I'm so happy to be accepted in Dev.to, even when I'm just a poor beginner who needs help with her english writing. I feel bad today, and I wanted to share with you something that's happening in Mexico, if not in the entire world.
If you read one of my first posts, you’ll know I'm a beginner, a baby in code, I have a communications degree but what I want for life is create awesome things with code. I don't know where you are, but at least in Mexico having a bachelor degree is essential because of status, but in the tech environment a paper can't proof your abilities, if you can code, you'll show your code to prove it. Of course, if you can study a software career it's better.
Anyway, I got my degree 2 months ago and started studying on my own, searching for a job in a communications area but in a tech company, so I can be in the area that I wanted. A couple of friends freaked out, telling me that I haded to just get a job for communications and stay there, communications is a women's career, programming is for nerd men. We're in 2018, those comments shouldn't exist.
There are organizations like Epic Queen, Laboratoria, and Women who Code where women are welcome to become a developer, because the women on science, engineers, developers or involved in tech is increasing, but the mentality is that "it's a men thing". Instead of discussing, scream or have an explosive reaction with my friends, I ask them for an explanation, 2 men trying to convince me, for not saying themselves, why men are better than women in science/tech. This was some of their points:
Women needs take more time.
Getting ready, getting pregnant. They said that men in tech can forget the entire world, they don't need "love" or relationships like women, they can stay in a lab or an office for three days and get more results than a group of women who can't stand even a day. I know, what kind of people are they?Men have the skill of being a boss, a CEO, women don't.
"Obviously", the boss have to be manly to give confidence to the employees and make better deals, they don't worry about the company because a man is in charge, but if it's a woman, how can they be sure she's not gonna get "bipolar" and do something stupid, or during their period she's gonna fired everyone. I mean, how stupid can someone be?WE ARE FRAGILE.
They can't say their opinion to a woman because they're gonna hurt her feelings, and if they do that, we become a bunch of "bitches" (sorry for the word).
To work in tech it's needed passion, discipline, teamwork, and vision, according to me, any career, work, project or anything according to a professional life requires that to be successful, and it has nothing to do with gender.
In Mexico City, I've found a lot of mentalities, but most of the tech environment welcomes women because we are as good as men, not better, equal. I can't go ask for a job when I know the basic of the basic and get mad because I didn't get it, we are not looking for exceptions, we're looking the opportunity to proof ourselves, like every human on this planet.
At the end, I told my "friends" to search Safra A. Catz, Susan Wojcicki, Sheryl Sandberg and some other amazing women. We can do wathever we want, all of us, women and men, men and women, we're not under nobody, and even if I'm a baby developer I'm sure of something: I CAN CODE.
Thanks for reading me, just wanted to get this out of my chest.
Hugs & Husky love! 🐶👩🏻💻
Top comments (82)
They are probably not aware that women have played a foundational role in computer science history. Look up Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, or Margaret Hamilton just to name a few.
Thanks Kasey! There’s so many amazing women across the history of technology that we should write a post only for them.
Grace holds a special place in my heart. Because most of my family is military. One of my favorite figures.
Hey! You got this! I've gotten some similar comments in my life, but I've been doing this whole code thing for a while now and I still love it. Check out the #SheCoded tag on here -- lots of stories from other women developers -- here's mine! If you ever need a peptalk, feel free to reach out!
Your post is awesome Ali! 👏 thanks for your support!
For sure!
Yes you can!! Don't listen to what these people are telling you, keep coding and don't give up!
Also don't forget about the ENIAC programmers -- 6 brilliant women.
Thanks Liana! I’ll investigate about them! 😊👩🏻💻
Punching holes in paper was also programming at some point...
I think this sums it all:
You're going to be great at your job, good luck! 🖖
So glad you liked it Andrea!
Brenda, at this pace I'm pretty sure in a few years you'll be running a software team.
No time for haters!
Thanks Ben, you’re right, I shouldn’t waste time feeling bad about this, instead I just have to keep working and be the person that I wanna be, not because of them, because of me.
Yeah, no need to go out of the way to prove anything. Just do your thing because you want to not because someone else says you can't. You're already to a great start bc you have the right attitude!
I assisted in an intro to programming course for 3 semesters and the best student I ever had in there was a Journalism major that hadn't written a single line of code before that class. But by the end of the semester she had a deeper understanding of the material than the CS majors. She got there by working hard, asking for help when she needed to and self study outside of class. I tell the upper level CS majors time and time again that the biggest predictor of success isn't how smart or how good they are but rather how hard they work.
Forget what those people said just keep working hard and learning and you'll get to where you want to be!
Thanks Chris, that’s amazing I’ll like to know that student :)
In the old days, electronic computers fell into two camps - analog and digital. These days, digital computers have taken over, mostly because of stored program capabilities, but both were originally programmed by wiring as needed. It's not what we today call programming.
The first stored program computers were, in turn, programmed by entering the numeric opcodes and supporting data directly into memory (often via a separate programming board). It's not what we today call programming.
Rapidly, though, Kathleen Booth (Britten at the time) developed the first assembly language in 1947, and assemblers were developed from this - you then programmed by writing symbolic instructions that mapped directly to opcodes. It's not what we today call programming.
Then Grace Hopper developed a high-level portable language, previously largely considered impossible, and this (alongside Jean Sammet and others' work) lead to the development of COBOL in 1959. It's not what we today call programming.
Later, Mary Kennth Keller and others developed BASIC, a simple symbolc language especially designed for teaching. It's not what we today call programming.
These days, everyone just does stuff in Javascript in a web browser. That's not what I call programming.
Oh, there were some guys involved too, I think.
These comments are awful :(
No one should discourage you from what you want to do in life.
I'm fortunate enough to have worked with 3 other female developers in the one (small) company at one point.
There are plenty of awesome females in tech to look up to, and a lot of the other comments have mentioned some of them.
Check out:
codelikeagirl.org/
twitter.com/kodewithklossy
twitter.com/madewithcode
twitter.com/LeaVerou
twitter.com/TimeaTabori
twitter.com/Veronica
twitter.com/chmodxx_
I’ll look up for all this amazing women Lynne :) thanks for sharing!
Those 3 points you put from the 2 gentlemen are probably 2 decades older. I believe things have changed much. Anyway, my feeling is why women are still taking those points/hints too serious and reluctant to come out of the barriers. I know it discourages them serious. But that is the challenge here. They should find positive and ideal way/s to break the barriers. You, that means women, are the right people to do, not men.
You remember there are plenty of men, who supports and appreciate women who are taking responsibilities. They need not to be male feminist. But I strongly believe, You, that means women, are the right people to find ways. Here are few points to achieve
Everyone will start to appreciate you slowly :)
Please don't ascribe it to their age. I'm a man, and I'm almost certainly 2 decades older than Ms. Zam, yet I can't think of a single time that I've doubted a woman's ability to do the same work that men can in this field. I'd be a hypocrite if I ever did, seeing as how my mother was a software developer for 30 years, and my CS graduate adviser, most of my bosses, and many coworkers were (are) women.
I believe the mindset of each person is according to the social environment, their personality and ambition to make in any way a better place for all of us, men and women. As I told Ben, I’ll consider my studies and goals as something I wanna do for myself, not because someone told me I can’t. Each step closer to my goal will make the difference, as you said, but this, like everything, it’s a team work, or at least that’s what I think so.
Thanks a lot!
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