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Another Year Of Being in Gender Minority in Tech

Eevis on March 01, 2024

It's time for Dev's annual We Coded campaign again, and it's the fifth time I'm participating. You can find my previous contributions from the link...
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eevajonnapanula profile image
Eevis

So... After reading the post, your decision was to post this comment and contribute to next similar blog post? Really? I guess someone had to prove my point. I don't want to thank you for your contribution, but rather suggest you check the code of conduct here in Dev.

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Christine Belzie

Thanks for sharing your story @eveis! :) It’s unfortunate but not surprising that men tend to be praised for repeating their female colleagues’ suggestions. 🙄 The screenshot you posted reminds of an incident I experienced for last year’s wecoded. I wrote a discussion post on here where I question and express my frustration in the lack of visibility that womxn-owned/maintained open source projects

. As predicted, I did receive a comment from a man/male-presenting person that said, "This comes across as whiny. Everyone struggles in tech. GitHub does not have a gender check status"(the comment is no longer there as the mods took action to suspend this person). I was tempted lecture him, but I quickly realized that would be free labor, something womxn should avoid when dealing with immature men.
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Eevis

Unfortunately, I'm not surprised about that comment you received. I've seen so many similar ones here in Dev and other platforms as well, and it feels like the amount of such comments increases every year :/ And funny thing about that comment you received is that there have been many studies which have showed time and time again that womxn struggle significantly more in tech because of bias, their PR's get rejected in open source communities more easily if their gender is identified, and they (we) need to prove ourselves more often than men.

I was tempted lecture him, but I quickly realized that would be free labor, something womxn should avoid when dealing with immature men.

💯 I love that comment! That's so perfectly said!

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Michael Tharrington • Edited

Eevis, thanks so much for continuing to share your thoughts and experiences with us each year! I'm sure it's not easy to speak up and share these truths when there are so many folks out there trying to put you down and shut you up.

I've seen it happen on DEV to you multiple times... in every situation, you're explaining your experiences and calling for more equality, but there's some response from someone who is trying to belittle, gaslight, or otherwise put down what you're sharing in some way. Folks can try to misconstrue your words & motivations (like they have below), but when I see this it just further proves your points. And despite all this pushback, you continue to raise your voice and make your experiences known.

All that to say, you are seriously inspiring! I hope you know how incredibly strong you are, and I really appreciate you sharing your experiences with us. 🙌

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eevajonnapanula profile image
Eevis

Michael, thank you. Thank you so much for this comment. I appreciate it a lot 💖😭

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Thomas Bnt ☕

I've also been told that women should respect men, and I don't belong even in a kitchen, but a cave, to learn about respect all the things men have done for me. This person made the threat in March last year, after I shared a LinkedIn post about gender equality and how some technologies are biased.

Oh.. well.. 🤯
It's hard at times to see this kind of highly inappropriate comment... In any case, I give my support to all of you, you deserve better than this trash ❤️

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Eevis

Thank you 💖

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Jess Lee

Nodded along and cursed under my breath for the first half of that. Thank you for the important read.

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Eevis

Thank you for reading!

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Renan Ferro

Wow, thanks for sharing! I really can't understand why people act this way, they choose to be mean people instead of being nice people or something like that. Congratulations on not letting this type of person beat you and know that you and all women are simply very strong!