I’ve been lucky enough to have Microsoft pay for me to go to the virtual Grace Hopper Celebration this week. It’s been largely inspiring and rejuvenating, but at times has been tiring and frustrating.
I got into a funk today after an encounter that was sort of like a microcosm of the tech industry. I was in a networking session for the LGBT+ community, hosted on Zoom, where the session organizers put everyone into random virtual breakout rooms for 10 minutes or so at a time to get to know people more personally. It was sponsored by Discover, so they did a little spiel in the beginning. But in my first breakout room, there was a guy there from Discover, who was (most likely) not part of the LGBT+ community. After someone broke the ice about the cute guinea pig one woman had on her shoulder, there was an awkward pause and the guy from Discover talked about how great it was to work there, and said to ask him any questions we had about Discover. There was another awkward pause. At this point, in my opinion, he had talked for a bit too long about himself and I didn’t like that he hadn’t suggested the rest of us introduce ourselves or anything, instead seeming to want the conversation to be all about getting people to work at Discover and not what we were all really there for–networking, community, and feeling like we’re not alone in the tech world as women and as folks on the LGBT+ spectrum.
After this, one woman tried to bring the conversation back to networking by introducing herself and bravely sharing what brought her to the LGBT+ lunch. The guy then proceeds to talk again about how Discover is a great and welcoming place to work, maybe thinking this tied into what the woman had just shared, and talks for definitely too long this time. None of us had the backbone enough (or cared enough) to tell him to stop and let us focus on getting to know each other. While he was talking, I looked at the cameras of people in the room to gauge others’ feelings of this guy, and I noticed the first woman that spoke up about the cute guinea pig had already left the meeting. A couple minutes later, the woman who had shared about herself first had turned off her video. One woman who hadn’t spoken up yet started talking about how she was unhappy where she was working now and felt like she had to hide part of herself, and I felt so heartbroken for her and wanted to help her, but this guy jumped in and said how Discover would treat her better.
I felt like a deer in headlights, I have such trouble confronting people on the spot like this. So I didn’t do anything, which I now regret. Shortly thereafter, my laptop turned off abruptly due to a low battery. A sign from the universe? I freaked out thinking I didn’t want to leave the younger women in the room with this guy, having them think all networking sessions were going to be like this, but when I finally reconnected, they had finished those breakout rooms and were getting ready as a large group to join new breakout rooms. My other breakout sessions went far better.
I see a few problems that may have contributed to this situation:
- The last-minute removal of the Career Fair from GHC probably led companies to feel like they needed to recruit in other kinds of ways.
- This man’s stereotypical male way of communicating and taking charge of the conversation even at a conference for women and people who want to lift women up.
- The rest of us being women who–and this is at least just speaking for myself–are used to people-pleasing, not being assertive, and not rocking the boat, and are still learning how to navigate looking and thinking differently from most people that we work with.
It feels like an overstatement to spell it out in so many words, but it is how I felt… that first breakout room felt totally violating. Overwhelmingly I thought, how dare you take over space that was meant for women? This was meant to be a space for LGBT+ folks to share about themselves and get to know each other, not a career fair or a “learn about Discover” breakout session. I feel bad that I wasn’t able to be the one to speak up, or be a better role model for the less experienced women in the room. Those women deserved much better than that conversation.
Importantly, I do want to say:
- I’m not trying to bash Discover–the initial spiel from a different person in the main networking session where everyone was together was much better, less about the company and more about being LGBT+ (because this person was actually part of the community).
- I’m not trying to throw this guy under the bus… this kind of thing is really typical and I know he meant well and probably just wanted to do his job well and recruit people.
I’m sharing this more for awareness more than anything else. I hope others learn from this so that maybe I can help prevent at least one other conversation like this, while I practice speaking up more myself. I hope to find a way to handle these kinds of things that reflects my own style; gentle, kind, but still clear.
Finally I want to assert that tech is not always like this. These things are worth dealing with for the chance to work in tech. Above all my advice to women in tech would echo advice I heard yesterday at GHC: stay. I know that it’s hard sometimes, but we need you. We need your communication style, your great ideas, and most of all we need more women in the room, at the table, and leading the discussion.