Girls in Tech (Yes, They Exist)
Last night, I was on a really big panel (felt like half the size of the audience!) for a Girls in Tech event. No men were allowed, so you are on your honor to stop reading this now if you have a y-chromosome.
The focus was on entrepreneurship and there was a great turn out of 100 or so enthusiastic, driven girls who were building or thinking about building something big. Instead of talking about a lot of hackneyed topics like "work-life balance" we focused on a lot of big elephants in the room.
The theme: GASP! Women are actually different than men. And in a lot of ways, that makes us worse entrepreneurs. We're horrible at demanding money. We're bad at being self promotional. The crowd was asked to name their favorite site and only two people named the one they worked for. In a room of men you'd have to say "Name your favorite site, other than yours." We network in a very different way, generally struggling with the more obnoxious borderline-stalking method of cornering an entrepreneur or VC in an elevator and relentlessly pitching them on your vision. And, sometimes we cry.
My advice? Accept it and control it. Force yourself to do all the things that are so hard for women, and well, if you have to cry put it off until you get home and no one is around. (Want to see the mascara streaked pillow from the Austin Hilton?) Then, exploit the benefits of being a woman in business. We're better listeners, better negotiators and less threatening.
This is always tricky to write about. A lot of men think you are some crazed, ultra-feminist if you talk about the challenges women have in the Valley. And as I learned somewhat to my surprise this week, a few women get incensed if you say there are "very few" women in the Valley because somehow they take it as you saying you are the only one. (I won't name names. But seriously-- I was told this week that several women I've never met HATE me for that reason. Um, it's sort of a documented fact that there are few women? Just bizarre. There seem other much better reasons to hate me...) This is probably why most uber-successful Valley women like Carly Fiorina would never address the topic.
It's understandable not wanting to be treated as a "token." But the way I look at it, if I've got disadvantages of being a woman in a male-dominated industry, why not take the advantages? If NPR wants to book me on a show to promote my book because they need a woman, who cares? All that matters is I do a good job. Carol Bartz, of Autodesk, put it much better in an article I wrote on her for BusinessWeek: "Let's face it, I don't believe the CEO of Autodesk would be invited to be on the President's Science & Technology Council if she wasn't wearing a skirt." Did Carol turn it down? Of course not!
And, as my inbox shows today, young women appreciate some straight talk. It does them no good to pretend my career has gone exactly as a man's would when they are struggling with getting credibility in the work place, equal pay, or general respect. Sometimes we just need to feel like other people have been there, and have our back. Until that's more common in the Valley, women will be the ones keeping it male dominated.
Besides, women are rad! Last night, a business card was slipped to me on the way out that read "I MUST know where you got those boots!" As a cooperative working woman I am happy to share my secrets: Delirious Shoes in Potrero. :)
