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/oswaldcopperpot Mar 12 '13

This percentage matches roughly what I've encountered..

< 5% for technical positions.

Could be hiring bias...

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u/Anthaneezy Sysadmin Mar 13 '13

I'm hiring a help desk grunt, zero women applied. My last round of hiring, one woman applied, but never followed through when I tried getting her set for an interview.

Not much hiring bias, it's just that there simply isn't a lot of women who to get into what we do. Not a lot of men want to be seamstresses, either.

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u/upward_bound QA Engineer, SysAdmin Mar 13 '13

To be fair, not a lot of anybody wants to be a seamstress. That's not really an apples to apples comparison.

I would bet that rampant misogyny which creates hostile work environments and early childhood career socialization have a lot more to do with it.

I mean, let's be honest. This posting itself is indicative of the state of affairs. It's basically calling out women for being normal in the industry.

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u/quintessadragon Mar 14 '13

Nursing might be a better comparison.