As far as the women in STEM? I work in IT. Have for almost 20 years. And I’m going to be very undiplomatic about all this because I’ve heard this over and over again.

The biggest obstacle? Show the fuck up or get out of the fucking way of those of us who already did.

Seriously. I was only one of two women in my Comp Sci program at college. I was the only woman in my Microsoft training class. Most of my career, if someone asked for “The IT lady,” they’d know they were asking for me because there were no other IT ladies. And it wasn’t for lack of trying; lobbying at the high school level, advertising the classes in the women’s center, the professors even going out and trying to recruit. This wasn’t 1972, where my mom got told “girls don’t go into computers.” This was the 90′s dot.com boom where they could use all hands on deck and feminism had actually chipped away at the “girls can’t do that” stupidity.

But I get into any kind of academic feminist (specifying the type here, academic feminism is not the same as the “street level” type) space, and they sure as hell like to talk about women in tech. Oh, they can say all kinds of things about it. They have their pre-set narratives all in place. Social conditioning, “dudebro” atmosphere at the companies (a vague and unhelpful term if I ever heard one), rampant sexism. Oh, they sure like to talk about people like me. But they never want to talk TO people like me. Because they’re all ears if they think you can feed them something to fit the narrative they already decided on, but if you can’t feed them some lurid horror story and want to talk about other parts of the profession that may not make it appealing (long hours, crazy hours, reliance on contract work with no benefits, high stress, high-pressure atmosphere) - crickets. Nothing. No interest. Worse, a lot of those academic feminists were actively trying to talk me out of pursuing a degree in Comp Sci. (”Don’t you feel lonely and isolated and vulnerable surrounded by all those horrible, predatory, terrible MEN? Wouldn’t you feel safer, happier and more comfortable in a Women’s only space where you’ll be supported? You shouldn’t be there…”) No, fuck you. I’m not made of glass, and stop calling my colleagues predators. They’ve been more helpful to me than you have. Go away.

Honestly, it’s the academic feminism that seems to be the biggest saboteur now. It seems so very interested in claiming women are weak, helpless. That we’ll never be treated equally or taken seriously, and that the IT field is some wretched hive where a woman will have to endure psychological and physical harassment every waking moment. Little wonder a girl who listens to all that crap would be scared off. And yet these assholes want to crow so loudly about how they’re in my corner and on my side. With friends like them, I hardly need the enemies.