Thinking a lot about...
Mar. 24th, 2007 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catherineldfthe whole women in IT thing this week. It's a pretty sweeping topic so I'm still wrapping my brain around some parts of it. But Jana and I were talking earlier this week about why doing QA as a contractor seems to really work for me and I've been hanging with other women who do what I do so I thought I'd unpack it a little.
On the one hand, it's been really fun getting down with my inner bad geek self. Before I got into IT, I had no idea I had one. Now I'm sort of the software testing version of watching your car get stripped down and put up on blocks in under 45 minutes - I can break just about any application code, quickly and dramatically and in ways that pinpoint stuff that wants fixing. I can usually tell what's causing it as well. And I'm a lead so I also dole out work, problem solve, babysit the business, work with the developers and try to make the trains run on time. I can honestly say that other than writing, it's the first thing I've found that requires me to be fully alert and engaged on the job. Which is mostly cool.
Balanced against that, I work in a very high stress environment in what is still a male-dominated industry with not much in the way of job security except what I can pick up on the fly and network my way through before the next outsourcing disaster strikes. I get paid a fair amount less than a guy with my skills, in part due to my own crappy salary negotiating. I'm getting better but I've still got a long ways to go. I also work for a firm that used to function on a patronage model (think The Mafia or medieval feudal structure) but is now moving quickly and ineptly toward a corporate model (think body shop). So I'm wrestling my way through this and looking for where to land next.
Meantime, I'm wondering about what it means to keep my politics intact while I do this kind of work. I can't do military contracts or Homeland Security, fortunately, since even if I didn't find it morally repugnant, my arrest record (at demonstrations, not murder one :-) ensures that I can't pass that level of security clearance. But what about working at a company that is mostly floating their annual budget on sweatshop labor? Or one that fleeces its retirees? Am I less of a feminist because I resent watching another less skilled woman get promoted over me because she's young and pretty? What about the fact that I now have to undergo a credit/background/drug check every time I change companies?
Something in here cries out for a book proposal so I wish my track record on nonfiction projects was more successful. Still mulling it over though.
On the one hand, it's been really fun getting down with my inner bad geek self. Before I got into IT, I had no idea I had one. Now I'm sort of the software testing version of watching your car get stripped down and put up on blocks in under 45 minutes - I can break just about any application code, quickly and dramatically and in ways that pinpoint stuff that wants fixing. I can usually tell what's causing it as well. And I'm a lead so I also dole out work, problem solve, babysit the business, work with the developers and try to make the trains run on time. I can honestly say that other than writing, it's the first thing I've found that requires me to be fully alert and engaged on the job. Which is mostly cool.
Balanced against that, I work in a very high stress environment in what is still a male-dominated industry with not much in the way of job security except what I can pick up on the fly and network my way through before the next outsourcing disaster strikes. I get paid a fair amount less than a guy with my skills, in part due to my own crappy salary negotiating. I'm getting better but I've still got a long ways to go. I also work for a firm that used to function on a patronage model (think The Mafia or medieval feudal structure) but is now moving quickly and ineptly toward a corporate model (think body shop). So I'm wrestling my way through this and looking for where to land next.
Meantime, I'm wondering about what it means to keep my politics intact while I do this kind of work. I can't do military contracts or Homeland Security, fortunately, since even if I didn't find it morally repugnant, my arrest record (at demonstrations, not murder one :-) ensures that I can't pass that level of security clearance. But what about working at a company that is mostly floating their annual budget on sweatshop labor? Or one that fleeces its retirees? Am I less of a feminist because I resent watching another less skilled woman get promoted over me because she's young and pretty? What about the fact that I now have to undergo a credit/background/drug check every time I change companies?
Something in here cries out for a book proposal so I wish my track record on nonfiction projects was more successful. Still mulling it over though.
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You so should do that book
Date: 2007-03-24 06:17 pm (UTC)I wish that someone could figure out how to put this sort of message into terms that people would identify with and care about ... I'm always amazed at how little people understand what's going on around them. I think some of the issues you mention speak to the way women (still) have to 'stuff' much of what they are at their core in order to survive. The destruction of community, the devaluation of individuals, the exploitation of women, the poor -- I think the majority of women would rail against most of that if they thought they could. Or if they could see it.
Politics? It's hard keep your job when surrounded by conservative Republicans who hate glbt folk (we just got partner benefits last year and I had to fight about the 'imputed income' issue because, hey, who knew that lesbians had dependent partners?) and (at best) ignore or objectify straight women. But I hang on and try to keep my protests to a level where they maybe can do some good, because I have two children with disabilities to raise and I need the health insurance.
Am I less of a feminist because I abhor what 'climbing the ladder' has done to a woman I've worked with for 12 years, now my boss two levels up? It's not what you think: I honestly believe she's a better boss than me in many ways; I can say this because I'm a lead and I officially managed for almost 4 years. I like writing and I do not like firing people even when there is good cause (it's not that they shouldn't be fired; it's the whole crazy-making process you go through).
It's just that as her 'position' has increased, her capability to lead has decreased, her ability to write and use our tooling has all but disappeared, and yet her fashion sense and materialism have gone through the roof. She used to love her work, was one of the better writers we had. Now she's the queen of suck up, and I don't think she sees what it's done to her.
And yup, over her head looms a wall of patriarchial men. I just don't know how FAR the heels and leather are going to take her.
Ugh. Topic. Sweatshop labor. I think the office in India wasn't too bad as far as working conditions go, but the pay was not great and expectations were huge. When they (predictably) didn't pass muster we dumped 'em. No warning, just 150+ folks in India with no work one day. But hey, that's what we do to folks in the US office on a regular basis: dump 'em with no warning.
Yet I still work there. Ethics, you ask?
I've taken the cynical route: I am probably one of the best paid tech writers in the area, and I think I deserve it. I'll be one of the last to be laid off from my team. I've wrapped my hands around a project that it will be years before they can outsource, if ever. (To be fully truthful, I really LIKE the project -- I laid in wait for quite awhile while letting the powers that be know I was the best person for the project, maybe the only person.)
I hang on in hopes that some day I'll have raised my kids, paid off the mortgage or sold the house, and can leave what shreds of this goofy working life may still exist then. Or maybe I can use my brain to figure out another way to live on this crazy planet.
But yea, I think someone in what you said cries out for a book. Go for it!
no subject
Date: 2007-03-25 01:18 am (UTC)as they get. Some societies are more fair to women than others. The US ain't bad by method
of comparision, but that is not saying a whole lot.
When it comes down to it, people that can think critically and logically can work their
way up. The difference is that people with ethics and morals are only going to rise
so far (male or female).
I am all for women getting paid the same for the same work. fair is fair.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-06 06:09 pm (UTC)I've been traveling for the last 2 weeks, then I was on-call and super busy at work, so I haven't been able to write, but I'd LOVE to chat with you about this Women In IT business...I have lots of responses floating about in my head. I wish I were closer, so we could go have coffee, or better yet, a nice beer, but alas. :-) So I'll drop you a note when I get a chance here.
And I second the bit about the book.
And I hope NC was really great.
Re: You so should do that book
Date: 2007-04-08 02:48 am (UTC)I'll kick the book idea around some more and see what I come up. If I decide to go for it, I'd definitely like to interview you. Meantime, you read "She's Such a Geek" yet? I've got mixed feelings thus far - it seems to be heavy on the "I write the occasional program/ran a bbs" type personal essay. But I'm not that far into it yet. I'm guessing I'll still see the need for something more on women who make careers in IT.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-08 02:58 am (UTC)NC was fun and would have been more so if I hadn't pinched a nerve in my back before I left. That part not so fun. :-(