women in technology

The VMware User Group: A boys club

I attended the New England VMware Users Group meeting in Newport, RI on Thursday, and as usual, I was one of only a small handful of women there.

Sure, the whole tech industry is male dominated, but it seems even more so at VMware events, where the females stick out like sore thumbs and get stirred at like alien beings on a foreign planet.

My “outsider” paranoia was made poignantly clear when the older gentleman sitting beside me during lunch asked out of sincere curiosity, “So, why do you write about technology? Wouldn’t you rather be writing about fashion or something?”

My imaginary response was “Why, Yes! I would also love to spend my days writing about the latest additions to the My Little Pony collection and playing with Barbie dolls.” In reality, I was too insulted to think of anything witty to say, and was trapped in a flashback to when my brothers told me I couldn’t play G.I. Joes because I’m a girl.

With that, I made it my mission to speak to almost all of the women at the event about what they do and their virtualization projects. Which means I spoke to three women.

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