Companies are tweeting photos of their female engineers, taking advantage of the growing popularity around the hashtag #ILookLikeAnEngineer.
Xerox, Google Docs, Microsoft Design and Pivotal Data are among firms that have tweeted photos of their female engineers in recent days:
We design ; our rad design PMs
— Microsoft Design (@MicrosoftDesign)
Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors, also jumped in:
. has a diverse array of talented engineers around the world and I m honored to lead them.
One Tweeter pointed out the corporate trend:
I did the whole thing, but it s getting a little weird when companies tweet out pics of their female employees.
I disagree with @troutgirl. Why shouldn t companies show off their female engineering talent? If the point is to change stereotypes about women in STEM fields, then companies in those fields need look no further than their own employees.
The hashtag campaign started over the weekend when Isis Anchalee, an engineer at OneLogin, wrote on Medium about some people s reactions to her image used in a recruiting ad by her San Francisco cloud company.
Under the headline, You may have seen my face on Bart, Anchalee wrote about those who questioned whether she really was an engineer.
The negative opinions about this ad that strangers feel so compelled to share illustrate solid examples of the sexism that plagues tech, she wrote, ending with a call to arms:
Do you not fit the cookie-cutter mold of what people believe engineers should look like?
If you answered to any of these questions I invite you to help spread the word and help us redefine what an engineer should look like .
The hashtag campaign took off, with Federal Communications Commission s Jessica Rosenworcel tweeting her appreciation of the campaign, as did Chelsea Clinton:
Women posting with are hoping to breakdown stereotypes in their industry
— Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton)
The campaign is halfway to raising $3,500 on Indiegogo to finance a billboard, and Anchalee and others are planning an event next week in San Francisco to bring together a diverse group of like-minded people from technology and science for a fun evening filled with activities, mingling and sharing our voices, Anchalee wrote.
Above: OneLogin ad with comments, courtesy Isis Anchalee.
