The results are in from Light Reading's first-of-its-kind survey, taking the pulse of being a woman in today's next-gen comms industry.

Sarah Thomas, Director, Women in Comms

September 18, 2017

31 Min Read
Light Reading's 2017 Survey of Women in Comms

For the technology industry, 2017 may very well be remembered for being an inflection point as it relates to women in the workforce. The year has already generated an unprecedented level of discussion, action and awareness around issues relating to discrimination, sexism and company cultures -- the effects of which are still playing out.

Women in the next-generation communications industry, a subset of the larger tech world focused on network operators and the companies that serve them, are feeling the effects of "Silicon Valley syndrome" as well:

  • 80% of women in comms have felt treated differently because of their gender

  • 80% have seen incidents of unconscious bias play out in their company

  • 58% think the industry has gotten better for women over the past 20 years

  • 60% think that their company does not have a problem with diversity and inclusion

  • though 74% would say the industry at large does

These results, from Light Reading's 2017 global survey of women in comms, illustrate the dichotomy that women in comms often face. The comms industry is an exciting space to be in, generally with interesting work, competitive pay and ample opportunity for advancement, but there are still a lot of challenges associated with being a female in what remains a male-dominated space.

Figure 15:

This is the first time Light Reading has undertaken a survey like this, and we officially launched it at the end of April this year -- timing that was purposeful. It was a few months after former Uber engineer Susan Fowler published a memo on the interworkings of Uber that set the Internet on fire with discussion of the toxicity at the startup and other companies like it. It was also well after Elephant in the Valley, a survey of 200 senior women working in Silicon Valley, was published, painting a rather bleak picture for women in tech. (See Uber's HR Nightmare: Company Investigates Sexual Harassment Claims and Tales From the Valley: Bias, Sexism & Worse.)

We wanted to know if our niche of the world, the next-generation communications industry, was as bad as the tech world at large. Is it hard for women to advance in comms? Are toxic cultures, discrimination and sexual harassment the MO here as well?

These are some of the questions we set out to answer. More than anything, we also wanted to hear your personal stories of surviving, even thriving, in comms. And, you did not disappoint! We had a modest 160 women take our survey, but they came from all parts of the world, all levels of experience and many different companies and job functions. The results were illuminating, at times discouraging, but also hopeful about the future for our industry.

We admit that hindsight is 20/20, and there are questions we could've asked better to give you more room to tailor your response, but the results of our survey -- which we plan to replicate on an annual basis -- speaks volumes to where we've been, where we're going and how we will get there. By understanding the lay of the land, we can start to improve it. If nothing else, by quantifying the problems, the industry can no longer ignore them.

Against this backdrop, we've broken the survey into our respondents' demographics, perceptions, experiences and opinions. Make sure you read to the end where our survey takers also shared their anecdotal experiences and personal stories with us. Click on the table of contents below to read on.

[Ed. Note: Numbers were rounded off to the nearest whole number for clarity, so some totals will not equal exactly 100%.]

Meet the respondents
All of our survey respondents were women (sorry men!), ages 18 and up, with the majority, 66%, older than age 40.

They also came from all over the globe, but 64% were from the US. This is important to note, because the experience of women, along with the policies in place to support them, varies drastically between the US and other countries. We didn't ask for a specific state, but are willing to guess the experience of Californians who work in the Valley also varies significantly. After the US, we had the most respondents from Europe at 19%.

Figure 1:

The majority of you are very experienced. Over half -- 51% -- have more than 15 years of experience in comms, and 84% have more than five years of experience.

Our survey respondents also tend to be a loyal group with 62% having worked at their current employer for more than three years. Twenty-six percent have stayed in the same spot for at least five to ten years, and another 26% have been with their current employer for more than ten years.

Figure 2:

Their loyalty to their employers is notable when you consider that 60% did not think their employer had a problem with gender diversity and inclusion, even though 74% thought the industry at large had a problem. According to Karen Catlin, who spent 25 years in the tech world, most recently as vice president of engineering at Adobe Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: ADBE), and now as a consultant focused specifically on advocating for women in tech, this loyalty isn't surprising among women who have been in the industry for many years. She says that these women tend to be in touch with what they need to be successful and make an effort to find the right place to be for them. Indeed, 33% of women who had been in the industry at least 15 years have worked at the same employer for more than ten years.

