With the recent news about the engineer Susan Fowler’s appalling experience and departure from Uber, I couldn’t help but feel disgusted at the technology industry in general, as well as how poorly human resources departments I’ve personally encountered have handled touchy and controversial experiences that have been reported. It makes me angry that even in HR, where there tends to be a lot of women leading the team across companies I’ve seen, women cannot even help or support other women. Women, no matter how hard they work, are considered women before they are whatever their job titles are. And confident women are hardly considered a good thing in a male-dominated environment like the technology industry; there’s a very, very fine line between exuding confidence and being perceived as “arrogant” for women in the workplace. And it really bothers me to think about it because I’m positive that is how I have been perceived in the past (in fact, someone on Glassdoor wrote a twisted review of his interview experience with me, which was half wrong factually and also accused me of being arrogant in my position and discussion). If I’m speaking to a prospective employee or in an interview representing myself, chances are that I’m going to be commanding respect and attention with the tone of my voice and how I’m speaking about whatever the topic is. But after almost nine years in this industry, I’ve only met a handful of women who do this. What that means is that people in general around me are not used to women exuding this level of self-respect and confidence, and instead perceive me as being arrogant.
It would be so much simpler and easier to be a man in the technology industry. Like the protesters at the Women’s March in Washington D.C. had signs of, “I can’t believe I still have to protest this shit.” But the worst part about the example for me I’ve given above is… it’s oftentimes that women do not support women, not just that men aren’t supporting women.