Sexism

So I am jumping on the train of posts about women's experience in CS. I think there is already a wonderful post about all the facts pertaining this, I wanted to give a bit of a personal point of view. The title is pure satire and as sarcastic as it can be. If you do read what I wrote, you will see my experience is rather: How I got in despite being a girl. I don't.. expect to post this to have my "life" deconstructed into arguments you can debunk. You can make whatever you want of what I'm about to say, but please stay respectful. It's a [very] long post, but I hope it helps bring a new perspective to some. I guess I'll add some TLDR at the bottom for the normal people that won't read the freaking essay-length post I wrote. I got a bit carried away, sorry :v *** I started playing with computers when I was 3 or 4. Apparently, my parents were impressed with how quickly I understood how to get around user interfaces, but it might've just been something that any young kid fiddling around the computer at that age could figure out. Y'all, you don't know how often I begged my parents for "magnetix" construction toys (but got this instead), hot wheels (but got a barbie RC car), etc. Honorable mention to what my parents gave me when I asked for a skateboard bc it's fucking hilarious. During my teenage years, I started getting into things like animation with Flash Player (rip Flash) and generally became a lot more knowledgeable than my friends at knowing how computers work, but I learnt that sharing that passion with my female counterparts would often be met with "meh"s, as opposed to if I'd gotten into makeup art or drawing. For a while, my guy friends actually liked it when I told them about programming "games" in excel(!!), but that was until everyone started wanting to date each other, and suddenly my hobbies were seen as "not feminine" - wanting to fit in, I eventually just took to keeping these things to myself. My parents occasionally praised that I was "really good at computers", but that was about it. Where I came to get really mad was when my cousin (who was my age) came to stay at our house for the summer, and my parents sent him to science camp while I was sent to art camp (I wasn't asked which I'd prefer). By the time I was 16 and was looking for a summer job, I knew my way really, really well around computers and really enjoyed this, so when one of my friends told me that his work was looking for someone to work at the computer sales department, I was ecstatic and went to interview. I was asked veery general knowledge questions about computer parts/electronics, and I immediately answered correctly to every single one of them. I was immediately hired on the spot for that position. Working there, I didn't really understand why people kept asking me "honey, how do you know all this stuff about computers?", "did your dad teach you all of this?", and, my favourite, "would you mind if I got a second opinion on this from your colleague over there?". Said colleague who often shared shifts with me, often came to work high and his knowledge was so limited about all the products and warranties, that his hesitance when he was called over for a "second opinion" made me lose a sale more than once. I asked my friend (who got me the job) if he often was asked for "second opinions" during a sale, and he looked pretty confused - he told me I must "sound shy" when doing a sales speech. I was super passionate about computers, and clients who didn't "doubt" me would often tell me that they adored my service. Oh, yeah, also at that job, still 16, I was sent constant creepy texts about "my boobs looking hot in my uniform" by my 29 year old manager. I also found out that he did the same thing to a 15 year old cashier. We were all too scared to call him out, and I don't know what happened to him, but I doubt anyone called him out on it. The best part about that job, is that despite me ranking first or second in sales, more than once the "rumor had it" that I was only hired because "a girl hadn't worked there in a while". Fun fact: out of everyone that worked with me, I'm the only one that pursued studies in CS or anything related, but hell it couldn't be possible that I did well in the interview. When I was graduating high school and told my dad and stepmom that I wanted to study engineering, my stepmom told me that "I had too soft of a character for that field", whatever that meant. That was not the only reason why I didn't go into it, but it certainly didn't help with doubting if I had what it took. So I studied something in humanities instead, and unsurprisingly was miserable and envious of the kids in my college who were studying STEM. During that time, I still worked at my college's computer lab, and of course I was the only girl there. I just got used to the fact that, probably for a big part of my life, I would be the only girl in things related to computers. I finally started studying in STEM, and was so freaking happy and got the best grades I'd ever gotten. But there were a few things in and outside of class that always left me a bit uncomfortable. My math professor, who I really liked, during a class about 3D integration, explaining how "girls in