Posting to Technically Women provides an opportunity to share distinctly personal experiences as a female engaged in technology while living and working in the first decade of the 21st century. Participation here also allows for the framing of those experiences in the broader historical context. As a child of the 50’s it has been my privilege to witness momentous shifts in the way we perceive age, race and gender over the course of the last half a century. These shifts represent milestones in the journey toward equality but not yet a final realized achievement of equal representation. Perceptional changes have indeed occurred in the last 50 years but after five decades of observation we might conclude we have progressed toward parity but not experienced an absolute demographic transformation and it is obvious our representation in this sector remains weak.

Robert Kennedy said “Like it or not, we live in interesting times” “everyone here will ultimately be judged – will ultimately judge himself – on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.”. (The gender emphasis is mine).

Kennedy spoke these words in South Africa in 1966, while delivering a Day of Affirmation Address. Kennedy’s words were meant to empower youth and people of color. This was the same year I entered high school in a suburb of New York filled with the knowledge and hope that a relatively young person could be president of the US, that people of color might and could enjoy equal opportunity for education and betterment. It seemed inconceivable then that actually reaching all of those goals simultaneously (being young and a person of color and achieving the presidency) would take decades more to realize in the United States.

I graduated high school in 1969 when the word ageism was first coined, when “discrimination against individuals or groups because of their age” was being examined and discussed for the first time in the US. That same year the gender barrier for women’s undergraduate entry into Princeton and other exclusionary US centers of higher learning was breached. Two of the very first women to gain admission to traditionally male institutions of higher learning were not only from my own high school class of graduates but also belonged to my immediate class of 30 gifted and talented young high school students. One of these women was Carol Kellerman who later served as executive director for Learning Leaders, the oldest school volunteer program in the US and Carol was also a lawyer and chief of staff for a NY senator.

I would summarize my formative high school years as a time of recognition of barriers, with steps (in retrospect often fledgling) taken to redress inequalities of race, gender, and age. These were times of high hopes that those barriers would be permanently and swiftly removed. Many of my generation were/are actually fairly dumbfounded that the progress we saw launched back then has taken so many decades to realize.

So although some have questioned why the need for a blog that highlights women in technology, to them I would say: “collaborating in a woman’s environment is an empowering experience rather than an isolating one”. And seriously, if we think women in technology have achieved full equality, we’d better think again.

I would maintain that little has changed since Anita Borg (1949-2003) penned this article in 1993. She wrote:

“Increasing the number of women in computer science and making the environments in which women work more conducive to their continued participation in the field requires the active involvement of both women and men. In particular, there must be ongoing and productive communication throughout the field concerning the unique problems that women face when they enter the field and as they progress and advance. The fact that women are a small minority in the field results in two impediments to this communication. First, women work almost exclusively with men and so have few opportunities to create and then participate in a “community of women in computer science”. Second, men work almost exclusively with men and have limited opportunities to communicate with more than a few professional women. Open electronic forums can improve communication by introducing us to a larger community, but do nothing to reduce the disparity in numbers. On the other hand, exclusively female forums, such as Systers, are a particularly effective way to connect women in our field with each other. They also ultimately contribute to improved communication between women and men.”

So here’s to mentorship, improved communication and a speedier route to closing the gender gap in technology.

Image from Flickr Creative Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/smcgee/2245932396/

I suppose a good first step would be to proffer .02 as to why I joined this posse. It’s not as though this was an arduous decision-making process (I mean, have you checked out this amazing list? I’m honored to be counted among them!), but at the same I’ve generally eschewed participating too deeply in women-centric … things. It’s not that I don’t care about the advancement of women in business and technology it’s just that … well … you know that quote from Groucho Marx about not wanting to belong to a club that would have him as a member? It’s kind of like that.

I entered the tech sector in the early 90’s. It was a time when I was often the only skirt – literally or otherwise – in the room. When I did cross the path of another woman I found it went one of two ways – we bonded immediately and began looking for ways to support each other … or the air was sucked from the room as eyes narrowed and claws began to unsheath.

Though it might seem to be the more repellent of the two, the latter scenario is not the reason I’ve stayed away from engaging specifically with women’s groups. Those viper-ish women are generally pretty easy to spot and so easy enough to avoid. They’re also, thankfully, the rare exception to the rule. No, my issue – and I may be excoriated for saying this – is that my experience of women’s gatherings has been an all-too-frequent emphasis on the obstacles we face … because we’re women. Yes, the glass ceiling exists, but I sometimes feel that in waving the female flag in an overly enthusiastic manner we oftentimes discredit our own efforts.

And that’s precisely what I said in the Dennis Howlett article that brought me into direct orbit with the Technically Women gang. (In the “shameless plug” field, you can find my commentary for that article directly here.). Our virtual conversation about the article, sharing our thoughts and perspectives, was conducted by email yet had a distinct feeling of a late night hangout by a fire pit drinking great wine. So when a post article discussion began about our teaming up for a blog, it took all of a nanosecond to decide.

