If you are unfamiliar with the events at PyCon there are many articles to read (How “dongle” jokes got two people fired).  There are “just the facts” articles (somewhere), lots of opinions, and many more tertiary reactions to the situation.  Mine is the last.  I wasn’t there, I won’t pass judgement.  This is my, not so eloquent, reaction to what I have read.

Let me say up front that I have had plenty of moments working in the tech field that make me want to tell a guy to grow up. I’ve also had plenty of times where the guys were all drooling over me awkwardly (and other girls were pretty upset with me for being a tech geek). I play video games (not much lately because I have to prioritize). I even played Halo for a bit. I nearly punched a guy because he killed my character once actually. The four guys I was playing with also had some girls that were not pleased that I was ruining their fun by destroying their unspoken rule that girls don’t play video games. I’ve had a boyfriend’s mom yell at him for letting me do technical work with him during a vacation (not my mother in-law). Coworkers asked me repeatedly when I was going to get a tatoo on my ass (literally). There are a lot of instances where I’ve been “one of the guys” with less than favorable results. Like my dad pointed out, I learned at an early point in my career to be resilient to all the crap.

Another good example that seems very relevant to this incident is when a fellow programmer said something incredibly inappropriate to me. I could have lashed out at him and publicly shamed him right off the bat. Instead I direct messaged him and called him on it. He said it was an accident (as I had expected given the circumstances) and he apologized. I’ve told the story a couple times since, but always in the context that it was an accident (and in a confidential setting). He still makes “that’s what she said” jokes to this day, but usually at times that make no sense at all. Really, it was an accident that his TWSS joke actually fit for once and made light of me in a sexual manner. It was just a horrible coincidence. Could it be better? Sure, but it could be a lot worse too. This same guy took me to the ER one day when I needed someone to help me and his wife is a great friend of mine too. I never felt inconsequential because we had the conversation about what his intention was when he said it.

I really can’t complain too much. For as many examples of being treated poorly, I can share examples of being treated exemplary. Being “one of the guys” means they have your back no matter what happens.

I really appreciate all the articles popping up last week supporting women in IT in general. Many men are really shining through this event. Yet, I want to add one piece to the conversation that I haven’t read anywhere so far. According to reports, the woman was upset because the dongle jokes were somehow the problem preventing young girls from entering a science field. I actually disagree with this. Sure, the stereotype doesn’t help. Sure, feeling like the odd person out doesn’t help. And sure, I’ve shared plenty of examples of reasons some would consider to stay away from tech. All of those require you to have thought of wanting to be in a science field in the first place though and I don’t think many females are getting that far even. The problem goes far beyond developer culture into the homes of every household in America (perhaps beyond). It’s the princess society problem where we continually teach young girls that they need to dream of being a princess some day. Providing them with no role models in science/tech fields. Boys, in addition to all the violent super hero obsessions, are encouraged to be astronauts, doctors, building engineers, and any number of other STEM careers. Girls are encouraged to model Aurora, Belle, Cinderella, and Ariel. They flock to it and how are we to deny them this? I don’t have girls, so I can’t say exactly how I would do things differently as a parent of young girls, but I know we collectively have to do better.
I have to do better for my boys too. Some parents still tell their boys, “you’re not going to let a girl be braver than you, are you?” Don’t get me started. This is just unacceptable.

Dongle jokes and all the other locker room humor, as another article so aptly named it, are what cause some of the sparse women to leave the developer environment. But it is not the root problem of a lack of women in IT.

I need to take a very nerdy moment to share my thoughts on the first Hobbit movie.  I don’t think this really has any spoilers, but if you don’t want any spoilers at all, then you probably should wait to read it.

Our church has been saving quarters recently to raise money for Heifer International.  We have quarter tubes that you fill to raise enough money for an animal.  We filled them once already and we’re hoping to fill them again before the end of October.  The fun part of each service though is watching our 3 year old gather quarters from everyone around him to take them up front.  We have a lot of people that like to sit near us.  All of them love our boys (and us) very much.  They love watching our older son as he gathers the quarters together in his little plastic bag, banging them on the pew all through the sermon, then running up front as fast as he can to put the quarters in the tube during the offering.  One Sunday it was taking a while and his bag was rather full, so the pastor helped him.  Then we learned he was putting the quarters in one by one…and counting them.

His plastic baggy has gotten pretty beaten up though and it struck me that I could make him a quick zip bag with some scraps. And so I made a zipper bag with a window so we can see how full of quarters it is. Took about half an hour.  I can’t wait for him to show everyone this week as he collects his quarters for animals.

Zipper Bag with Window

A recent article, “Do You Want to Raise an Obedient Child?” from one of my favorite parenting blogs really struck me. It was one of those reminders that we’re not just taking care of a preschooler, we’re teaching someone how to act as a school age kid, a teenager and really for the rest of their life. We need to recognize their voice, not let them get away with anything they want, but show them that their opinion matters even as a 3 year old.

Then I had a reminder of all the decisions our government is making. I feel like I don’t have a voice! I realize that I can call a representative of some sort, but really I don’t feel like that will ever make a difference. This gets very political, so I’m going to bring this full circle quickly.

The timing of these two ideas in my head was interesting. Our we as a general society trained to believe that our opinion doesn’t matter to our government leaders?