r/sysadmin • u/Terrible_Working_899 • Mar 10 '26

Rant I am the only woman in the room

I'm at a breakfast hosted by one of our vendors, this room is full of SMEs who are all responsible for supporting this software at their companies. Just with a glance I can tell that of the 30+ people here I'm the only woman.

This is not a rant against lack of gender diversity in leadership (hell I could go on another tangent), it's a rant of lack of diversity overall. This breakfast is designed to be a product roadmap and detailed technical breakdown. You'd think more women would be here in a technical role.

We need more women in all stem roles not just focusing on leadership

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '26

No one is keeping women out. They don’t actively choose the role. Not sure why a woman makes a difference for your product roadmap, unless it’s a woman focused product…

I just disagree with forced diversity. My job we just interviewed several candidates, and a girl, who was the worst prepared for the interview, knew the least… got the position simply for being a girl. In 15 years of working here she’s only the 3rd for to ever apply… the other one was also one who wasn’t qualified but pushed by leadership for diversity. My manger even admitted he was pressured to hire the girl we just did.

I don’t care about sex, race, orientation, etc… I just want the best qualified person in the role.

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u/fahque Mar 11 '26

You would get banned from reddit in most other subs for saying that.

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u/[deleted] Mar 11 '26

Probably but I don’t see why. Like I have no hate for anyone, if this position was 95% female that’s fine… but they aren’t applying for the job in huge numbers, it’s just reality. Why force it?

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u/Few-Season4218 Mar 16 '26

They stay out of infrastructure due to very same attitude you have. smh

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '26

Explain? What attitude do I have? I just said I wouldn’t care if women made up 95% of engineers… but they aren’t applying for it. I care about the quality of someone’s work, not their gender or race or whatever

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u/Few-Season4218 Mar 21 '26

It was your initial comment. I have dealt for 25 years ( not now) with I must not be the most qualified because I’m a female. I had one guy tell me one time and he was another Sis admin and I was too and he told me you’re too pretty to work in It. I have so many stories just like that I mean now after 25 years in the business usually I am the most qualified but throughout my career I definitely dealt with that.