I found a new blogger I like, Dr. Kathryn Clancy, and she blogged about a panel they had at Science Online 2011 and specifically about how when women want something they have to hide it. She talks about the moment I have been through many times where you are going along with your life and a colleague suddenly objectifies you and you realize you'll never be just another coworker to them, that your primary function is to be a woman. You can be smart for a woman or skilled for a woman but like Billy Joel sang, you're always a woman.
She also talked about women's tendencies not to promote themselves and a commenter had an insightful comment that despite attending the same conferences as men on "always negotiate" or "always promote yourself" that the message she took home to be aggressive was not nearly the same as what the men took home. She also talked about something I feel strongly about: we need to build an old girls club. I take this seriously here as well as in the workforce (which I'll probably talk about soon on EngineerBlogs). That we need to promote others as well as not be afraid to promote ourselves. So I did it. I joined twitter.
Two new things in one week, the hardware and the software, the yin and the yang.
