Women in Computing: The Night I was the Belle of the Ball

Excerpt: <i>Instead, I get guys who deny that I can be smart or capable; guys who like how smart I am but try to get me fired if I won&#x27;t go out with them</i><p>I think that is likely the essence of The Glass Ceiling. And it sucks.

[referring to Assembly] <i>I told him that couldn&#x27;t be true because it&#x27;s not even human readable.</i><p>Not sure if this is meant to be a joke. If not, what? I mean, perhaps you could say that for your compiler output, but otherwise...?<p>Otherwise, I sympathized with her story, although the rather tired &quot;Where did all the good men go?&quot; ending wasn&#x27;t particularly apt. Still, this <i>is</i> a Jezebel story. For the penultimate postmodern feminist trash rag, it isn&#x27;t that bad.

So, to begin to explain how those sweet guys from the dance turned into the guys you&#x27;re meeting now:<p><pre><code> Instead, I get guys who deny that I can be smart or capable </code></pre> They probably have had no exposure to intelligent women, or women who code. They&#x27;ve built up a stereotype in their head and your mere existence is putting it into question, so they go into denial.<p><pre><code> guys who like how smart I am but try to get me fired if I won&#x27;t go out with them </code></pre> Manipulative and insecure? Psychological issues with women, probably preying on any women they meet.<p><pre><code> guys who refuse to interview me for jobs that I&#x27;m overqualified for and push me towards jobs that are more typical for women </code></pre> I&#x27;m not sure what jobs are typical for women, but i&#x27;ve seen a lot of men pushed away from jobs if they&#x27;re overqualified, for a number of reasons. Still, if this was just sexism at work, it points to more insecurity or lack of exposure to smart women who code.<p><pre><code> guys who dangle new language carrots in front of me until a guy comes along to give it to </code></pre> I don&#x27;t know what this means?<p><pre><code> guys who make it clear in my interviews that they felt that they needed to interview at least one woman </code></pre> Oh, heh, that&#x27;s a fun one. It works well on women because discriminating against women isn&#x27;t as stigmatized as discriminating against black people.<p><pre><code> guys who test me on my video game knowledge in interviews </code></pre> This could be just to tell how much of a nerd&#x2F;geek you are. Could work in your favor if you show them how passionate you are about technology or having fun?<p><pre><code> guys who call me a fake geek girl </code></pre> Back to the first example, probably had no exposure to women who were smart or coded, and react to their stereotypes coming into question by shielding themselves in denial.<p><pre><code> guys who tell me that I shouldn&#x27;t be allowed to wear that shirt with that famous programmer who knows who I am </code></pre> Again an example of the fake-geek-girl-denial. Or just someone who hates that famous programmer? (I would probably pay someone to burn their RMS or ESR t-shirt, unless they were being ironic)<p><pre><code> guys telling me that it&#x27;s impossible for me to be a nerd because I didn&#x27;t pay my dues by being friendless except for my D&amp;D buddies </code></pre> Oh, how the jaded lonely nerd doth protest too much! Male nerds that have style or lots of sexual partners or some other qualification of &quot;a cool person with friends&quot; get the same shit, but you probably get the extra burden of expectation of gender roles, in that women are expected to socialize more freely than men.<p>Honestly, I don&#x27;t get the draw of the typical &quot;nerdy guy&quot;. They&#x27;re kind of a pile of social and emotional problems and focus too much on one kind of hobby versus expanding their horizons. And they look like slobs. Why not find yourself a nice surfer with tattoos who writes poetry?