#ILookLikeAnEngineer fights sexism in Tech sector

An American women’s blog post highlighting the sexism apparent in the technology and IT sectors has gone viral, going so far as to spawn its own hashtag.

Isis Wenger, a software engineer based in San Francisco, made a public stand against the world’s preconceived image of what people in her industry should look like. Posting a photo of herself with the comment: “I help build enterprise software #Ilooklikeanengineer”, Wenger unwittingly launched an online awareness campaign urging fellow female engineers to hit back against stereotypes.

The scheme began when a photo of her taken by her company’s recruitment campaign attracted negative comments on social media. One Facebook user dubbed the advert as “weird haphazard branding”, going on to say that they didn’t believe the image was “remotely plausible…if women in particular buy this image of what a female software engineer looks like.”

Another user complained: “If their intention is to attract more women then it would have been a better to choose a picture with a warm, friendly smile rather than a sexy smirk.”