For the longest time, I’ve avoided Women in Tech meetups, conferences, and any other women in STEM initiatives.

Part of it was due to the fact that I didn’t graduate from any of the STEM degrees (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). In fact, I didn’t like any of those subjects in my high school years. I finished Bachelor of Business in Marketing with a very average grade. I accidentally landed a Graphics Design role at an e-commerce startup, then completed a year-long diploma in Digital Media, before formally entering tech as a Front End Web Developer.

Web development has become a much more understood and common branch of technology… generally classified under Software Development. Silicone valley has radically diversified the possible types of jobs in tech; designer, coder, analyst, testers, and etc. Everyone needs a website or an app these days; there are plenty of openings. Technically, anyone (well, a lot of people) can be in tech, hence a part of the STEM industries.

But even now, 6 years on and coding every day, I still don’t feel like I identify with being a woman in tech, let alone being in one of the STEM industries. Frankly, I feel too unaccomplished to be in this elite category of females. And I believe that many feel the same.

Why do I feel this way?

After much thought, it boils down to the narratives.

The STEM narrative

Recently, I had a very illuminating conversation with a male colleague about this. Like me, he felt that there’s something oddly exclusive about STEM fields.

There’s an impression that the majority of people in STEM are some kind of rare geniuses; building robots when they turned 5, pioneering research on radioactivity, discovering new strands of viruses, taking photos of the black hole and etc.

Those people’s achievements are so far above me. They all seem to have extraordinary backgrounds… oh-so-different from my own ordinary one. It hardly matters that these great people make up a small % of people in STEM. What matters, is that they are the face of these industries.

Our mainstream media is also great at layering these myths about STEM.

Oh, how they enjoyed using the industry jargons with a poor attempt to explain how things work.

How they relish and sensationalise prodigious background stories, like having to almost photographic memory, A++ in science classes, or can do 159⁷² in their heads by the age of 6.

Of course, it’s very important to use the correct terminologies and learn about these great prodigies. Their works are very complex and deserve publicity. But that seems to be the only way we’re talking about STEM these days. The general population only get to see the unapproachable smarts, making them unrealistically complicated and glamorously exclusive industries. The club where we ordinary folks can only admire, can’t understand and can do little to contribute, let alone belong.

What about tradies/workers who fix your pipes, wire your home, and stood in the sun for months to make that magnificent bridge? Is that not some form of tech and engineering combined with the physical labour?

What about hairdressers who turn your dark hair rainbow coloured, or pastry chefs who can sculpture that 5 tiered chocolate mousse perfectly every time? Isn’t what they do a form of chemistry?

It’s all in the narrative.

We are not as good at explaining how a computer works, as explaining how to build a house.

We introduced chemistry to adolescence by instructing them to mix unfamiliar looking substances inside test tubes, instead of asking them to make a meringue to teach the chemical reactions when whipping egg white and sugar.

Things that we can’t explain will always appear magical, mysterious, and unapproachable. We always put little value in commonplace things/activities.

“Only incredible people can understand this stuff, I’m not, and therefore I can’t hope to be a part of this.”

The Tech narrative

Out of all the STEM industries, technology — specifically software development, has one of the lowest technical barriers of entry. It will continue to lower as tech products become more financially accessible.

Even intermediate students get introduced to bread and butter of web development, like HTML and CSS.

Though unfortunately, it’s boringly taught in computer classes, filled with endless theoretical charts of how a server works. Really, those were enough to put most of my classmates off tech.

Luckily, the software industry pumps out so much high quality open-sourced materials these days. Though traditional education is still no better/faster at adapting those materials to teach young distracted minds.

Everyone seems to know how to use technology, but not how they work as a whole. The technology industry remains one of the most misunderstood.

Internet of Things, Algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence. These are jargons we use to explain how light bulbs talk to our phone, the set of steps to accomplish a task, and the automated set of rules which aids decision making.

Not only that these terminologies make tech appears abstract and magical. We’re told of ambitious goals of tech giants, like making the world a better place with this app, or redefining the way we work with a piece of gadget.

How can we — the ordinary —be expected to change the world, or cause a paradigm shift, when we barely understood the tools that get us here today?

Making robots, a rideshare app, and fingerprint authentication are as far away from what most people think they are capable of, as travelling to Mars.

I don’t change the world, nor invent new things. My job is to solve deceptively simple problems. Like making sure a user understand what this button does at a glance. Really, my work isn’t all that complex.

Then… we have this tech job requirement:

Degree in engineering, computer science, or equivalent

Do the recruiters know how much maths a student need to drone through to get this degree? We know maths is one of the least favourite subjects in schools, and very difficult to teach in the way that is fun. How many creative and artistic 11-year old does this requirement stop short a potential career in tech?

And if you’re an everyday software developer, when was the last time you had to solve an equation manually or even create a formula at work? Be honest, which part of your degree was helpful? Could it have been taught in a year-long practical diploma, instead of 3–4 years?

Most importantly, not everyone in tech is a software developer or an engineer. All successful products require at least a project manager, designer, and a developer (a tester would be grand).

How many engineers do you know personally, who can manage budgets or design visually appealing and user friendly tools? Bet you can count them with one hand if any.

It’s the need for diverse specialities and backgrounds that makes tech an interesting industry.

Then we have the popular media…

Oh, the damage TV shows like the IT Crowd did to image of IT people.

