Last summer, Erin Summers and I were lamenting the lack of women engineers in the media. There are tons of articles and data about how women are a minority in the software industry, which is a sad reality. The few articles that showcase specific women in tech create an unattainable archetype of a woman that somehow manages to run marathons, raise a family, always looks impeccable, and marginalizes the amazing technology that she built.
Would anyone mention a male CEO's family or hobbies in an article about his company? Do professional men get asked about work-life balance on a regular basis?
As software engineers, we get asked a lot about what it's like to be a woman in tech. Are there any horror stories? Have we experienced sexism in school or at work? We would much rather be asked about our technical accomplishments and the technology we've built: What was the first Android app that Erin built? What was my winning Hackathon project? What were the results of Erin's PhD thesis?
We decided to take control and do something about it -- project "wogrammer" was born. We interview our fellow women engineers and showcase the cutting edge technology they've built. From the high school student teaching herself to code, to the CEO running her business, we've interviewed over 50 engineers from Cape Town to Silicon Valley in all types industries. The more voices of real, authentic woman engineers we can share, the greater hopes we have of breaking stereotypes and focusing on what really matters - the technical achievements of women engineers.
Share your own wogrammer stories or nominate women to be featured with us too at wogrammer@gmail.com. We want to hear your stories! The more voices of real, authentic woman programmers we can share, the greater hopes we have of minimizing the bias of a stereotype that -- let's face it -- just isn't accurate.
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Zainab Ghadiyali & Erin Summers
Co-Founders of wogrammer