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- 1. The Top 5 Misconceptions About Female Web Developers
- 2. Remember in 2014, we got this… “I’m only creating the design ideas,” Barbie says, laughing. “I’ll need Steven’s and Brian’s help to turn it into a real game!” After getting a virus on both her & Skipper’s computers, Barbie gets help from her two male friends (because her female computer science teacher isn’t any) and they say: “It will go faster if Brian and I help,” offers Steven. Meaning: “Step aside, Barbie” You’ve broken enough, now – Pamela Ribon 2
- 4. 4 Female developers will do all the ‘office housework’ Grant, A. and Sandberg S. (2015, Feb. 6). Madam C.E.O., Get Me a Coffee: Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant on Women Doing ‘Office Housework’. The New York Times, p. SR2. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com
- 7. 7As a female developer, you’ll automatically be disrespected
- 8. Summary There are no female developers. Look around you to see the falsity in this statement. Female developers will do all the ‘office housework’. While this sometimes happens, it doesn’t have to. Take charge of what you work on and make it work for you. Female developers are overly emotional. Completely untrue. Gender doesn’t determine personality or professionalism. Female developers are incompetent. See Grace Hopper & Ada Lovelace. As a female developer, you’ll automatically be disrespected. Remember the support you have from others to refute this statement. 8
Editor's Notes
- Good Morning! My name is Stacia Sawyer. I’m a Software Engineer at a company called Hirease, an accredited background screening provider. All my life, I’ve been interested in technology. Like many of you, as a child, I was always asking “how” and “why”. That curiosity lead me to study Applied Science as an undergraduate student and Biomedical Engineering as a graduate student. I went on to work as a freelance web designer and developer, and I currently work as part of a small development team on desktop and web applications. Today I’m going to talk to you about the top 5 misconceptions about female web developers as I’ve personally experienced them. One thing I want each of you to realize is that while others have held these misconceptions about me, some of these misconceptions I’ve actually had about myself as well, so it’s really important to get these out in the open and debunk them before they take hold.
- As females in STEM, we’ve made some strides, but there’s still work to be done. Take, for instance, the book, “Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer”. It was written in 2010, but it made quite a splash in 2014 for all the wrong reasons. It was originally written by a woman and meant to empower and encourage females to study technology. Instead, the book perpetuates myths and sexist stereotypes. Cringe-worthy quotes include Barbie being a game developer, but not really, she’s just “designing” a cute game and needs two male developers to turn it into a “real game”.
- The ideas found in “Barbie: I Can Be a Computer Engineer” lead to the first misconception: There are no female developers. This idea boils down to simple numbers initially. No women are in the field as programmers; we’re as rare as unicorns. If we look deeper, we see another related idea. If a woman is in the field, she can’t be a developer, she MUST be a designer. Don’t believe either of these. Look around. All of the women here are interested in the code. The tension between design and development leads to a related problem. I’ve heard that it’s a rarity that a person can actually both design and develop. I’m blessed to have both skillsets. I have caught myself denying my design side because I want people to respect me as a developer. This is just as bad as saying there are no female developers. If I’m good at design and development, I should be able to own both. I shouldn’t hide something I’m good at just because I’m afraid of what others might think. Don’t fall into the same trap I have.
- Related to the trap of hiding skills because I thought of them as “female centric skills”, we come to our second misconception: Female developers will do all the ‘office housework’. What is office housework you ask? It’s administrative work that helps (such as taking notes, serving on committees and planning meetings) but doesn’t pay off. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer and founder of LeanIn.org, and Adam Grant, professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Give and Take: Why Helping Others Drives Our Success, wrote an article that addresses this very issue as part of a four-part series in The New York Times about women in the workplace, “Madam CEO, Get Me a Coffee”. I remember as a graduate student swearing I would never make coffee so that no one would ever assume that because I was a female I should just automatically make the coffee. The problem was that I liked drinking coffee and was often the first person at the office! So here again, I fell into the same trap of not doing something I wanted/needed to do (I needed my caffeine) simply because of perception. Now unfortunately, according to a study cited by the article, women come out on the losing end of office housework. If we don’t do it, we’re perceived as unhelpful, but we get no net gain for doing it, whereas a male who completes office housework gets bonus points for doing it. So this particular misconception does actually have a little truth to it. What we have to do, however, is make sure that if we do office house work, we 1. Don’t do it just because of our gender – we do it because we want to and because we are good at it. 2. If we do the office housework, we do it in such a way as to make sure that we don’t burn ourselves out and while we’re doing it we also get credit for our careers.
- Misconception #3 is a doozy. Female developers are overly emotional. That’s why we don’t want to work with them (that’s what people say when they forget about misconception #1). I’m actually guilty of holding this stereotype about other women myself. It’s a trap and a lie. Gender does not make someone unprofessional (and that’s the heart of the overly emotional accusation). I’ve worked with just as many men as women who are drama queens. An alternate side of this misconception that’s a trap is that emotion is a mutually exclusive to logic. That’s untrue. You can have emotions and be logical as well. You shouldn’t think you need to be someone other than who you are to work in a technology field. Don’t try to hide your emotions if you’re an emotional person. Be who you are (be professional), but be who you are.
- Misconception #4 is something I have struggled with and still do struggle with. Female developers are incompetent. I have seen it happen more times than I care to mention that as soon as a female developer is introduced, she is assumed to be less than capable. Male developers get the benefit of the doubt. Gender does not determine ability. If it did, Grace Hopper and Ada Lovelace could not have been pioneers in computer science. Earlier this year, I let insidious and subtle jabs at my ability cause me to start doubting myself. Then I realized, wait a minute, I’m letting someone else write my story rather than letting the facts speak for themselves. I am, and always have been, really good at what I do. Because I am a perfectionist and my own worst critic, this misconception is a very easy trap for me to believe, especially when there are always certain developers out there who will try to make you think it’s true.
- Finally, misconception #5: As a female developer, you’ll automatically be disrespected. I’ve spent the past few slides telling you all these terrible misconceptions, but I wanted to end on a positive. Despite the fact that people will believe a lot of negative things about you, it’s important that you still approach the world with a positive attitude. For every coworker that thinks you’re incompetent because you’re a woman, there are 2 that respect you for your contributions. Don’t approach everyone as an adversary, because they aren’t. Yes, there are some people who will treat you unfairly based on your gender, but there are also people who will treat you as an equal, and it’s really important to give those people a fair shake. Look at the panelists who came out today. They are brothers, fathers, friends, coworkers and they all want the same thing that I do. For each of you to be successful as you undertake a career in technology.
- I hope I’ve helped someone figure out what to expect as they enter the field of web development and I wish you all the best of luck. Thank you!