No one wants to be associated with the grumpy, sexist and cocky group of people.

We’re familiar with programmers in movies, typing at the speed of light on a black and green text-based terminal… Doing something genius beyond human comprehension.

How many people look at that and go “Wooh yeah, I can totally do that”?

The reality is a lot of development tools are point-and-click like everything else.

Our popular media do little to realistically portrays the low barriers of entry into tech. A lot of the time, the image of being in tech puts people right off entering the industry, while new entrants are constantly feeling inadequate.

The Women in Tech narrative

When I look at talks, publications, and role models of Women in Tech, it’s generally one of the following:

A woman with technical childhood aptitude

“She never liked playing with dolls, but prefer legos.”

“Oh physics was her favourite subject.”

“Dad bought her a computer when she was 10. She spent the weekend taking it apart then putting it back together.”

A woman who needs to prove herself

“She was the only female in her degree, so she had to show them she could do it.”

“She had to be strong to fight her way into a senior/management position.”

“She provided great value to the team, so they couldn’t ignore her work.”

“She enjoys a beer as much as her male colleagues.”

A woman who does great things

“She was the first programmer.”

“She is a female astronaut.”

It’s fantastic and important to have strong role models. Really. I get goosebumps and inspired reading about them. Make us proud that people who identify as the same sex can succeed. They give us hope that we too can find a place in Tech.

But pray tell me, realistically, how many % of women who work in the tech industry fits these powerful images?

I am none of them.

I spent my childhood drawing and painting. Legos were expensive.

I had to work really hard to achieve bare minimum maths passing grade.

I almost fell asleep in physics classes.

I didn’t take a STEM degree, so I felt no gender imbalance. Marketing degree was full of girls.

It takes me twice or three times as long as others to get, then apply an unfamiliar programming concept. But that doesn’t stop me from learning.

I have not personally, or knowingly, been affected by the infamous sex discrimination at work. So I can’t fully empathise with those who have.

I never needed to be less feminine. I rock up to work in pretty skirts, wear a t-shirt less than once a week, and own 1 hoodie. Nobody gives two hoots about what I wear.

I spend my days attempting to improve information delivery to ordinary users, using web development basics that most bro programmers look down on.

The only form of discrimination I get is by my coding tools of choice. Even so, it’s easy enough to dismiss. I am valuable to my team with my simple tools of the trade.

I am proud of the work I do. But I cannot personally identify with the poster ladies of the tech industry. There’s a huge disconnect between me, who they are, what they do, and what they’ve achieved.

Make the industry truly inclusive

In almost every woman in tech conversations, people would talk about how to get more women into tech.

Often, pay inequality comes up. Saying we need to ask for more.

Many suggest a workplace quota. Though my workmate warned that as soon a matric/stats has been made a goal, people tend to care a lot less about how we achieve that quota. The means to achieve that quota might be picking less qualified women over men. Have we not learnt of resentments which bubbles from affirmative action, when the need isn’t dire? Women’s rights have come a long way. The tech industry itself knows it needs more women to survive and grow. The importance is in the ‘how’.

A lot of initiatives were set up to encourage girls/women to code. We have so many robot hackathons, Scratch clubs, and after-school python classes. My concern isn’t with the kind of people who’d be attracted to this sort of thing, but those whose the tech narrative left behind.

With these coding groups, we will get a bunch of driven, curious, intrinsically technologically aware, and lovingly geeky gamer humans. Great! The kind that fits the narrative.

But what about those who like to draw, are fascinated by gardening, or have an aptitude for planning? Will these types of people give robot code camps or a gaming group a glance? To them, these activities belong to another social caste. They belong to the women in tech narrative, not the ordinary.

Yet time and time again, we’ve needed the rest of the population’s diverse interests/skills to effectively create products for the majority.

Ask the girl who can draw beautifully, to illustrate how the internet works, and use it on her grandparents.

Instead of telling ladies who love gardening to mobilise robots, teach them to make simple electric snail & slug fence to protect the community garden’s veggie patch. Agriculture needs tech too.

Nudge a female planner to sketch up her ideal event planner. Have her list down the things she wishes the app would do to help her. And there you go, a tech brief.

Make tech narrative accessible. Lower those psychological barriers of entry into the industry.

What is the tech industry really?

Can’t we simply be the people who solve human problems through technology?

I didn’t write this to protest the promotion of amazing role models. They are extremely important sources of inspiration.

Nor am I asking to join ranks of those passionate women in tech, who pour their hearts and souls into their works. That would be silly; I haven’t put in nearly as much.

I’m not unhappy about being excluded from the narrative. If being in tech no longer just means making useful things for people, then I am happy not being a woman in tech. I am just me. Learning and attempting to solve small problems, one line of code at a time.

But I implore you to examine how we talk about the tech industry.

Stop making the tech industry a golden box to put very specific kinds of jobs and people in.

Technology doesn’t have to be complicated. Often, the simplest physical solution works a treat.

I wish we would preach that one doesn’t have to be an extraordinary genius with lofty goals to be in tech.

The tools and technologies we use weren’t single-handedly created by magical beings. Technology is being developed by the collaboration of diverse and ordinary individuals. Everyone could be making technological advancements, by being an inquisitive and hard-working problem-solver.

Special thanks to G who inspired this article, and Nav who kindly reviewed it :)