Tommy Michelle Jenkins

I completely agree. NYC women, for instance, are generally successful and thus, certainly many years ago, and likely do generally work well with men. BUT - we could probably do better. Without a community to translate to one another our experiences and build on these, we won't be able to improve how we present ourselves, improve our relationship skills, generate new ideas as fast or be as productive. That is a great product of getting to know one another professionally and personally.

The dysfunction of any group is what I want to hear and to change. Paradoxical problem/solution sets resolve when you factor in time (or new initiatives) - so what you're saying is exactly right.

Asli - just jumping in for a sec as this really interests me Allan. How would you describe a bunch of women casually organizing an outing to discuss the latest in programming and how they would approach the design and utility of resultant products or solutions?  What if they occasionally had a 50% male attendance with the same mix of professional levels as those of the men who attend? Btw – I would definitely attend a MAN-build event

Outside of the workplace, there is a different type of reward, including but also beyond professional recognition.  Whether or not work-based, if you take away or skew the daily work-related expectations, women are enabled to grow and learn without the same type of consensus pressure or expectation. This feeds back into industry.

As Sri Lanka had the first post-colonial Asian women PM, no doubt you know what you are talking about.  But in finance – and in other ways in tech – in one of the fastest-paced and most interesting major cities in the world, these issues get our attention and therefore our innovation. I think now ‘women’ named groups are already accepted, and so the term is no longer a threat, but a new way to use our backgrounds creatively. Not using the term is the easiest way for it to begin to mean something nonproductive in popular culture. If there is a decline it must be addressed. At the same time, assuming that there are just less inherently technically talented women out there than 15 years prior seems a bit far-fetched, even if technical achievements should culminate in technical accolades. 

Hi Allan,

I think the women's organizations that exist under the umbrella of 'diversity' might have developed more organically than it may appear at first glance. When you enter a room full of those with whom you share a common interest, you feel good. Same with GIT. Women in tech attend the same general tech events as our male counterparts, and at our social events, men often attend to support the specific interests of the group of women there. Part of being social for us is engaging other communities, but that doesn't mean we give up pursuing identifying with one another and our specific interests - whatever they may include, shooter games or none.

WomenBuild and other women-focused sites as well as Asli's reply here at Ch9 make superb points. Although diversity is a key goal for many organizations, why is it a key goal? We're here to answer that. What can GIT, GGD or any community offer the greater whole? Read our blogs, chat with us, attend our events or our partner's events to find out. On a recent GIT LinkedIn discussion, I suggested that the communities we create when we are young encourage and contribute to later professional achievements in technology. The thread was begun when an IT Infrastructure Specialist asked why there were less women in IT. The fact that he asked created a forum to provide solutions to this. One of the best ways we can make sure all of our diverse needs as met, is to keep asking questions. That way people like Asli and other organizations who have researched and pursued answers to this can try to answer them in actionable ways.

Your '<rant>' itself probably does more to pull all of the women - and men - in those diverse groups into this discussion than it would seem.

Tommy

Girls in Tech