"One thing I coach women on is that if you are in an environment that's toxic, that's not functional for you and considering what you are looking for professionally and to be successful, you need to leave and go elsewhere," Catlin says. "Over time, as we grow and get more experience under our belts, that becomes easier to do. We have more confidence and know what we need to be successful."

What do you do?
Survey respondents came from all types of companies, but because Light Reading's target readership is service providers, the majority work at a service provider of some sort -- telecom (19%), mobile (3%), cable (6%) or over-the-top (9%).

Figure 3:

For the non-service provider respondents:

  • 14% come from hardware vendors, and 14% from software vendors

  • 5% were from the startup world

  • and 32% selected one of the following: financial institutions, public sector, business user of networking services or equipment, component supplier or "other"

The respondents also hailed from companies of all sizes in terms of their revenues with the most -- 45% -- coming from large companies with annual revenues of more than $1 billion. Some of the specific companies our survey takers hail from include Charter Communications Inc. , Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK), Amdocs Ltd. (NYSE: DOX), Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK), CableLabs and Cogent Systems Inc.

Figure 4:

For all the talk about the lack of female engineers in the tech world, we were happy to see that one fourth (24%) of our respondents were engineers in the comms industry. What's more, an impressive 12% were in corporate management positions. The rest held positions in sales/marketing (35%), network operations (4%), finance (3%), public relations (4%) or an "other" function (18%).

Salary comparisons
Our survey respondents are a well-paid group of executives. Over half -- 55% -- make $100,000 or more. Looking at just those who work in the US, 70% make $100,000 or more with 35% making more than $150,000. Narrowing it down even further, we looked at just the engineers that work in the US and found that all of them make more than $100,000, and 42% make more than $150,000.

Figure 5:

We don't have male salary data to compare our female respondent's earnings with. (Light Reading's last salary survey was in 2014.) But, we did ask our survey takers their perception of how their pay compares. The gender pay gap remains a well-reported issue in the tech world, and we wanted to see if it was as true in the comms industry as well. According to our survey takers... it is. Forty-eight percent did not think their pay was on par with their male colleagues in the same role, although another 26% admitted to having no idea whether it was or not. (See Equal Pay Day: Time to Get Paychecks in Check.)

One survey taker told us she has proven examples of males making $40,000 more as new hires for the same title as three women in the position, each of whom had over ten years of experience. Another echoed her sentiments noting, "I have recently been asked to take on a VP role at my Fortune 200 company. First, after multiple interviews, they put me in the penalty box by making me "interim" for three months to test if I was strong enough for the role! Second, after reviewing the salaries of my now employees (my former peers), I realized I am paid 40% less than my three male counterparts who I have been working alongside for six years. I've asked politely for gentle raises seeing minor 2%-5% raises every three years whereas my peers have seen 8-28% raises in the past two years."

Which brings us to our next point -- it's often suggested that women don't tend to ask for more money whether at initial negotiations or when it comes time to get a raise, contributing to the wage gap. We asked our survey takers whether they had ever asked for more and to what effect. Sixty-one percent had asked for a raise with varying degrees of success, while 16% have never asked for more because they were happy with what they made, and 24% did not ask because they didn't think it would be effective.

Figure 6:

The path to the top
Another commonly cited belief that we wanted to test was that women weren't advancing to the top because they did not want to. For our survey takers, it was evenly split -- 40% aspired to the C-suite and 40% did not, while the remaining 20% were still unsure of their long-term plans at their current employer. And, we should note, 12% already had achieved their C-level ambitions as they reported their job function as corporate management.

Importantly, we asked these women if they saw a path to getting there at their current employer. Again, it was pretty evenly split with 44% saying yes, 37% saying no and 20% who still weren't sure. Of those 40% of women with C-suite aspirations, the split was about the same with 42% indicating they had a clear-cut path, 34% saying they did not and 25% who were not sure.

