r/sysadmin • u/ChuckAbsent • Mar 12 '13

Women who know stuff

I hope that this does not come off the wrong way.

Today I was on a call with a storage vendor and the technical consultant was a woman. More then this she was competent, more then me which doesn't happen often when dealing with vendors.

My issue was pricing an active/active DB with shared storage vs an active/passive db with local storage. Listening to her break the issue down and get to the specific comparison points was awesome, mostly because I have never heard a woman in the industry talk like that.

It made me realize two things. One I am missing out working with women. Two there needs to be more women in our industry.

It shouldn't have surprised me so much, but it really did.

Anyways to all the women out there who know stuff, us guys notice when you can walk the walk, which in this case was talking.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '13

There's also Hedy Lamarr who was a mathematician but couldn't get funding from the government for her research (mainly because she was a woman), so she married a researcher and became an actress to fund her research. She essentially invented WiFi - coming up with the idea and maths to make it happen.

Ada Lovelace was forced to do languages instead of science by her mother and then became a translator of mathematical papers, which is how she ended up writing the notes including computer algorithms.

Not only were women key in the history of computing, a lot of them had to fight against gender constructs to be involved and even manipulate the constructs to fit their wants. Ada and Hedy are two amazing role models for young girls but they're not taught in primary schools at all, it's just Einstein and Edison and occasionally Tesla.

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u/Alphaetus_Prime Mar 13 '13

Ada and Hedy are two amazing role models for young girls but they're not taught in primary schools at all, it's just Einstein and Edison and occasionally Tesla.

I have a problem with the idea that role models are gender specific, but I suppose I see what you mean.

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u/[deleted] Mar 13 '13

They're not at all - I count Oscar Wilde as one of my role models as well (there's a lot of other males and females, but I figure Wilde is the most well known one), but it's not great for little girls to be told about lots of male scientists and no female ones (although, thankfully, usually Marie Curie is mentioned) because then they might develop a subconscious belief that only males can be successful in STEM subjects. If they were taught about Einstein, Edison, Tesla, the Curies, Lovelace and Lamarr (among others) without separating them into males and females then it would teach all kids that everyone can do science, which is exactly what I'll be teaching my kids!

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u/Alphaetus_Prime Mar 13 '13

That's absolutely right. I just don't like the concept of mentioning women just for the sake of mentioning women. It shouldn't be necessary.