Subtitled True Stories of Women Leaders in Tech, this book is a compilation of biopics of women who have worked hard, studied, run homes and raised families, while making it on the technology front. The first story presents Telle Whitney, from Salt Lake City, who went to college in California and did badly in theatre, nearly quitting; until she took an aptitude test which suggested computers would suit her. She had no female computer genius role models or mentors, but her heroine was Sally Ride, astronaut. NEVERTHELESS, SHE PERSISTED describes how Telle completed a PhD at Caltech and went to work in Silicon Valley. With fellow computer scientist Anita Borg she started the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, which held its first conference in Washington DC in 1994. Being surrounded by women computer scientists was a reawakening.

The famous glass ceilings existed and still exist in industry; we learn that half of all women in tech leave the industry. Many women leave work to raise a family but the tech industry seems less flexible about part time or shared jobs. Recently I attended a lecture by Australian professor Genevieve Bell who worked with Intel as one of a very few female hires, helping the semiconductor firm develop products usable for and by women. She became a Vice President and has now returned to Australia and tech education.

The second tale by Pam Kostka deals with her time in startups, and she describes how she was afraid to put her hand up, assuming everyone else understood matters better than she did. Learning to ask questions helped her to progress. Pam quickly rose to be the sole woman at decision making level over tech people, and only later learned that she was underpaid compared to male managers. Not only that, but when she rose to being a director, she learned that a manager under her was paid $50,000 more than her. She went on to start her own firm.

Yanbing Li was raised in China with professional parents and studied in America, then worked in alternately America and China.

I have to say, reading of these ladies studying at Caltech, Stanford, Princeton and Harvard, it seems to me that they had a background that would allow them to choose expensive colleges, multiple degrees and any path to work they wanted. Even if students came out with a debt, the famous college awarding the degree might assure them of work somewhere.

Most of the ladies had, and needed, a mentor (who shows you what to do), a sponsor (who recommends you to firms and suggests jobs to you) and domestic support (a partner who is supportive whether they work or not). As well as feeling out of step with peers, the tech women may feel guilt about spending less time with their children, anxiety about being a breadwinner in a fluctuating job market and even imposter syndrome, which means they doubt their capability although few others do. All this and conscious or unconscious bias at work, with even outright sexist remarks from some bosses.

Why keep working? Women make good role models. Without even knowing it, women in tech make it easier for more women -- their own daughters perhaps -- to get engineering or computer jobs. A Youtube talk by Jessica McKellar titled "How the Internet Works" is referenced early in this book and I watched it, found it well presented and informative, and I didn't think anything odd of being lectured in Python and Internet Protocols by a lady. But maybe a man would find this strange and scary. The more visible women are, the more women will be accepted in tech. Therefore I heartily recommend NEVERTHELESS, SHE PERSISTED, compiled by Pratima Rao Gluckman, who studied in Hyderabad, India, and decided firms were not being staffed by the best people -- a meritocracy -- but by people with connections or the right looks. We all use computers, today. If you don't want to work in tech, maybe your daughter, niece or sister will. Let's all help.

Book Summary

It is no secret that the technical world is a male-dominated space. From the cultural belief that Computer Science is a “subject for boys”, to the assumptions and discrimination women experience in the field, it can be challenging for women at every stage to thrive in tech careers.

Nevertheless, some high-performing women persist and succeed as leaders in tech despite the gender biases pitted against them. Pratima Rao Gluckman—a female leader in tech herself—embarked on a project to collect stories of the leadership journeys of such women. She wanted to know the details of these women’s stories, and how they accomplished their achievements. What influenced them during their childhoods? Who were their mentors? What successes and failures did they experience? What magical ingredients helped them thrive in a male‑dominated industry?

These questions and more inspired Gluckman to interview nineteen women leaders in several levels of technology industry, including VPs, CEOs and directors, all of which are collected in this groundbreaking book, Nevertheless, She Persisted. Whether you are a young woman thinking of a career in software, a middle-career or executive woman, a parent, or a man curious about the role gender plays in tech, this book reveals the secrets, successes, and hidden struggles that women have endured to become both highly accomplished in their technical skills and effective senior leaders in their organizations. Their stories are illuminating, intended to inspire generations of women and help free our society from the limiting belief that ability is somehow linked to gender.