Christy Lu on the challenges and triumphs of being a female software engineer in tech
In the world of tech, there hasn’t always been an abundance of strong female voices. That’s why, at Dropbox, we make hiring and supporting women one of our top priorities, and why we chose “your voice is your power” as our theme for Women’s History Month. Software Engineer Christy Lu shared with us her unique perspective on how gender equality and female representation in the workplace is the way of the future.
How do you think Womens@ plays a part in increasing inclusion at Dropbox?
The Womens@ ERG does so much work at Dropbox. Besides having a monthly women’s lunch, we also have specific slack channels for women and their locations. We all live-share our thoughts inside the channels and talk about things we feel comfortable discussing with each other. The ERG also tries to host as many different events at Dropbox as possible. We have book clubs, workshops on specific topics like finance, or different speakers who are invited to our office to have small gatherings.
What experiences have you most enjoyed during Women’s History Month at Dropbox?
We had an event last year called Equalitea that I really enjoyed. It was kind of like a workshop — we split into groups and had sheets of paper with questions on them. The example questions were things like, “If your manager is showing a bias towards a female engineer, what would you do?” And the people in your group talk about what they think the best way is to tackle those situations.
What does gender equality mean to you?
To me, real gender equality means we no longer have to really talk about it. We don’t have to keep bringing it up. You know about it naturally, and you accept the concept naturally because everyone else is the same. It’s an atmosphere, an environment thing — if everyone thinks about it the same way, then we all have gender equality.
This quote from Sheryl Sandberg is a great example of what gender equality means to me, “In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.”
What are some of your favorite representations of women in your personal life, media, history, fiction etc?
One woman who inspires me a lot is the first female president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen. I really like her, and I see her as a role model because it’s really hard for a woman to be elected as a president, especially in Asian countries, because the gender equality issue is worse there. To add to that difficulty, she is also not married. That’s one of the things she gets attacked on a lot, because in Taiwan’s society, people think that if you don’t marry someone you have some sort of problem. There were a lot of stereotypes she needed to work through, but I really respect her for doing that. Even though we’re still in a society that thinks women should marry someone and start a family and can’t have power over men, she still worked toward becoming a president and is doing a really good job.
Who is a woman in your life that has been an example for using their voice as their power?
My mom is a great example to me. She is a professor, she works very hard and is very successful. But she also had problems balancing family and work when I was small. She really wanted to have both, she couldn’t just give up her job. So she tried really hard to talk to my grandparents and extended family and help them understand why women don’t need to just give up their jobs to have a family. Since she has done this so many times over the years, the situation has gotten better and better, because she’s speaking up.
