Glimpsing the Other Side
January 30, 2015
I am in a decent number of meetings in a given week. When in a meeting that is IT specific, the majority of folks in the meeting tend to be men. It is not too hard to figure out why this is the case and it is something that we as an industry need to be working on.
The reason I bring this up today is that I had the opposite experience in a meeting today. For the first 5 minutes of a meeting with 5 people around the table, I was the only male there. A few things surprised me, first, that I noticed that very quickly. It wasn’t a comfortable/uncomfortable thing, it was just clear to me right away that I was the only guy there. Second, the content of conversation that was going on was completely appropriate, but also completely different than I was used to. Again, not good or bad, just different for me.
This then got me thinking, is this what it is like for many women in IT where they might be the only woman at the table? If so, it is just another aspect of the bigger picture that I think needs to be worked on. I am not saying to not have any conversation, just be a little more thoughtful what you are talking about and also how you are talking about it.