Coding and Feminism.

I’ve been coding for a few days now and officially built my own website from scratch! I’m really proud of how far I’ve come in such a short time. In the beginning, I just barely got my feet wet and made an image and text align in the center and played with colors. Then I worked with simple Javascript functions to build a donut building program. This time, I lost the Javascript, but I went much deeper into the CSS.

I built this website from the opening bracket of the Doctype to the last closing html bracket, and all the CSS styling in between. I created a gallery of photos I’ve taken in Washington that have color stories that appeal to me and inspire me. I added an about page and a contact page and linked them into my html sheet. I chose the colors that appealed to me and changed selected links and hover colors. It’s even responsive and made with a mobile-first mentality! As a result, I have a website dedicated exactly to something that inspires my designs.

While I did most of this based on prompts from a Treehouse course, I had total creative control. I began to notice that my style was focused on what made things “pretty,” much like I did with the pink pastels from my previous project. After yesterday’s revelations of absolute creative power, I realized the more powerful aspects of what creative power means when designing websites.

My mother has worked in the computer engineering field for 30 years. She has seen mobile phones go from nonexistent to car phones to smart phones to the six inch mini-computers we use today. She grew from installing radios to working on regional servers and transmitters, and then grew even more. She went back to school for computer science, completed a degree with a focus in healthcare, and began a new track installing software across the country. She has also been a self-reliant, open lesbian in a male dominated field for two decades.

I remember hearing my mom complain about random work experiences that were centered on her gender throughout my childhood. She would remind me to always push for what I want and to never let a man stand in my way. My mother may have been a lesbian and a feminist, but she didn’t hate men — but she knew what some were capable of. And those “some” were usually her bosses and coworkers, making her determined to show me how to overcome them.

She worked long hours and had to travel a lot, but not in the cool way where you get to see the country and rack up airline miles. She would drive for two hours to a site north of our house, and then finish her day driving to a site two hours south of our house, and then try to make it home in time to eat dinner with me, help me with my homework, get me to bed, and then enjoy her evening. She didn’t get to enjoy her evening often. Even when she was able to spend time with me after work, it was often at home because she had to go home and change out of her work clothes before we could go out. She was the breadwinner and relied on herself and the help of her then-partner to raise me with a decent roof over my head and a good head on my shoulders. It wasn’t easy, but she had to do it.

But she loved her job. She had her complaints about the travel and the long hours, but she loved to do what she did. She would show me the sites and the servers. She would attempt to explain it to me, but technology talk never really stuck with me growing up. But she was always excited about what she did, even if it was difficult, and it carried her to work every day for years.

In addition to the normal struggles of work, she was constantly challenged on her authority. Many people assumed she wasn’t knowledgable because she was a woman. She’d come home ragged and dragging from meetings where she’d been shot down repetitively simply because of her gender. She’s smart and she was good at her job, and if a man had been in her position, he would have been respected. But this was a woman in technology in the 80s and 90s, and she wasn’t really welcome there.

Now, in 2016, she has moved further away from the engineering field and into a position where she installs software. This has brought her out of the testosterone-drenched rooms of servers and soldering and power tools and into a healthcare-focused role. Since the focus shifted from being around computers to being around doctors, she’s complained much less about sexism at work. While sexism in the technological fields has lessened after the turn of the century, it still exists.

This doesn’t discourage me from pursuing a career in the field, however. Honestly, it empowers me. I feel inspired to add a feminine touch to all of my websites. I feel encouraged to seize my femininity and unapologetically present it to the men in my field. I will be capable, I’m sure of that, which means it is up to the men in the field to be prepared for me.

Sexism in the technology industry has become less “groping by the boss” and more doubt that women are qualified to be there. This means that women everywhere that are interested in technology shouldn’t shy away, but instead should embrace the dichotomy and then work to change it from the inside. Men should see that women belong in tech just as much as men, and we are just as qualified to be there. Maybe this means your webpage will be rich, royal navy blues with silver and red accents that speak to how bold you feel. You could have greens and blues that remind you of the day at the beach with your girlfriends. Maybe you have pale yellows and pinks that show how pretty you felt the day that you made it. No matter your color story, it deserves to be represented. It needs to be seen.

And besides, a flower or two on a webpage never hurt anybody.