If you haven’t been lurking the badass tech womxn/enby twitter, no worries. I’ve got you covered on that front!

The gist is that this year has been more lackluster than others–at least for me. Given that most of us are at home or otherwise not out and about, mingling amongst the crowd (getting the benefit of free bouquets, drinks, and food to celebrate women) a lot of what’s been seen is performative at best and tone deaf at worst.

So let’s talk about tech. 

One of the biggest problems that tech faces right now is not a shortage of womxn and enby’s but rather an overwhelming overrepresentation of men. As I’ve been expressing–for far too long now–the problem isn’t just you need to hire more women it’s that you need to hire them, listen to them, and retain them.

…the problem isn’t just you need to hire more women it’s that you need to hire them, listen to them, and retain them.

A lot of what I’ve heard from tech leaders at previous companies has been a lot of fluffy virtue signals about how yes, they do care; change is hard, they’re working on it; and it’s difficult to measure success but we’re putting a lot of plans in place.

Meanwhile, tech women are getting dress coded in 2021 and women who speak out in tech are viciously trolled and put down. To add insult to injury, we’re still hearing dudes saying things like “it’s not like there are any groups that get passed over when promos come around” and what’s really flabbergasting is the people who simply do not think that women in tech exist–as in, there aren’t women in tech companies because a lack of technical women. MIND BOGGLING. IN 2021.

Me, boggled how these people STILL EXIST.

You’d have thought that we’ve come along farther but sadly, we haven’t.

An entire year passed by as many women have seen and lived a rise in domestic responsibilities and shouldering of much more invisible work. An international celebration of women during a pandemic that’s pretty much business as usual totally misses the mark. Another boring flooded with media saying hey here’s some impressive women, thank you!

Tech women are not hurting for vaguely addressed thanks — though we are hurting for acknowledgement in the workplace and all the associated rep points that those build up for promos [1]— we’re hurting for dollars and active listeners in important meetings. A space at the table isn’t enough if nobody hears you. 

And an entire day vaguely thanking us for existing without any action to improve — or at the very least call-out improvements to be made and failures — is at best unmeaningful and at worst maintaining status quo. That’s right all you hip cool PC allies — you’re not helping, you’re just noise, if you want to do something it better be more than a virtue signal because I’m putting my neck out (with greater risk here, because y’know, I’m less privileged) to try and make a change.

Me personally?

So you might be thinking but danielle, it’s not like you personally experienced these things, right? Since you’re referencing twitter and not making any particular comments…

First of all, a warning to anyone who thought I was nice: I’m not nice. Brace yourself.

In my tech career I’ve faced all sorts of nonsense from harassment by male peers. At one point being asked indirectly for a massage (ew) and at another point a colleague stalker-ishly trying to uncover some personal information about me (because apparently it is that hard to mind your business and respect boundaries). 

This year I get to cross “getting credit taken for an idea during a large meeting with zero acknowledgement of your contribution” off my list. The worst part? I’m not hurting too me or offended but that’s simply due to the fact that I’m not at all surprised that this happened. W I L D. And also kinda fucked that I’m conditioned to be surprised at how often it hasn’t happened, and just mildly disappointed in my peers when it does.

Sad, isn’t it? Though a rant summarizing the state of women in tech was not my initial goal, thank you for making it through a dogged dash to publish my thoughts at 8 in the morning, pre-caffeine.

That said, don’t despair. Even if I don’t always have respect — or make the same as my peers — at the very least, I’ve found some top notch tweets that made me laugh, cry, and get inspired by some epic tech womxn/enbys.

Twitter Roundup

A couple of my favorite tweets that make me laugh and sigh because they’re so on point.

And look at the reply to this!!! A BOARD MEMBER

A handful to make you cry/laugh:

This thread that has me internally screaming.

This series of tweets from a badass tech woman I follow which is so on point but also reminds me that it’s a work in progress.

A reminder of the invisible work:

And finally, my favorite thread of the day that summarizes it all:

For all these lists and performative gestures about appreciating women in cyber, yall sure seem to stay quiet about some really insidious things that take place in this community. There’s been a pattern of insidious behaviors thats been happening for a while now. From known creeps creating socks to harass, attempt to dox and outright harm women and enbys in the hacking community, to actual sexual predators being able to go unnoticed- even hero worshipped. Every woman of power, doing things in the industry that fights back against the harassment that runs so deeply- they’ve been attacked NON-STOP. New accounts created daily to insult and belittle them. I’m not just talking about my own experience- Look at the replies to tweets by @IanColdwater, @AlyssaM_InfoSec, @Fox0x01, @d0rkph0enix, @gabsmashh, @Jun34u_sec, @astrotoya, @k8em0

All women or enbys in tech who have stood up and spoken out about abusers and harassers in the industry.

ANYONE trying to change things to make it better for women.

Not just talking- doing the hard shit.

Fighting for change, for the next person who doesn’t fit the heteronormative patriarchal standards who wants to do some good- they are getting harassed. Silenced. Undermined. And very few people care. They call it drama, and every time it happens, and we call it out, people roll their eyes and act like we’re the bad ones for saying something.

But hey, good to know you appreciate us enough to make a list with a hashtag so everyone knows you’re an ally For the record- no, I will not be shutting up. I’m not going anywhere. And I bet the amazing badass humans I mentioned won’t be either.

Happy hashtag day

Now step up and do the work of being an ally, or get the fuck out of our way

Katelyn bowden @medus4_cdc

Footnotes:

[1] : I don’t have space in this brain dump of a blog post to go through why getting credited for each and every contribution you make is especially important as a woman in tech. And I’m not about to write a post on that right now. If you don’t understand it and genuinely care, regardless of what gender you identify with, I highly recommend you DDG search it and do some reading (you shouldn’t expect non-overrepresented people to be handing out answers and explanations, we’re already tired).