It's Time to Start Praising Women for Their Performance, not Their Appearance

OMG, yet another Women in Tech story. UGH, amiright?

As a female working in the tech space for the entirety of her post-college career, first as a blogger who taught herself to code, then at Vocus, then at an experiential ad agency, and now at a marketing SaaS startup—I find the tech community can get a bit obsessive about their precious few women.

I stumbled into tech rather accidentally, and found it to be the greatest landscape for an entrepreneurially-minded marketer. It never crossed my mind that there weren’t bevvies of women around me in my offices like there were at my friends’ workplaces in PR, non-profits, or healthcare.

A few months ago, I was at a goodbye party for one of my first friends in DC. Maci Peterson, the CEO of On Second Thought, an app to take back unintentionally malignant autocorrects, misguided sexts, or whatever else you might misfire, was moving to San Fran.

I Instagrammed a photo of us at Fig & Olive on her last night, wishing my girlfriend all the best:

“Congrats to the beautiful, smart, inspiring Maci on her move to SF! #womenintech.”

I’d only had one $12 glass of mediocre wine, so I was coherent enough to be irritated by my own kneejerk caption.

Maci, like me, is a minority and self-taught woman in tech. She founded a company, competed and won in SXSW’s rigorous startup competition, garnered tons of press for her idea, raised funds, saw her idea to fruition, and was about to move her team to the West Coast. Had I really just led off my compliments to one of my most successful friends with “beautiful”?!

Anyone with functioning eyes (likely 100% of Instagram users) can confirm that yes, indeed, Maci is beautiful. But why was it my instinct to give Maci’s physical appearance top position in what could be a very lengthy list of praise? When was the last time you heard Mark Zuckerberg, Rand Fishkin, or any other male introduced as the “studly,” “statuesque,” or “handsome” anything? They’re always introduced with definitive, proven honorifics like “youngest billionaire” or “most-read SEO blogger.”

Perhaps this is just one of the myriad of issues deterring women from leading with their brains rather than their beauty. The tech industry, which is bottom line driven, has little appreciation for flirty lash-batting. Even compared to other industries requiring much intelligence, such as law, lobbying, or pharmaceutical sales, techies are less enchanted by charming personalities. Pointing out that a woman is beautiful when praising her for real, tangible achievements implies that while those work accomplishments are cool, the fact that she’s physically appealing is still more remarkable.

Realizing this old way of thinking has so thoroughly imbued our social thought that even I, as a woman in tech, was perpetuating its existence, I’ve now made a conscious effort to emphasize the positives that take real brainpower.

Don’t get me wrong: I don’t know a single woman who would object to being called “beautiful.” So please, keep those compliments coming—on a date, during brunch, even politely passing a stranger at the metro station. After all, I carry my MacBook Pro in a Prada bag and teeter to the office on heels with less surface area than a quarter. I am not risking wrist snaps or rolled cankles to be told I’m intelligent.

Like a man, it’s a woman’s prerogative to choose how she appears in public. Whether she’s the chic Chanel-suited CEO or the laid-back Creative Director rolling up in sweats, a woman should be measured on her performance, not her appearance.

Even as the only woman in the office, I couldn’t be happier as Marketing Director at Audienti, a startup that is revolutionizing the way companies do business online. I’m in charge of branding, and turning the entire office hot pink and forcing my male colleagues into—let’s call them “fitted”—American Apparel shirts of the same color is just an added bonus.

Being a woman in tech is actually just like being a woman in any other industry. We all strive to make the workplace equal, but there’s quite a lot of undoing to do, errr…undo. These are changes that won’t be realized with quotas, or a corporate spa day, or hosting females-only “Lean In” lunch discussions in the conference room. Instead, let’s all start by describing, praising, and even criticizing (constructively, and when necessary) women for their performance, not for their appearances. 

In the meantime, women in tech will continue to be the renegades they’ve always been, blazing trails all across the digital landscape. It’ll be exciting to see what comes next.

Keep ‘em guessing, ladies. After all, that’s what makes us so dangerous.

Special thanks to Quin Woodward Pu of Audienti for contributing!