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I think this really is a function of age. The software engineers I work
with now are in their late twenties, early thirties, and accept me very
well. HOwever, when I was working at a large defense contractor fifteen
years ago and many of the engineers and managers were ex-Navy guys in
the forties and fifties, I was regularly expected to fetch coffee and
type memos.
Heck, when I was a Business Management major in college (1974-1978), my
advisor told me to take shorthand and typing classes, because "a woman
in business needs to know those skills." Fortunately, my women's college
was in a five-college consortium so I could take classes on any
campus---I ended up taking almost all my classes at the all-male college
down the road or the co-ed colleges. I didn't want to end up taking a
course called "Accounting for Women" (whatever that meant). Needless to
say, I pretty much ignored my advisor.
The only thing I regret is that I didn't study mechanical engineering.
At one company I worked at, I worked with a mechanical engineer who
floored me one day when he said, "You should have been an engineer.
You've got the mind for it." Sadly, it never even occurred to me that I
could be an engineer when I was in college, even though my dad was one.
It wasn't a girl job.
So it goes.
Nancy Kaminski
nancy -dot- kaminski -at- spanlink -dot- com
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