null

Prove it.

Reading Faruk Ates’s Primer on Sexism in the Tech Industry has led me on a sort of odyssey of feminist exploration. This is awesome, but there is one point in the article that I just can’t shake: women are leaving STEM careers. As a study by Harvard Business Review stated, “more than half of all the women drop out before the age of retirement, with the biggest losses occurring around the age of 35.”

When I read that, having been a software developer for 13 years, I couldn’t help but think that that made total sense to me. In fact, it’s something that runs through my mind every so often. Why am I still here? It’s hard to put my finger on a single reason for this. Is it the occasional sexual harassment I have experienced over the years? The sexist jokes? The continual reminders that I am judged first by my appearance and second by my actual work? The minimization of my experiences of sexism? The abysmal lack of female colleagues? The fact that whenever I’ve been a part of a female developer group any mention of sexism in the industry brings forth a torrent of depressing experiences from women like me. Being described as a unicorn for even being in the industry? The missives by men who claim that women just aren’t interested in or made for technical careers? The insidious necessity of having to prove my competence at my job to each new male colleague?

When I started out in web development in 1999, I figured every newbie had to fight and compete to prove themselves worthy of respect. That made sense to me. Over time, however, it feels like wearing a backpack full of heavy rocks. You’re used to it, because you’ve always worn it. As time goes on, however, you get older and you start to notice it. It’s heavy. Does everyone else have to carry all these rocks, you wonder? And if not, why am I carrying them?