Thanks for sharing your story. It’s funny how profession can dictate treatment towards women – I went to journalism school, where maybe 10% of the class was men. Then I entered the field of public relations, and at my agency of 100 people, again maybe 10% were men. Now, I’m at a tech startup with a female CEO, and 3 out of our 4 employees are women. I’ve been lucky enough to be in female-dominated learning environments and workplaces – and I intend to keep it that way. The stereotype of the backstabbing career woman just isn’t true – I’ve found female colleagues and superiors to be supportive, kind, and extremely intelligent.

Good luck with the blog – I’ll be reading along!

Erin

Lucretia – I think that the experience of having both defensive and non-issue stances is so very common to women these days. Thank you for your comments and for your support of our new blog. It’s much appreciated.

Rick – Sadly, the perception of being anti-male when there is a collaboration of women is more common than you may think. Also, I truly believe that discrepancies are often there out of habit more so than any maliciousness. Thank you for reading, for your comments and for your support here.

Also, your comment about habit. I imagine women are frequently overlooked for promotions as an oversight based largely on habit, and not conscious consideration.

I suppose the only way around that for those in management and executive positions to make a conscious effort to consider whether they’ve forgotten anyone when making hiring and promoting decisions.

I’ve been on both ends of the spectrum — defending myself because of my gender as well as refusing to acknowledge that gender was a factor at all.

I was raised to believe that my gender wasn’t a limitation – simply a happenstance of birth.

In the face of overt sexism (like say, watching an executive try to pitch paperclips into the cleavage of his admin on my first day of work – true story) I have been as baffled as you… But at this point? I love finding places like this new collaborative blog of yours – where women gather to celebrate being successful.

Best of luck to all of you!

Max – what a surprise to see you here and thank you so much for your comments. As a techie who is accomplished and knowledgeable, you are in a great position to help and encourage women to advance in your field. If we do our part with this blog and other efforts and you do yours, together we can surely make a difference.

Pamela – I’m glad that this post struck a chord with you and thank you for your support of this new venture. I hope to see you here again.

Vanessa – I think so many women can relate to your experience of being forthright in a male environment. I’m happy that you found us here at Technically Women.

Thanks for focusing on this issue. I attended some of Enterprise 2.0 conference last week and the proportion of women attendees and speakers was quite low. Unfortunately, I have also noticed this phenonomen in other industries. I think we’re all aware of the wide discrepancies between the ratio of men and women in the C-suite, something which can’t be entirely explained away by women leaving the workforce to have children.

I’m excited about your new blog and look forward to hearing more from such a fantastic group of smart tech women. Thanks so much!

I’m sure this blog will make a difference with the great collaboration from all of you.