Femme / Butch / Neither / Both

or Observations of A Changing Gender Presentation

Recently I read a post “Programmers and Painted Nails” by Clare Bayley which is a good piece on how femininity can be perceived in tech (at least, by and as women in tech). But I read it and wanted to go into further depth, since I think I have an unusual experience.

I used to be a lot more feminine than I am now, though not necessarily enthusiastically. Still struggling to understand my gender, I did a great number of different things to try to find which would would “fit” and make me feel like a woman. (Spoiler: nothing did. One day I will write more about this.)

I was never “high femme” and I don’t think I’d be femme compared to some women I know, but it was at least a way towards femme. I wore skirts, and dresses sometimes, and women’s jeans; I had long hair. I wore expensive shoes and floaty shawls and lacy cardigans. I wore makeup. I painted my nails.

At tech meetups, and when interacting with other developers in general, men were never outright hostile or abusive. But I was unequivocally made to feel unwelcome or patronised. It was assumed that I was a marketer or a designer, or that I was just accompanying someone. One memorable occurrence was during a testing workshop, after asking a lot of questions of a more experienced attendee, he snapped at me that “maybe my company should have sent a developer to this rather than a project manager”. I didn’t think much of it, to be honest. I knew tech was sexist, and had prepared myself for that; and besides, the attitudes were much the same as I’d seen from all the other men I’d met before.

After a period of time attempting to achieve womanhood through femininity, I realised it wasn’t working, and started to spend my efforts elsewhere. The skirts went, but I still wore jeans; I cut my hair short, but still feminine. I wore trainers and hoodies and babydoll shirts that had funny designs. I stopped wearing makeup. I didn’t paint my nails.

The effect on my career was frankly stupendous, though like a proverbial frog in warming water I didn’t realise it at the time. I got promoted and got a pay rise. People stopped talking over me in meetings. I remember disagreeing with my boss and him conceding the point, which had never happened before in my entire life. I started attending tech events more, because I didn’t feel the draining effect of constantly being an outsider. No-one assumed I was dating someone. And no-one did that creepy staring thing anymore, either.

About a couple of years ago, I reached an understanding of my gender, and came out to my friends as androgyne. The changes have been gradual. But now I wear men’s jeans and men’s shirts; all my clothing is loose and I wear a binder everyday. My hair is much shorter and more masculine. But very little has changed in how I’m treated in professional settings.

I’m not for a minute suggesting that the sexism went away as soon as I got out the polish remover. It’s still there — I still get patronised sometimes, and some people assume that my fiance taught me how to code rather than the other way around— but it’s nowhere near as bad as it was. I’m also not suggesting that my experience is in any way universal or even widespread. I’m a very unusual case, and that’s the main reason why I’m writing this.