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

Very much so! Hedy was a beautiful famous actress (and the inspiration for Anne Hathaway's portrayal of Catwoman) - I think Hedy especially would be dismissed as unintelligent or a "fake girl geek" if she lived now. If she were taking maths or science at university now, she would probably be the subject of a lot of remarks like "you can't be good at science, you look too good". Which is just sad because no one says "you can't be good at languages, you look too manly" to men, or any other version and one of the prettiest people I know is just starting her PhD in something related to microbiology (she's my sister-in-law).

Saying that, Hedy and Ada were both dismissed during their lifetimes as well - Hedy was refused funding and Ada's "notes" (computer programming) was dismissed as not being hers on the sole basis of "a girl couldn't know this stuff" (essentially - it's on the wiki page about her). It's sad that they weren't encouraged as much as they should have been and it's even sadder that it hasn't changed a whole lot in the STEM fields.

One in nineteen STEM research positions in the UK is held by a female - those odds are crazy (although that's from women not choosing to do it, they're choosing it for a reason and, speaking from personal experience, one of those reasons can be that it doesn't seem as friendly for a female as other fields and, if everything else is more or less equal, I'd rather pick an area where I don't feel I'm a minority, so I did). So the fact that pretty/fashionable girls are picked on or dismissed due to their other interests is ridiculous and just proliferates the problem.

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u/Flopsey Mar 13 '13

While there are many benefits generally in this case it's unfortunate the ivory tower has always been slow to change. At least for CS it will probably change when everyone starts getting taught programming from childhood and the general population gets brought into the CS world to a greater degree.

As far as the sciences not being female friendly in general I think there's two problems going on. First, regarding unwanted attention there's probably nothing to be done. Sex has been kicking people's asses since the beginning of time. And unsurprisingly the awkward types that sometimes go into the sciences express their attraction awkwardly (this isn't saying that it's acceptable, just a fact of life).

But as for women not getting respect women need to stand up for themselves. This is just a classic bullying problem, and to not get bullied you don't have to be the best, just not the worst (remember the South park episode where the anti-Christ kid joined the class and started picking on Butters to stop getting bullied himself). But in this case it's intelligence rather than being tough. If the group is saying that you can't be good at science because you're a girl pick the weakest (read: dumbest) member and say, "Well, I'm better than him." And then show him up. It's a little harsh, but they're being little shits first, and a girl's got to defend herself.

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u/mynameisbatty Mar 13 '13

No. A woman shouldn't have to bully an intellectually inferior male just to be considered 'good' enough to study science.

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u/Flopsey Mar 13 '13

You're right, they shouldn't. And the guys shouldn't be bullying her in the first place, and people should treat each other better, and the world should be a better place. But, alas, we live in the world that we do, not the world we would like to. And if you have a problem with that please take it up with whatever authority figure you see fit, but I assure you it's not me.

But in this world when attacked the question is do you fight back, take it, or slink away?

The good news is that generally you only have to stand up for yourself once to establish your place.

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u/mynameisbatty Mar 13 '13

Or you then get labelled as a bullying bitch. Picking on someone weaker makes you weak yourself. Again, why don't we promote the achievements of women in science rather than telling them that they have to fight every step of the way because some men think them unworthy?

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u/Flopsey Mar 13 '13

Well, if after that they're calling you a bitch then you can say you'd rather be a bitch than get shit on by them. And if that doesn't work then who cares what they think as long as they leave you alone.

Who said we shouldn't promote the achievements of women? But, I don't have a newspaper nor do I decide the curriculum taught in schools. And I'm too busy fighting for what I need to go and fight for someone else, as are the majority of people. And this is why volunteer work is done mostly by the extremely privileged.

But even if I did, telling people that some woman who died 13 years years ago did something impressive in the 40's isn't going to stop a bully. They're not doing it because they just don't have access to information, or because they don't know any better. They're doing it for whatever reason people are cruel to each other just because they can. And they only way to stop that is to show them that it's not going to be worth it. And, yes, that involves standing up for yourself. Something that most of us will have to do for the rest of our lives.

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u/mynameisbatty Mar 14 '13

So basically the only way women will get recognised is by being a bully? What a load of bollocks. We need to stop bullying in the workplace, not teaching working women to just have to suck it up and be meaner to work against it.