I recently had the opportunity to be a Dungeon Master (DM) at a gaming convention. It was my first time. I loved it. So what does that have to do with Women in Technology (WIT)?

The young lady standing up also DMed her first convention. She’s my daughter and she’s 12. When we were signing up for DM slots, I asked the organizer if he felt there was any issue with her signing up to DM just like any other DM. He didn’t. She had been DMing D&D Adventurers League locally and had done well enough that he didn’t have any issue with it. 

He evaluated her on the merits of her body of work. He could have said no because she was 12. He could have said no because she was a girl. He could have said no for a whole host of reasons that had nothing to do with her ability to unravel the story, adjudicate the rules, and provide for a pleasant and entertaining player experience. He chose to judge her on her capabilities as a DM. 

When I work with colleagues, I care about their skills: technical and soft skills. I want to work with top folks so we can deliver excellent results as quickly as possible. I’m not interested in wasting time on the job because we have a less capable person that was hired and included only because that person meets some cliquish requirements that have nothing to do with the job. See, I have a personal life that’s important to me. I have folks outside of work I want to spend time with, like my daughter pictured above. 

I also want to deliver the best results I can to be competitive in the workplace and so my organization is as competitive as possible. Wasting cycles because somebody reminds me of my high school or college friends or because that person has more in common with me for non-work related characteristics than another is just plain foolishness. To do so negatively impacts my ability to stay gainfully employed and make a way for the people who are most important to me, like my family. 

As a group, the females in IT are in every work-related way as competent as men. They don’t need a helping hand. They aren’t less capable. They don’t cause problems unless folks go looking to cause issues with them. Yes, there are individual exceptions. But the keyword is “exception,” as in outside the norm and that’s true of any group of any reasonable size. 

Women should be evaluated based on their ability to do the work. And they should be compensated properly for that ability. And they should be treated properly as valuable coworkers who help us make stuff happen. They don’t want anything more than these things. It’s not hard to do these things. We only hurt ourselves and deny ourselves opportunities when we don’t do these things.

That’s what some gamers learned after giving that young, female DM a chance. At first, these gamers were skeptical. But they had signed up for those slots and wanted to play, so they did. And they soon realized she had developed the skills to be a good DM. They had fun. Difficult players were managed. The modules were moderated to be just the right challenge level and kept at the right pace. And they left with more stories about their characters and new found friends at the gaming table. They gave her a chance to compete fairly and she won them over. That’s how it is supposed to be for women in our career field, too.