Of course everyone can be a programmer — just with how tech is run at the moment, not everyone's achievements will be considered equally. It is not egalitarian and by putting it this way, you are contributing to more distress women feel (as in, for instance, "if I am not advancing in an egalitarian field, what's wrong with me").
As for your five years in working towards inclusivity, please check my comment to miniscruff with regards to providing your cv as a standard answer women get to anything they say. I wrote it before you published your comment — that should be a red flag to you that this kind of comments just don't have the intended impact. I believe in your good intentions and efforts and it is important that you continue the work you're doing. However, it is even more important that you are receptive to what women are telling you and not diminishing that.
Please trust me that telling a woman in tech "it's not such a big deal, everyone suffers from that" is not an encouragement — you have loads of psychological studies that prove this point, if you don't believe my lived experience. Validating the distress and saying "it sucks, you will build resilience, I'm here for you" does.
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Of course everyone can be a programmer — just with how tech is run at the moment, not everyone's achievements will be considered equally. It is not egalitarian and by putting it this way, you are contributing to more distress women feel (as in, for instance, "if I am not advancing in an egalitarian field, what's wrong with me").
As for your five years in working towards inclusivity, please check my comment to miniscruff with regards to providing your cv as a standard answer women get to anything they say. I wrote it before you published your comment — that should be a red flag to you that this kind of comments just don't have the intended impact. I believe in your good intentions and efforts and it is important that you continue the work you're doing. However, it is even more important that you are receptive to what women are telling you and not diminishing that.
Please trust me that telling a woman in tech "it's not such a big deal, everyone suffers from that" is not an encouragement — you have loads of psychological studies that prove this point, if you don't believe my lived experience. Validating the distress and saying "it sucks, you will build resilience, I'm here for you" does.