
Quote:
About the sick days, I think I agree with you as raising kids is often a mother's job so she has to bend backwards for it. I don't have kids yet so I hardly use my sick days but I don't know how it will change in future.
I think men and women are entitled to their sick/paid time off but these days employers take notice of those that uses it at the most critical time of a project or near a deadline.
I had to take some time to get surgery done and my manager pressured me to 3 days instead of the requested 5 days. While the female in our group gets to take a full week off, she's kept herself off the radar. Well enough that she had to quit 2 years later as the work pressure was mounting and pressuring everyone to show good attendance.
Quote:
About heavy lifting, if I am carrying a huge box, I get offered some help from stronger male colleagues & I am not saying no. Just like I often bake cookies for them but not expect the same from them. If there is a birthday or a gift for a colleague, I am always given the task to arrange the gift or party. Some things are just natural to that gender & we cant change that. I don't expect my male colleagues to wear an apron & bake or buy a cake for someone's retirement so don't expect me to carry a 100lbs box. I am asking for help when needed & that's what team is all about. A lot of my male colleagues push me ahead when it comes to customer presentations. I am great with making pretty powerpoint presentations, dressing up for meetings & using humor in my presentations. So they are "using" me as well but I don't mind it. If you are talking about project heavy lifting, I can't recall even a single project where I had less work than my colleagues. The task assignment sheets are visible to everyone & the work load is always fair. I have had male colleagues leave projects in the middle for surgeries or their wife having a kid. Me & my team ended up taking extra work to support them.
When I mention heavy lifting I'm not talking about physical work, just talking about strenuous tasks. I was asked to research this new software and then train the rest of my peers of the same level. I had to extra late because at the time we have different shifts of support, how is that fair? Management believes the one that is most technical should bear the responsibility of spreading the knowledge to the group in addition to their normal core responsibilities.
Quote:
I am not just speaking about myself but for other female techs out there as well. I have worked at different customer sites & I am a very social person so I tend to make friends easily & these topics about male/female dynamics come up. I also have a big network of other female engineers & techs. I admit we are less in number but we are striving as hard as anyone else to survive. Companies are not partial towards us at all. They are profit oriented & greedy. Our job doesn't end after we leave work as we are raising a family as well so I would say we are not afraid of hard work & do multi tasking all the time. If you had a couple of bad experiences, please don't generalize. Hillary is a politician & will manipulate people to support her. If I had a one on one with her, I can set her straight.
Very good, I can tell you are the minority and many women I came across in IT cannot handle today's IT work pressures. I don't blame them because IT is undervalued in many ways by management so the pressure is on to put the squeeze on salaries and workloads and folks that can't handle the pressure will just quit the industry.
Just the other day my boss asked me to fetch him a water from the break room, causing me to miss the first few minutes of a meeting. I did as he asked, but I was silently seething.
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