Figure 7:

Interestingly, it wasn't necessarily that our survey takers didn't see a path for advancement for their entire company, just not for them personally. It was actually pretty evenly split with 53% indicating they feel they have the same opportunities for advancement as their male colleagues, and 47% saying they did not.

This dichotomy meshes with what global consulting firm McKinsey & Co. and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's LeanIn.org's larger workplace study has found in the past as well. It attracted 34,000 respondents across all industries in 2016, and McKinsey Senior Partner Lareina Yee, who leads the research efforts for Women in the Workplace, as well as advises hardware companies in the telecom space, said our results were largely in line with what they found looking at the workplace in general.

What stood out the most to her, and what she sees as the biggest problem, is the discrepancies in access to opportunities. McKinsey research shows that women have fewer professional opportunities for advancement and less access to sponsorship -- as was their perception in our survey.

This unequal access to opportunities manifests itself in lot of ways that are more subtle than not, Yee said, including women getting passed over to lead meetings, do projects, pitch customers or give presentations -- things that ultimately add up to women being out of "the line of site" when it comes time to offer promotions.

"In a world where opportunities show you're qualified, give you the stretch, inform your potential, it's a huge limiter for women to advance," Yee said. "It's not that women aren’t interested in working hard. It's not a box women or men check. Access to opportunity is just so key, and that's where some of these biases and some of the challenges hit pretty strongly."

When we looked at just the engineer respondents to the survey, we found that 40% did not see a long-term career path at their current employer, slightly higher than the overall group at 37%. Exactly half said they had the same advancement opportunities as men in the same role.

Elizabeth Ames, senior vice president of Marketing, Alliances, and Programs at the Anita Borg Institute, added that this -- women in technical roles seeing less room for advancement in their careers -- also correlates to the findings of ABI's recent Top Companies Insights report. Women in the technical workforce decline substantially from entry level to executive level, she says, so their feelings around a lack of a career path are justified.

The motherhood question
Yet another theory we wanted to test was what affect motherhood had on women's career ambitions. This was a tricky question to word because we had to account for women who already had children, women who hadn't yet had children and didn’t know what effect it would have on their professional lives, and the multitude of factors tied in with childrearing that could affect a return-to-work strategy.

With that said, 74% of women who had or plan to have children, worked or plan to work full time afterwards with 61% of them planning to take some maternity leave first. For those respondents in the US where paid maternity leave is not mandated, 14% said they did return or plan to return to work without taking any or very little time off.

"I do think the issue of how companies handle women coming back to work after having a child is the single biggest factor in how men's and women's career trajectories diverge," a survey respondent told us.

Here's a look at the motivations and plans of those women who had or plan to have children (excluding the 35% that said they do not have nor plan to have children).

Figure 8:

Progressive policies
Perhaps not surprisingly, a majority of our respondents either did not know if their company had progressive policies in place to support women (25%) or said that their company did not offer any (40%). For the 35% of companies that did have progressive policies in place, only 20% said they are commonly used.

Again, looking at just the US, 44% did not have progressive policies in place. Of the 34% that did, only 17% said employees took advantage of them.

To further break it down, we asked about some specific policies. Here is how the US, including Silicon Valley where many companies are known for quirky policies and perks, compares to our overall respondent base, excluding the 10% of respondents who said they did not know what their company offers.

Figure 9:

We also left a free response option for other benefits your companies might offer and learned that at least one company also offers nursing rooms, a parents' network and an option to FedEx your breastmilk home when traveling for work.

Gender diversity and inclusion
As we alluded to previously, we were pleased to see that most of our respondents were happy with their current employer (although the number could be higher!), even though they saw the industry at large as a challenging for women. Forty-percent said their company had a problem with gender diversity and inclusion, and 74% thought the industry at large had a problem with gender diversity and inclusion.

Figure 10:

We asked our respondents to describe their current company's culture as it relates to women. Here is what they told us:

  • Diverse and inclusive: 22%

  • Supportive, but not diverse: 21%

  • Oblivious to issues around women: 14%

  • OK, but room for improvement: 30%

  • A "boys' club": 11%

  • Toxic: 2%

As a follow-up, we also asked if our survey takers were satisfied with their employer and its efforts to support and empower women, recognizing that it's a multifaceted issue that requires a genuine top-down commitment. As a survey taker pointed out, "Even if a company is supportive of diversity and inclusion at a corporate level sometimes this doesn't translate to the day-to-day. In a majority male industry bias is at play and individual opinions/actions speak louder than corporate policy."

