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8 Ways to Support Women Developers

Abbey Perini on March 08, 2023

Last year, in We've Been Here Since the Beginning, I wrote about how it felt to be constantly othered, assumed to be less competent, and assumed to...
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Peter Franken

What a breath of fresh air to see such an actionable post on this topic! The perspectival examples in particular are incredibly insightful and should really help towards recognising this type of bias in myself and others.

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Ingo Steinke, web developer • Edited

Thanks for this great article! As a lot of negative discrimination seems to happen in a subtle and unnoticed way, and from a male perspective, often even without deliberate intention, you offer many precise, practical, and measurable aspects where we can make a difference beyond wondering about gender demographics in the developer community.

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Marissa B • Edited

I'd like to call this out specifically as its own headline:

"Stop interrupting and talking over women in meetings."

I've had to pause meetings to call out men who do this because it's so frustrating and rude as hell. I don't care if you're the CEO, CTO, FBI, or whatever acronym or title. Stop it. If you have a brilliant idea or something you want to share, you can remember the lessons you learned as a child and keep quiet until it's your turn to speak. Talking over someone, interrupting, etc needs to become more frequently called out as crapbag behavior. I've become much less gentle about calling it out over the years and results have gotten better, but it's not fun to embarrass someone in front of their peers or manager or PM just because they can't wait to speak.

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Mark Noonan

I can’t figure out how to like a post on this website on mobile, so here:

<3

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Moray Macdonald

Great article! Anyone who's questioning why this article needs to exist, needs to read this article again.

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Ed Drain

My only comment is that this is much broader than women who happen to be developers. Women from all walks of life face the kinds of BS this article mentions. I hope more men take the effort to see it, and do their part to to help change it. I'm tired of living in a world where an entire nation's policy is that women need to be told to wear black from head to toe, give up even the possibility of intellectual pursuits or meaningful work, and become baby factories and servants of men. It's cruelty on a massive scale and there will never be peace in the world while these conditions endure.

Abbey Perini, thank you for your leadership in this regard!

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Abbey Perini

Thanks for reading!

My hope is that anyone who needed to read this can begin to generalize what they've learned to other groups after a little practice. 🤞

I think @erinposting put it best when she described it as effective advocacy.

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BekahHW

Crowd in a performance hall clapping

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Abbey Perini

Maya Rudolph blowing kisses, winking, and making a heart with her hands

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Michel Sylvestre

Absolutely great post!

I would also add one important point somewhere.

What support looks like:

  • Accept being called out and use it as a learning opportunity

Too often when people are called out, especially if their actions were without deliberate intention, will react negatively, go on a rant (we can't joke anymore!) or things like that.

Those who don't have to deal with discrimination sometimes forget their privilege (yes that word, privilege).

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Christine Belzie

Love the tips on this article @abbeyperini! :) They are actionable, which is what is needed for issues like sexism in tech to be gone. Also, to your point on "2. Call Out Othering", there are two things that are need to be considered:

  1. Don't Take Up Space: Way to often I see well-meaning allies mistaken doing the majority of the talking as bringing awareness, so it's important for the ally to let the woman speak her points.
  2. Women need to advocate for each other: As a Black woman, I often noticed that non-white women's voices are not included in conversations about improving tech, so it's important for women, especially those who are not in marginalized groups, to make room for those women.
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Laura de Oliveira

It's a shame that we still have to educate them on how to treat women as capable co-workers as they are. Best #M8 post ever! 👏

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Abbey Perini

Indeed. At least this year I can say some of the support examples are things that actually happened, and I will always appreciate those dudes for stepping up in the moment. 🎉

Thanks for reading!

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Raí B. Toffoletto

Brava! 👏🏽

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Rita Brown

This post is so inspiring, thank you so much Abbey!

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Afia Anjum Preety

Could relate to multiple points in this article.Thank you so much for pointing them out like this.

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Maria 🍦 Marshmallow

Thanks for brining up this topic! Unfortunately, even these days women in development struggling with major issues, so I believe it is crucial to support each other!

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Tanushree Aggarwal

Great post! resonate 100%

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squidbe

Well-written and thoughtful article. One of the sad realities is that some of these ideas require buy-in from company leadership, and even in 2023, there are still some leaders with a boys'-club mentality. Eventually, those leaders will be replaced by leaders who realize that reproductive organs have no bearing on an engineer's ability to problem-solve and be a good teammate. But for now, I guess articles like this are still necessary.

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Abbey Perini • Edited

some of these ideas require buy-in from company leadership

I addressed this in the conclusion. Doing the smaller things still helps.

Additionally, startups and small companies often have a hierarchy small enough that you can influence the leaders.

Plus, it's not just leaders. I've experienced it more often from co-workers, 3rd party vendors, at networking events, and online. For example, every time a technical blog of mine hits a couple thousand views, I get hit on through the contact form on my portfolio site. Currently waiting to see if it happens even when the blog explicitly says "Don't objectify/sexualize women developers."

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squidbe

Sure, that's all true. My point is that I've been in situations where leadership did nothing to enforce/codify the behaviors you've outlined -- they basically just looked the other way -- so despite the best efforts of ICs who modeled these behaviors, some bad actors got away with stuff they should not have.

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Abbey Perini

Absolutely correct. That's when you leave reviews. 👍

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Info Comment hidden by post author - thread only accessible via permalink
𒎏Wii 🏳️‍⚧️

He's never been like that with me.

This could go either way to be honest. It could lead into "...so you must be making it up" or "...but I will take this seriously regardless"; the former being the problematic one, the second being, at worst, a bit clueless, or just trying to excuse why the person in question is even still there in the first place.

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