Old dev yells at cloud

Chapter 2: About a girl

February 12, 2024

I hear one thing very often in both big corporate and small business stories when they recall how they product became a success: there was a gap in the market. This thing, whatever it was, did not exist until we did it, until we thought about it. I'm skeptical every time I hear it. There's a lot of us and most times a couple of people have already had the same idea as you. Of course originality and innovation are real things. But guess what, most times I'm right: whatever you think no one did before you was done. Just maybe on the wrong time, or place, or poorly executed or who knows. That's the most plausible scenario most of the times. But still it's said a lot. And it's not only about markets and products that you hear that same thing, though. I've heard it, and said it as one of the multiple explanations of how stereotypes establish and blossom. And of why things that seem evident to me now, in the year of our lord 2024, were not as clear when I was growing up. And today I want to talk about that. I'm thinking about a particular stereotype: the belief -nowadays only held by either very clueless or very unkind people- about gender gap in software related jobs being a matter of preference. "Girls just don't like computers that much". As someone who was once a very into computers girl, I have lots of thoughts and I'm about to proceed to make them your problem.

I grew up mostly in the nineties and when I talk to younger people I already have the old lady list of things that did not exist when I was their age. There's the obvious ones: smartphones, wi-fi,social media, roombas (you can tell I'm already having trouble coming up with examples here, forgive my ripe old lady memory). I also don't want to talk (a lot) about those (today). Or, conversely about the cool things we did have. I was thinking today about the things I would've said (and probably did say at some point) did not exist on a broad cultural level.

I've fallen into the trap of making broad statements like "no one pushed technology as a career opportunity for girls", "no one knew what software even was". Those things are never true. There was always someone who did. And that's the thing I want to ramble about today.

There's a (truthy) consensus about women pioneering in computer science until around the time the personal computer became a thing and became strongly marketed towards boys.You know a thing I don't recall at all? PC marketing. I do recall some other things: all my computer lab teachers were women. I secretly mocked one of them for years for anticipating a future in which we'd all walk around with a computer in our pocket. She did it in a very enthusiastic and prophetic speech that started with her pointing out the fact that the smallest device to listen to music she had as a little girl was bigger than a PC. I hope she's still alive and I hope she's doing great. I played games, lots of games. I saved money in a plastic bottle to get a Sega Megadrive (we called it Genesis here). One day there was enough money. Only years later it was revealed to me that my grandpa would secretly put money there when he visited. I don't think my grandpa knew or understood what a Sega Megadrive was. Then again, I lived in a kinda sheltered environment. My parents were extremely careful not to push harmful gender stereotypes, I mean, they still did, but they tried. And they did like their children having hobbies. And also, since there was not a lot to do with a computer back then, most of what I did was write, and my parents did love that.

I do remember video games marketing being gendered. And I do remember how lots and lots (and lots) of games that included character customization or selection had maybe nine male options and one female. If any. Fun anecdote: I thought Tails from Sonic 2-3 was a girl for the longest time. I was a bit bummed to learn he's not.

But then again, I loved my not-so-little devices. There was a spirit of exploration I don't think modern interfaces allow. I could irritate my writer dad by activating clippy (or any other of the other word guys). I could “animate” my text in Word (remember that? What was THAT about? Random software came with the PCs we brought home. My dad's new computer when I was like 13? came with a gazillion game demos: Tomb Raider, Yoda Stories, Alone In The Dark, Comix Zone. It was a party. The one at my mom's came with a guy that installed all the things and left us a CD with a couple of games including a Mario Kart ripoff I adored. It had one girl character to choose, her car was pink. Penelope Glamour vibes.

I write all of this trying to make sense of something that I think a lot about: I was deeply invested in knowing about computers, video games and whatever the little elves inside the computers were doing. I remember mentioning that when we talked about career opportunities at school. I had learned a programming language at school and loved it, even though I did not understand what those were used for. Still, software development as a job was something that was never brought up as a plausible thing I could do. I was told that the only computer related major that even existed was engineering and that it involved a lot of math. I sucked at math. Fun fact: there's a computer science major in my country's biggest and very great public university. It already existed back then. I found out about it maybe five years ago. Oh, and there's also a whole ass tech oriented public university here too, founded in 1948, also extremely great.

As a young adult looking for a job I'd filter out the programming languages having no idea what they were or meant. I just knew those jobs were inaccessible to me, and they clogged every site, they were always first on the list..

It took seeing another woman, a very bright classmate I had, breaking into software development for me to find out that yes… I could actually learn that. And to then find out what that even meant. I was fascinated when I learned JavaScript fundamentals because I knew about the things! The logical operators, the data types, ifs and elses. I had used those ages ago to try to make my own conversational UIs back when I don't think that was a thing with a name (it surely, surely was. Please be patient with me, remember the whole point is how much I did not know about this).

Remember how I talked about how both companies and humans have a bias that makes them think something did not exist just because they did not see it? (or at least that was what I attempted to do in the first paragraph). A mantra for me all this years was that no one was promoting software development for young girls. And reader, Clarissa. Remember her? Is who Melissa Joan Hart played before Sabrina. She explained it all. She wore the most exquisitely ridiculous 90s fashions. Had lots of pajamas with cool patterns. And she had a computer. No idea how she was marketed elsewhere, but at least here the fact that she had a computer was highlighted in the commercials. With today's insight I know, or suspect, that Sabrina knew software development (and from what I picked up from the couple of clips and episodes I saw before starting this word waterfalling, she also had some electronics knowledge.

She made her own games, turned her PC into a TV (somehow), fed her words used in poetry to make it come up with her homework. Clarissa aired where I live years after it was released. When I was about 12. So it was there just in time to spark my interest when I saw it and boy I saw it. So, then again, why didn't that stick either.

I'm a one person sample so I can't claim my personal experience as the default, but still it gets my attention. It's not impossible for it to be totally a me thing. But it's a thing I think about a lot so there's no harm in looking for answers as long I don't get obsessed.

So, ya know what? It's time for a rewatch. A couple of things I noticed just watching some clips and a couple loose episodes is the language. Yes, she does stuff, but I don't feel it's ever explained how or why she has that knowledge. Also, it does not seem to rank high among her many interests. I remember driving being her thing. And fashion. And music. But that girl spent a lot of time on the PC. Do I have a conclusion? Of course not, just this vague idea it'll be fine to dive a bit into this 90s nostalgia show. And also the certainty all these things I'm just now thinking about have already been covered in articles, essays, videos, you name it's by people way smarter than me. I'm clearly not that smart. It took me 35 years to find out I did not have to be an engineer to work in IT. But I feel it's at least not completely a me thing. The gender gap runs strong on the industry, stronger among people my age and, continuing to be anecdotal I did see lots of my boy friends go into those jobs I'd filter out. But hey, I have fun with my little thoughts in my little head, so maybe a couple of months from now I can actually write something a bit more researched about tech literacy in Clarissa explains it all. For today, I hope you have a great week. I'll keep you posted, whoever you are, if you happen to be someone.