Let us be clear: I am part of the problem.  I say “ops guys” all of the time and it is clear to me now how tasteless that is.  I’m sorry.  I call myself a feminist, but it does not fit with my behavior here.  I will try harder.  I can replace “ops guys” in my brain with “ops folks”.  I know I can.  I will keep trying.

+Bridget Kromhout Thanks for an excellent article.  You are absolutely correct on so many levels.  The ops community definitely needs more diversity and wider visibility.  I’m proud of what I’ve done to make our community more diverse by prodding recruiters and encouraging women to interview for ops jobs.  Clearly that would be an easier and more effective effort if our community were more respectful and welcoming.  I will help make that happen.

Shared with: Public, Bridget Kromhout, Wing Wong

+1’d by: Wing Wong

Comments

Wing Wong - 2014-11-10T18:38:23Z

Very nice article. And definitely +1 on being more inclusive both in terms of the words we use and behavior.Reflecting on things, I’ve been extremely fortunate in that there has almost always been strong women at the companies where i have worked, in operations, management, etc. My first job in the bay area, I spent many a downtime/maintenance window chatting with the two women who were the Sr. Ops and Sr. Dba. Both with many more years of both tech and life experience than I and both with a very telling personal, yet not uncommon, perspective on being successful in the tech industry. Ie, they got to where they are through hard work, technical prowess, and having the patience and endurance/grit to deal with a male perspective that questioned their competence and experience. In operations, as in any tech job, having many viewpoints and solutions to reflect on is important to being able to find a best fit solution. If you have a lopsided pool of solutions, then the best fit may be less than ideal. This has always bugged me that women aren’t well represented(let’s face it, in many many many situations, not represented at all). Like @Christopher Hicks notes, I believe I am supportive of women in the tech workplace, but I know that through my mental, linguistic, and behavioural blindspots, I most likely am not as supportive as I’d like to think I am. I use gender neutral terms like “Ops” and “Engineer”, but I do find myself saying “ops guys” out of hanit. This is partly because the current ops teams is just guys, and partly because I refer to everyone as “guys”. Yes, when i get help from women eng/adm/mgr folk, i say, “thanks guys!” When it occurs to me to say “gals”, i avoid it because it feels like that word carries a negative meaning. Perhaps that perception is symptomatic of the problem? Ie, is it a problem if someone is a woman? Intellectually it is easy to say no. But culturally, looking at our use of slang and language, perhaps there is negativity ingrained there? +Bridget Kromhout is spot on. Through our beliefs/conventions/habits/etc. we are making people in our group feel like outsiders. :(

Christopher Hicks - 2014-11-10T22:59:10Z

Thanks +Wing Wong … well said.