Being a Woman in Tech

Being a woman in tech/academia means...

... being mistaken for HR, despite the fact that you held the technical interview and asked technical questions together with your male colleague.

... staying silent when you are in a group of male colleagues and one of them speaks how unfairly privileged women are treated when they go on maternity leave, and no one says anything.

... staying silent when in the coffee room, in the company of only male colleagues, one of them says how you have a better chance then him for applying for a grant, because they give preference to women, when numbers say otherwise.

... having to swallow your tears, when you have gone to your supervisor with a proposal you have thought so much about and spent so much time on, and he, with a condescending smile, tells you "Don't work on something don't believe, you will waste your time", instead of giving you constructive feedback.

... asking your supervisor for a conference trip, to which your male co-author is going, and the supervisor asks you if you are interested in it, because it doesn't make sense to go to excursion.

... having to hear your supervisor how you have inspired the boys to work on a new topic which you introduced in the group, "but not technically", while in reality you have made more technical contributions that most of the male colleagues you worked with.

... having your ideas dismissed, until an outspoken male colleague, a copy of the professor, says the same thing and gets praise for it.

... having to endure your professor saying how women are not interested in the deeper tech, when you are desparately trying to have a meaningful project related to deeper tech, but are given low-impact tasks.

... receiving lower-impact projects, no constructive feedback, and then being punished for not making impactful enough work, while your male colleagues with similar efforts receive student to supervise, impactful projects and comments on their work.

... having your distress by mistreatment dismissed, while the distress in the boys when you speak up about it is immediately reacted to.

... having your initiatives stolen by being quietly undermined and pushed away, then being accused of making a trouble when you speak up about it.

... being called unprofessional because you speak the truth and don't agree to mistreatment and disrespect.

... being talked through and treated as a furniture in meetings -- they don't mind your presence, but they don't really interact with you.

... being okay condescending and patronizing behaviour, and risking being ostracized if you stand up for yourself.