Women | A New Generation Marketer

A New Generation Marketer
» Archives

Sep

Being a Female in Tech Rocks!

One of my favorite quotes of all time is by Ghandi, “We must become the change we want to see.”

If you want change to happen, don’t wait for someone else to do it, do it yourself!

So many people, as pointed out in this TechCrunch post, have written meaningless posts about this problem and why it may be the men’s fault. Why don’t we all stop complaining and wondering and start embracing and encouraging? We never thought we’d see a woman in the running for the president, but we did. We never thought more women would be in college than men, but they are. We never thought women would become up and coming CEOs today, but they are. What is to stop females from rising in the high tech scene?

I know many other females around Boston that are in the same situation as I am: one of the only females at our workplace. I have spoken with many of them, including Lindsay Goldner, Ali Powell, Cait Downey, and Victoria Song about the current deficit of women in the Boston tech scene but that is not stopping us, it only empowers us to keep going. We find ourselves just as interested in high tech as many of the men we work with, and we want others to feel the same.

There have been many misconceptions about women in tech and that we will never grow to a large population, but I’d like to see that change happen in my lifetime. I saw this misconception come to life at an event in San Francisco that I attended a few months ago, Structure 2010. Structure was an intensive two-day cloud computing conference, discussing top trends, issues, opportunities and challenges in the cloud industry. I was forewarned that I was going to be significantly outnumbered at this event, and that I was! Being a 22 year old female left me sorely out of place in a conference packed with middle-aged men. People looked at me funny like I walked into the wrong event, but once I started talking with others about my career and interests, I felt right at home.

Having been raised on technology (setting up my family’s first home computer, getting my first cell phone at 13, and using AIM and MySpace in my early teen years) stirred my initial interest in the subject. Once I bought my first Mac computer in college, I was a complete tech innovation lover. I started exploring all types of techie things such as setting up Google Apps, creating a self hosted blog, studying SEO, checking out HTML, and then on the side I did reviews of various mobile apps (on my iPhone).

A few months ago, as you may have read, I landed a job at a high tech start up here in Boston. I’ve been here for four months now as the only female in the company and can’t even begin to explain how much I have learned and grown. I have been surrounded by some of the smartest minds in cloud computing, internet marketing, and website design. Four months ago I could never have imagined that I would learn as much as I have already.

Just because women aren’t the majority in the tech scene yet (or maybe ever) doesn’t mean we can’t still make a huge impact and learn like crazy. Although several of my female friends and I are the minority at events and in our workplace, that only adds oxygen to our fire. I actually enjoy being part of an underrepresented group of motivated individuals ready to take on the ‘impossible.’

Many women don’t want to be in this industry because of the misconceptions that it is a nerdy, masculine arena. Those few of us that don’t fall for that misconception need to be given a shot.

In the start up world, it is not about who or what gender formulated an idea for a start up; it is the idea that counts. If your idea rocks, it will go far (and probably make you a millionaire). Silicon Valley is a great example of this happening left and right.

I don’t regret joining this industry for even a second. It shouldn’t matter what gender you are that determines if you will succeed in a given area of interest, it should be your ideas, passion and determination that gets you far. I love what I do and will keep doing it for as long as I can.

There are many awesome groups around Boston that act as female tech incubators, including Girls in Tech, Boston Womenpreneurs (founded by Ali Powell whom I mentioned above) and Boston Women’s Network. This is a great network of groups to facilitate female interest and advancement in a previously male-only industry.

What are your thoughts? Do you have a minority of females working at your company? Share your ideas and stories below!