#ILookLikeAnEngineer challenges stereotypes

SAN FRANCISCO — Sexist responses to an ad featuring a female engineer have turned into a rare opportunity to highlight the contributions of women and people of color to the technology industry.

Isis Wenger says she faced an unexpected backlash after appearing in an ad as part of her company's recruiting campaign.

The platform engineer at OneLogin told TechCrunch she was not prepared for the reaction to a series of ads that featured OneLogin engineers along with statements about why they work for the company. Wenger says she received attention simply for being a woman.

"I'm curious people with brains find this quote remotely plausible if women in particular buy this image of what a female software engineer looks like," one person remarked.

"At the end of the day, this is just an ad campaign and it is targeted at engineers," Wenger said in a post on Medium. "This is not intended to be marketed towards any specific gender — segregated thoughts like that continue to perpetuate sexist thought-patterns in this industry."

So Wenger launched a hashtag on Twitter to challenge common misperceptions about who engineers are.

The #ILookLikeAnEngineer hashtag grew in popularity on Tuesday with hundreds of women and people of color using it to illustrate the breadth of talent in the tech industry. None conform to the geeky, white male Mark Zuckerberg mold common in popular culture.

The tech industry is coming under growing pressure to address decades-long lack of diversity. Major technology companies are staffed and run mostly by white and Asian men.