Breaking Barriers : Women in Tech

4 min readMay 24, 2020

What exactly does it mean to be a woman in tech?

In the past few days, I have had conversations with different people about Women in Technology. We brainstormed about what the movement is all about, why it exists, the advantages it has to the girl child and whether it is a pity party for us as ladies.

The latter seemed to be true for most of the people I interacted with. So is it really a pity party? Are we considering ourselves as an inferior gender? Are we hiding behind the term women in tech just to feel safe? Could it be true that using the term women in tech scares the female population away since we are making it look like a hard industry to venture into for them? Are we making unnecessary advocations? Are we really empowering each other? Is it a show-off?

Now here are my thoughts, I do not think for once that regarding myself as a woman in tech has a negative impact in any way. In all sense, it empowers me. And its something I want to use to empower another girl out there.

I was empowered to look forward to becoming a software developer. I looked up to all the women in technology who came to give us talks in tech events while I was in college. I know I probably would have found a way of working hard and getting into the industry by my own knowledge, or not, but I think knowing these people gave me motivation and the grit to keep going.

We are problem solvers

Hearing their stories and seeing how they carried themselves out helped me create a mental picture of where and who I wanted to be. I wanted to be just like them. It sparked my passion and motivated me to keep going. Even though I have not gotten to my end goal, I still look up to them and I know that I will get where I want to be. And I know they will not fail me. And I will not fail them either. Because we are women and we look out for each other.

Audre Lorde said…..

I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.

So I am going to keep using the term women in tech to hopefully empower another girl’s life as mine has been empowered. In appreciation, I would like to give thanks to all the awesome ladies in the tech industry who have inspired me in one way or another.

Debbie Sterling, Founder, and CEO of GoldieBlox during one of her talk show said….

I don’t fit in. But I believe our little girls will.

We have been brought up in a world where women have been regarded to be legible to work in certain fields. I was surprised when I heard people say that we should stick to what we can handle as ladies and stop preaching the women in tech gospel. I then realized that the world has a fixed mindset of industries in which women should work.

So did I make a wrong decision to be a woman in TECH?

Barbara McClintock, cytogeneticist and winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine said…..

If you know you are on the right track, if you have this inner knowledge, then nobody can turn you off… no matter what they say.

Heck, I know I am on the right track. Do you?

Dear women, ladies, girls in tech, with much love 💞, continue empowering each other and keep looking out for one another. Let’s create a more favorable future for the little girls who look up to us.

PS. We support everyone in the tech industry. Male or female. That is just who we are.