I’ve always held that the best way to cut through that translucent blockade are to pretend it’s not there. Focus. Do your work. Be accountable. Always push the envelope. Over the years I’ve participated in a few different variations of women’s groups – almost all of which focused more on giving women a place to commiserate and support each other than they did in providing any sort of professional support. There is value to that, certainly, but it wasn’t enough of the picture for me. I found organizations like Women in Technology and the Anita Borg Institute, that were helping foster connection and development among women, but still there was something lacking. More recently the emergence and solid growth of organizations like Girls in Tech and Women 2.0 have continued down the path, bringing a new generation’s perspective on what it means to be a dame with some moxie in business.

With the emerging support network, came my increased interest to exercise my voice as a woman in the industry. I had my own blog, along with my real-time thoughts on Twitter, but I sought something more substantive. In the summer of last year, a new site out of the UK BitchBuzz launched with a tagline calling it the site “for feisty women with their knickers in a twist”, and invited me to contribute. Though it’s targeted to and written by women, as far as my writing for BitchBuzz goes, it skews less to female focus and more to tongue-welded firmly in cheek views of technology’s impact on society. What better to add to the mix than a place like this that’s designed to address women’s issues and topics, from a place of strength, empowerment and resolution.

Technically Women is the perfect complement to my evolving membership in this club and I look forward to the conversations we get started!

So who are we?
Cathy Brooks
Laura Fitton
Maggie Fox
Rachel Happe
Jennifer Leggio
Adele McAlear
Francine McKenna
Anne Kathrine Petterøe
Marilyn Pratt
Susan Scrupski

We are a group of women from all walks of business, and we are here to present our unique views on how technology is shifting our world. You can read our individual bios on the ‘About’ page.

I have always defined myself as being technical, ever since my childhood where I would play with Lego Technic (a Lego line of robotic products) and found building things without the manual a fun challenge. At the same time I had my Barbie dolls and My Little Ponies, leaving me feeling I had a foot in each camp.

At the same time I grew up in Norway, a country where there has been much focus on giving women the same opportunities as men and where in 2006 there was even a law passed stating that all boards of publicly owned companies must consist of at least 40% women. Growing up I never realized that being technical, a woman or a leader was something I couldn’t do.

I spent the first half of my twenties discovering everything which wasn’t technical, before I eventually ended up turning my love for technology into a profession. In the beginning I felt a bit alienated because I hardly ever met any women and when I did I often felt it wasn’t accepted for the women to simply be women, they had to be more male than the men. Combining a love for technology and at the same time being a woman was therefore something which interested me from day one. Why should there be a divide between the two?

In the resent years I have seen this change slowly, there is a higher acceptance for women to bring their female qualities into a world driven by technology. Some companies, like Xerox, have impressed me by having women on C-level who have demanded having careers on their own terms, successfully so. The CTO, Sophie Vandebroek, for instance.

This blog is for me all about a group of women sharing their experiences and views on being, well, technically women.

You’ll see a trend over the first few blog posts. Many of us have decided to write up what it means to us as individuals what it means to be one of the Technically Women.” We come from such different backgrounds but also share a very common goal — creating awareness of shifts in business, technology trends, and we all strive to grow as leaders and mentor more female leaders. Being one of the Technically Women does not mean standing on a soapbox and talking only about gender equality and focusing only on women’s issues. We want to focus on business and technology issues and offer our perspective as women these types of environments. I can’t say it any better than fellow collaborator Rachel Happe did in her introduction post:

So I believe there is a different perspective that women bring to how technology integrates with our lives and our businesses – but it’s often subtle. The concept of Technically Women intrigued me as an opportunity to collaborate with a bunch of whip-smart woman who have interesting perspectives on technology and to see if, over time, that collective ‘voice’ can be better articulated.

As for my part of this, I am a geek who wears a lot of different hats. I’m a marketing geek. I’m a network security geek. I’m even a bit of a business analytics geek. Technically, I’m not as code proficient as some of my other colleagues here, but I am so jazzed to learn and read and come up with themes that touch us all yet inspire such different reactions. We’re dynamic and we’re strong and we have a voice. Technically, isn’t that a big part of what being a woman is about anyway?

Image courtesy of Organizacion LuCHOeDu | CC 2.0 http://www.flickr.com/photos/luchoedu/2452437601/

First, it was an interesting and accomplished group I would be collaborating with.

Second, it seemed the right thing to do at the time.

Finally, although as a CPA with an interest and aptitude in the technical I am not as “technical” as some of the others, I have much to learn from these ladies. This was a great chance to meet them and start that conversation

I’ll be honest. I don’t do many single sex things, especially those focused on the fairer sex. I have been fortunate to be treated throughout my career as just another chap, someone who throws in and throws up ideas with no worry as to how they might seem coming from a woman. And I write about the business of the Big 4 audit/accounting firms, a traditionally male dominated audience, exacerbated by the fact that with all the auditor litigation going on, I also entertain a lot of attorneys.

So when we tossed out names for the blog, “Technically Women” was a consensus winner. To me it describes both the literal and figurative middle ground we inhabit between being women and desiring to operate in a traditionally male-dominated realm. It may mean that some of us have learned to operate and succeed in the technical fields and have forgotten that there is any reason to feel intimidated or unnerved by being a minority. It may also be that, without an avatar, our voices are just as likely coming from a man, regardless of our biology.

So to me the title of the blog means that you will get interesting, enlightened, newsworthy, and insightful commentary from the assembled group – a group that just happens to be, technically, women.

Should be fun.
Francine McKenna