I recently had a phone conversation with a female friend and colleague who needed to vent. She is the owner of a small technology security consulting firm and apparently had a bad day. This bad day stemmed from the treatment she received at a trade show from some of the other attendees and vendors. I already knew what was coming. It seemed that, while visiting booths at this trade show, she had been ignored by a few vendors that she wanted to engage and treated rudely by some of the attendees. She questioned if it was a race thing. I told her no, I don't think it was purely a race thing, I think it was a race/gender thing.
I felt her angst, I really did. From my own experiences I know the frustration she felt in being made to feel like she was invisible or that these vendors, for whatever reason, didn't think she looked important enough to begin a dialogue with. "Why were they interacting with every white and asian male that came to their booths while I was told that someone would be right with me and that someone never came," she asked? Not once, not twice but three separate occasions at the same event. To add insult to injury, she was trying to engage these vendors to spend money with their companies. Big guarantee that will never happen.
Now, you may think that my friend is a shrinking violet or didn't convey that she needed to speak with a channel representative or didn't step up to the plate to ask for what she needed. Let me assure you that she is indeed the opposite of shy. The last straw came when she asked a passing male channel/sales rep for assistance and he said that someone would be right with her. After watching two people who came into the booth after her get serviced, she asked yet another rep for some assistance. Same result. A minute later my friend cornered the first rep she spoke to and asked what was the problem with getting service around here.
In her words...
"In the back of my mind I could see the situation play out in three different ways: 1. I could silently leave asking myself why no one honored my requests for assistance, therefore allowing them to continue with the horrible customer service I encountered; 2. I could catch a major sista-girl attitude with the rep I was speaking to and turn the place out, possibly reinforcing a stereotype that black women are loud and difficult; 3. I could take the high road and calmly and diplomatically ask why my requests had been overlooked and explain that I was there to demo a specific product because I had potential customers for it. I took the high road", my friend said.
"I asked the rep, who never quite made eye-contact or greeted me with the same handshake and wide smile as he had the others, why I was constantly passed over and ignored. He replied that they (everyone working the booth) thought I was part of concession services, not an attendee at the trade show. I asked why and he began to stutter and couldn't give me a straight answer. I let him know what my purpose was but, since I had been ignored, I would have to recommend their competitor's product to my clients. I also went so far as to say that I would write the senior channel rep and alert him/her to my experience at the booth, wrote down the name on his name tag and walked away. I should have gone for option 2. and turned the place out", she laughed into the phone.
Sad as it may be this is not an isolated situation. I hear similar stories from women in technology all the time. The most glaring and egregious examples however, always come from black women or darker skinned Indian and Pakistani women. I personally, have had a few encounters that should have been chronicled in Ripley's Believe It Or Not. I have heard male speakers at educational events make the most thinly veiled/outward, positively insensitive doltish comments. Then stand there with the innocent 'what did I do' look on their faces when someone confronts them about it. Interestingly enough, these comments do not always come from white males. So on one hand these are gender issues but on the other hand these are also race issues.
'Excuse you, did you see me standing here? Part 2 will set your ears aflame as I get up on the soap box and let you know what I and many women in technology think about the state of race and gender relations in the industry.
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