Being a woman in IT can be rough. You have to be ready to deal with sexist assumptions about your abilities at work, but what about at tech conferences? Unfortunately, they’re not immune to the boys’-club tendencies either.
This year, I was fortunate to be given a press/media analyst pass to TechEd 2013. With a press pass, you get some “extra” privileges, such as reserved seating at keynotes and a lounge to work in. The perks were nice and all, but it wasn’t what I expected.
Having attended TechEd with a regular badge in prior years, it seemed as if attendees and vendors treated me differently this time around. I felt as if the press badge gave the perception that I was less credible in my technical knowledge. It was most notable when approaching vendor booths in the expo. After asking what I do and noticing my pass, there was often a look of disappointment or dismissal by the reps. I even had one vendor tell me, “Oh, you’re just press.” After explaining to him I was really a systems engineer moonlighting as press, he said, “You look like a press/media analyst person, not a systems engineer.” I was offended on two counts: that he dismissed the press pass, as if journalists have no technical knowledge, and that he couldn’t believe I was a systems engineer just because of my looks and, likely, because I was female.
“Oh, you’re just press”
Are you saying a tech journalist is not educated enough to understand your technology? Or you don’t want to bother talking to someone who couldn’t be a potential customer? Both assumptions are in my opinion wrong and rude. There may be some tech journalists that don’t have technical backgrounds, but they should be given the same amount of respect as tech journos who cut their teeth working with the technology. We’re all professionals here and everybody deserves the same amount of respect, regardless of their reasons for being at the conference, which you shouldn’t assume you understand. In my case, I could have been looking for a new product to replace my current solution at my day job.
“You look like a press/media analyst person, not a systems engineer”
This statement made me ask, “What does a systems engineer look like?” Did I not look technical enough to be an engineer? Was it my long hair, the color of my shirt or the fact that I was a woman? Other female attendees told me stories about getting whistled at walking outside the convention center and having similar conversations where men were surprised to learn of their technical job titles.
This experience has reinforced my belief that we need to change the perception of women in tech. We are not just marketing reps, account managers, in sales or journalists. We are technical support specialists, storage administrators, network analysts and system engineers. We can do all the fancy technical work that our male counterparts do and sometimes can even do it better. It’s disappointing that there are some people out there who still see women at tech conferences and assume they work in non-technical roles. The perception needs to change, and hopefully conferences like TechEd will bring out more women to showcase what we can achieve. In fact, a big discussion at this year’s Women in Technology luncheon centered on how women should find opportunities to speak publicly about their IT careers, in order to help other women realize there’s a place for them in the industry.
Overall, I had wonderful time at TechEd, even with the few bumps in the road. I still found the conference worth attending. It’s a great place where geeks from around the world—male and female—can come together to learn and network.
