Elusivity....

Because I want to always remember how I felt,this minute,this instant. Always.

Go figure.

Bisous.

On flipping tables...

I found this awesome write up Amelia Greenhall and it spoke volumes for me and any woman who has worked in a male dominated industry. Yes, you can have awesome skills and passion to boot but you will still be passed over for roles simply because of your gender.

This brought me back to a time when a colleague and I had to have cultural workshop for our new management that was Asian just so they could understand that in the environment in which we were, women could actually take on traditionally male jobs. We coincidentally had both just returned from maternity leave and we sat there twiddling our thumbs for over a month just because no work was assigned to us cause we "couldn't" handle it. Apparently. It was disgusting.

Here's to more women flipping the table.

@tableflipclub

Women are leaving your tech company because you don’t deserve to keep us around.

For years, we thought it was us. That we were failures. We thought that if we just did twice as well as the pasty hoodie-wearers around us we’d move up through the ranks too. Instead you got twice as much work out of us than you did out of our male peers, and tossed us a few scraps of “women’s networks” and “Lean In Circles” instead of promotions and raises.

Fuck that, we’re done. It’s not us, it’s you.

We’ve watched mediocre men whiz by us on a glass escalator, including in the part of tech companies which include a disproportionate number of women - roles that get dismissed as "pink collar" such as marketing, HR, and QA. We’ve had our work torn down in code reviews and performance reviews, while our male peers back-pat each others’ shitty work onwards to the next production incident. When we try to play by the rules (which we do because we’ve seen what happens to women who don’t) we’re denied opportunities because we aren’t “ready” for them- and we are ALSO denied the things you say we need in order to BE ready. When we do these things without your corporate approval, we do it knowing that we may be the next woman who gets quietly fired for being too forward.

When we try to take a seat at the table like Sheryl said we should, we’re called presumptuous.

We’re under-sponsored and over-”mentored” - in scare quotes for all the times that “mentoring” has been more like “mantoring”. Our serious technical hesitations are answered as though we’re asking what git is.

Our reviews are full of words like “shrill”, “abrasive”, “hard to work with”, “not a team player”, and “difficult”. We’re encouraged to be nicer and less intimidating and more helpful. Action items and measurable metrics are nowhere to be found. We’re promoted on performance, while our male peers half-ass their way up the ladder, failing upwards on the “merit” of their “potential.”

It’s time we take our potential elsewhere.

We’re following in the footsteps of brave women who’ve flipped tables out of our way, clearing the path we’re now walking down. We’re talking. We’re organizing. We’re sharing our long memories of all the creeps who’ve hit on us and the cowards who’ve failed to promote us. We’re lawyering up. We’re incorporating and fundraising for our own companies, and angel investing in other women who are building amazing things. We’re ceasing to give any more fucks about your incompetently-run “Uber for cats” app or whatever the fuck your company does.

2015 is the year of the tableflip.

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

#tableflip2015

With credit, love, and respect to Amelia Greenhall. 

On Empowering Women........

Recently, I was placed in the precarious position of having to explain to a fellow woman why I am so passionate about women’s empowerment. She believes that the playing field has been leveled and all these initiatives are in vain and unnecessary. I had to hold myself back from hitting her on the head with my laptop filled to the brim with research on why women are still a vulnerable group in 2015. 

So I’m sharing why I am passionate about women. I have always been very timid. I think I am now just growing into myself, anyone who has known me for over 10 years can attest to this. I have been lucky to have been mentored and been given opportunities to shine by people who recognized that in spite of a being skinny, shy girl, I had something important to contribute. And because of these people believing in me, I have a chance to make something out of my life and provide a great life for my daughter and I. 

Now, not so many women have a similar support system, in fact most women do not. Most women go through life doing what society says they can do, we are raised to aspire to traditionally feminine roles. Most parents I know are in a panic that their daughters are not married because this is the ideal epitome of success for a woman. Marriage is not bad, but we can be more than wives. In fact, I believe an empowered woman is a better wife. You need a life partner to help you steer this thing called life not someone who will just be dead weight on your boat and who better than a woman who can contribute to more spheres of life than housekeeping. 

So yes, the opportunities may be the same for men and women but social constructs still exist holding us back. Women lag behind men in technology adoption owing to the high costs of acquiring and maintaining new technologies, women have longer hours of work because not only are we gainfully employed but it lies with us to take care of the young. 

And for our homes, our economies and our nations to grow, women need to be part of the development conversation because women have a higher propensity to use their earnings and increased bargaining power to buy goods and services that improve family welfare. And family is where it all begins and ends. This is why I am passionate about empowerment of women.