I knew exactly how she felt

[shermarama]

(Because of course having broken the oh-I-haven't-posted-anything-for-ages barrier I can now stick something short up without having to think about all the other things I was going to put up)

“I’m so glad to meet an engineer,” she enthused, “all the other women I talked to here were in marketing or law or something. I thought it was meant to be about IT.”

Which is the story of a woman who works in computing going to an event designed for school-age girls to meet women who work in IT, which covers one large reason I generally stayed away from all the Women In Science And Engineering events. They were mostly full of women who didn't really do science and engineering. (The other is that I really don't like being told I should socialise, network or otherwise bond with particular people just because we're the same gender, rather than because we've got something that's important to us in common. (Maybe lots of women have 'being a woman' as something important to them?))

I can't remember why I was looking at something involving QMUL's WISE group a few months ago, but I discovered that the main people running it were two sociologists and a sound artist, which, you know, I don't care what technology you use to make sounds, it's still being done for the purposes of art, not science or engineering. Generally in the past if I've wanted to talk to people who were actually enthusiastic about science and engineering, I've talked to other people who are studying it or working in it, not people who enjoy going to events which are based around the sociology of women in science. I don't have a problem with people who have an interest in the sociology of women in science, I'm just not very interested in it myself, or at least much, much less interested in it than I am in actual science. But, I'm really not keen on the people who do that being taken as, because they declare themselves to be, representative of women working in science and technology.

This article, though, makes me wonder if I should start going to events like this after all. If I think these sorts of events ought to go away because their unrepresentative cross-section makes them more of a barrier than an encouragement, perhaps I should make the effort to make them more representative? To break down the barrier and let some girl who's still at school know that it's not all sociologists and lawyers? Or maybe, you know, we should stop telling schoolgirls that women going into science and technology still need specialist support networks to do so?

Comments

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

When I was in sixth form and thinking of applying to Imperial to do CompSci, I stayed overnight in their halls on a 2-day WISE course thing. It was enjoyable enough (if a bit threadbare) and made me feel better about studying CompSci in general, but as pretty much everyone else on the course was incredibly posh and wanted to do medicine, it 100% firmed up my opinion that I did not want to go to Imperial.

oops wasn't logged in

[x-mass.livejournal.com]

I can understand contextual meetings
I am dyke I like to meet other women who also fancy women thats why i go to for example dyke bars
If i was working in the tech industry it might useful to meet other engineers who get classified based on their gender because of the powerful effects of that classification - but ultimately thats about politics
I like hack spaces - I like the cultural spaces - so I spend time there and try to get them going - but I would only meet about gender related issues in a hack space if there was sexism going on and even then I doubt it would be a single gender meeting
the reason I like you isn't because your a woman
ok it has a bit to do with you being a tall powerful cute woman but afaik you're str8 so blah
Your interests in music and tech and engineering is actually why i kept chatting to you etc
I assume that true for most people if they think about it, but then my assumptions about others not reliable

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I think WISE type events are very variable. We have some really good ones where we are all engineers and scientists and talk about how we could change things for the better and inspire each other. And then it all turns into talk about babies and maternity leave and I sit there feeling like I'm not a real woman anymore because I'm sitting in a WISE meeting and I have nothing to contribute. I've met some really good people through it though. I think the Sheffield one is helped by us having such an enormous engineering faculty that can fill a room with the 10% of engineers who are women.

And then there was my mentor who came out with this gem:
"You're really lucky to not have any ties so you can go anywhere"
Yes, she knew I got widowed. To my credit I did not hit her, nor throw food.