the class would probably not be as good at these, since everyone knew they were not naturally good at spacial awareness". The irony being that we continue to give girls barbies and boys legoes, and wonder why things like this are said. My hardware team, in which I was the only girl, joking about making me the "secretary" of the team. Eventually, when the captain of said team asked me out and I explained I was gay, he flat out stopped inviting me to the final reunions of the competition, and I didn't get to finalize the prototype. I did attend the competition, only to be extremely awkwarded out because the others thought that I had bailed out on the team in the last minute. Another CS club (only girl there too), where we went out for drinks and I was the only one who was given a "BJ shot" in the table (it's an alcoholic drink that's made to make you look like you're giving... you get the point), paid for by the captain (not the same guy as the hardware club). I felt super awkwarded out by this, but being scared about what had happened in the other club, I just shut up and drank it. A comment was passed about how "I looked like I knew what I was doing". The whole night I was constantly asked about my personal sex life with my girlfriend, and the comments got more and more invasive as the night went on. I got a scholarship and did some research internships at the beginning of my bachelor's. My boss in one of my industrial internships was and is to this date the most supportive guy ever, and he set the standards on what treatment to expect from superiors. It's after working for him that I realized how over the years, my input on things were not given the same consideration as my male coworkers. ] In quite numerous occasions, and this still happens, I will have an idea I just gave "reexplained" to me by a male counterpart. If you're a guy: I very much understand you are trying to be nice, and you're not less my friend if you do this, but it does get annoying overtime. Last year, I started looking for internships for this summer. Did my CV get read quicker because I'm a girl? Maybe. But my CV is so filled with tons of projects, internships, awards and scholarships, that 5 out of the 7 places I applied to (yes, I only applied to 7 places, including 3 FAANG and the rest being pretty much below FAANG), hit me up. (Fun fact: amazon did not get back to me!). I am pleased to say I will be an SWE intern for one of the two hardest FAANG's to get into. I dare you to tell me that I only got in there because I'm there to fill up a statistic. I end this by saying, I am aware some of the things I got that I sound like I'm complaining about, like the toys, the art camp, not doing the major I should've done right away, I'm still very privileged to have had. I am still extremely grateful to my loving parents, and I don't blame them for anything, I know this is more of a societal problem. If I sound extremely frustrated despite where I ended up, it's because this journey was f*king frustrating when it shouldn't have been, simply from the attitude about women in those environments. And as much as this is a personal story, and I probably went trough a particularly shit time because I got involved in a gazillion CS activities and clubs and jobs, talking with other female friends in my field, we all have multiple stories like these. So if you're wondering why a company would need to put in extra measures to try to get women to apply, go read those statistics, think about stories like the one I just told you, and maybe all of that will help you understand why while women's participation in CS was going up in the first 20 years of the field (+1%/year from 1970 to 1985), the number of women crashed dramatically for the next 30 years after that (-0.5% year from 1985 to 2015). We do not want to be treated "better" than men in the field, but we also do not want to be treated worse, and this has been the case until now, which is why you can't get that many women in the field. Nobody is saying that workplaces need to have a sharp 50/50 representation of women, but all we ask for is to be treated equally. Until then, companies can maybe try to encourage us a little bit by giving a second glance to our CV. That was my story. Now, who wants a BJ shot??? :-) TLDR: considering the shit (understatement) I went through because I was a girl interested in compsci among a sea of men, the least companies and colleges can do to make me stay in computer science at all is give my resume a second look. Edit: I did not expect people this many people would respond!!! The amount of positive comments sending love AND the incredibly constructive and healthy conversation that is stemming from this post, gah it makes me so happy y'all don't understand. I don't expect everyone to agree with every word, but even those who are literally just acknowledging the shitty parts without being for AA, this is more than what I could ask for. If you're one of those peeps with the negative comments, I didn't forget about you!! I got you a little gift to try to make up for all the wasted time you spent saying negative things on this post. Here is a curated list of 75 leetcodes to save you time preparing for interviews 🥰