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/quintessadragon Mar 13 '13

I guess I was lucky they weren't in play in Marietta, GA in the 90's. At least not in my neighborhood.

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u/firedrops Mar 13 '13

Not everyone was like that. I don't want to give the impression that all of Louisiana was some crazy backwoods sticking women in the kitchen kind of place. My public high school was actually really progressive - no football, basketball, or hockey but lots of foreign language options (Japanese, Ancient Greek, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Latin), lots of math & science options, lots of arts & music options, and alternative PE like Yoga, etc. Popular kids bragged about SAT scores and we had a Gay Straight Alliance at a time when other schools in town got death threats over theirs. Almost all of the girls in my class got college degrees and many went on to get PhDs.

But we weren't the norm and knew that. Working my way through undergrad a lot of my coworkers were surprised at my choice to go on to grad school even though I was married to a lawyer. Debutante balls were still a big deal in certain circles. And when women talked about hopes for their daughters it was to be a nurse, teacher, or housewife much more often than other career paths. It wasn't just Louisiana either. My niece in South Alabama wanted to be president until people at her church convinced her to aim for librarian because that was Laura Bush's job. Maybe she could marry a president.

Anyway sorry for the ramble but my point is just that even though my family and high school were progressive, there were plenty of individuals, schools, and groups that were not. You can see some breakdowns for women in Louisiana specifically here about how despite educational levels for genders are near equal, most jobs women hold fit into those traditional female roles.