Ladies in IT

I received my copy of PC Pro a couple of weeks ago, and as usual, I dived straight for the back, and the letters page. There, to my astonishment, was a letter from a lady working in IT who was being, for want of a better phrase, sexually harassed by her male clients. I can't find a link to the letter online (although I'll keep searching), and I don't want to type in the whole letter in case of copyright issues, so I'll put in a few of the choicer complaints...

"Most end users are bored men in offices who are already annoyed that they can't fix their computers, and many resent being told anything technical by a young woman. They flinch when you touch their machine, snort, argue, put up porn screensavers and often mistake technical attention for sexual interest."

Apparently one client, who had called her to his home for a totally bogus computer problem, referred to her as “too sexy to be safe”!

I did write a letter in reply, to PC Pro, but I don't think it was as coherent (or well spelled) as it could have been, and anyway, this is, apparently, a rather thorny subject. So I'm not going to copy it in here. A letter, by it's very brevity, can't really address the issues. I did cite my 25 years in computer support, and while it's possible that my response is coloured by sour grapes, NO male user has EVER referred to me as “too sexy to be safe.” Mind you, it's likely that a) I'm just not sexy enough to be harassed, and/or b) I've just plain not-noticed their come ons. After all, I tend to lump users under one umbrella – they are the cause of all computer problems. Having “user error” growled at them as I fix their problem does tend to keep them quiet.

As far as I can see, a lot of women actually seem to bring light to this issue in a way which is guaranteed to invite ridicule – check out this story from PC Pro. To address just one issue here, this is an exerpt...

"There's a real need for women in the technology industry to stand up and be counted, shout about what we believe in and to set standards for ethically informed and socially committed inclusive technology projects and programmes that can help real women and people with real needs of all kinds to reach their fullest potential," says Professor Goodman.

Is it just me, or does the phrase “ethically informed and socially committed inclusive technology projects and programmes that can help real women” make you want to stop listening/reading at this point? While I cannot argue that men and women are different creatures, surely any kind of attempt to artificially create a project/programme for “real” or any other kind of women is automatically going counter to the idea of being “inclusive”.

Let me, for a moment, digress. I went to university! Yes I did! I got into a smashing Computer Science course at University College in London, and I was as proud as punch when I got a place, especially as I'd done adequately in my A-levels, but hadn't managed to secure a place directly out of 6th-form college. I'd had to take a course at the tech college – Maths, Stats and Computing, in which I obtained a better than average grade, which secured me an offer of a place, and, as I previously mentioned, I was proud! Until I discovered that I'd got a place only because “they” (and I'm not sure exactly who “they” were), had decided that they wanted to have 50% of the intake as females. Imagine my despair! OK – I didn't despair that much, but I was mildly miffed. It was as if “they” had taken away my achievements, and said, in a rather patronising way, “There there deary, you can come and play with the big boys.” As it happened, I had no kind of discrimination from any of the chaps on the course, or within the faculty – they were all charming (there was one chap who was a bit iffy, but he was from a culture who view women as second class citizens anyway). My fellow ladies on the course were bright, intelligent and, for the most part, lovely girls. I was delightfully happy for a whole year until I flunked my end of year exams, and had to find a job.

The point of this little digression is this. This was the earliest form of “positive discrimination” to which I'd been exposed. But positive discrimination is an oxymoron (I love that word!) It's still discrimination. It's an artificially created project/programme FOR women. While, in this case, it helped me, what happened to all those boys who didn't get a place because I and my fellow girls were bumped into their places? It didn't even occur to me to be upset for them until a few years afterwards.

But then...

You know, I've been guilty of positive discrimination in my time. I've advertised in local newspapers for “female to share” when I've wanted to share my living space, and yet I find this completely acceptable.

I wont discriminate against any of my users – they're all still the reason computers are infested with nasty gremlins!