Of our survey takers, more than half were at least somewhat satisfied, with 14% reporting being very satisfied. Another 29% said they were somewhat dissatisfied, and 8% reported being very dissatisfied.

Another respondent told us, "I believe my company does a good effort to encourage diversity. Being a multinational company, we do have a variety of cultural visions of what's a women's role in the society, which you can sometimes sense during discussions. Nevertheless, the company does a lot of campaigning to raise awareness and level up the standard. Moreover, every year new initiatives are launched to improve women's position/vision within the company."

Discrimination, sexual harassment and taking action
In light of the recent wave of women speaking out against discrimination and sexual harassment in their careers, some anonymously, we wanted to find out how commonly this was happening to women in comms as well -- and, importantly, how it was being handled by the company if and when it was reported.

The results were discouraging to say the least. Sixty-four percent of women said they had been discriminated against in their career, but over half -- 51% -- never reported it. Of those who did report it, only 5% felt it was handled appropriately. Here's a look at how the women who said they experienced discrimination handled it, and how their companies handled it in response.

Figure 11:

"The most outright sexism I've felt working in the industry has been previous years at MWC," one respondent shares. "At this very male-dominated event, many men assume any woman working a stand is a 'booth babe' there to serve them, clean up after them or otherwise make their conference easier. The most professionally demeaning experiences in my career have happened at past MWC."

What's worse, one third of our survey respondents have also been sexually harassed at their company or an industry event. Here again, well over half -- 65% -- chose not to report, 37% of whom kept quiet for fear of negatively impacting their career. Here's a look at how those who have experienced sexual harassment handled it, along with their companies' responses.

Figure 12:

It's not uncommon that fear of hurting your career, losing your job or not being able to get a new one, or just simply the expectation that it won't make a difference has kept women from reporting sexual harassment or worse, gender consultant Catlin says, but she believes the women who are now speaking up, naming names and telling their story is what's needed to remove the fear of reporting wrongdoing. More still needs to be done, such as amending non-disparage clauses in employment agreements to make it safe and legal to report harassment, but change is slowly coming, she said. (See Hey Men of Silicon Valley, Stop Being Creepy!)

"What we need to change is to remove the fear, that hopelessness and helplessness of feeling that you can't call people out on this bad behavior," Catlin says. "It should be celebrated instead of negatively impacting careers."

The female factor
Discrimination and sexual harassment are extreme (albeit not all that uncommon) examples of problems women in comms can face, but unconscious biases and more subtle slights happen every day. Being ignored, talked over or interrupted in a work meeting is a phenomenon we hear happening to women all the time. It's not just men who do the interrupting, of course, but we asked our survey takers about it in general terms and found it’s a common occurrence for all of you.

Forty percent of you said it happens too many times to count, and another 49% said it happens occasionally. Only 11% hadn't been ignored, interrupted or talked over.

Unconscious bias, or non-purposeful, implicit assumptions we hold about certain groups of people that can inform how we treat them, is also a common occurrence in tech. In fact, 80% of women said they see incidents of unconscious bias play out in their company either every day (24%) or occasionally (56%).

"Men just assume that you can't be technical," a respondent says. "I don't know how many times I've gone to a trade show and asked specific questions regarding product specifications or features and while explaining, the guy in the booth would start apologizing for getting 'too technical' in his response."

Figure 13:

On a higher level, 81% said they have felt treated differently because of their gender, either too many times to count (28%) or occasionally (53%).

"Earlier in my career when I was working as a Unix and network sysadmin, I'd often post solutions or comments to technical mailing lists," a woman says. "I'd most often be met with a backlash of arguments, with male colleagues trying to tear down my point, or pick at my technical findings etc. As an experiment, I changed my email address and started signing the emails with the male version of my name. The difference was like night and day. Instead of arguments, belittling and put-downs, my notes were met with kudos and thanks. That was an eye-opening experience for me 20 years ago, and has colored how I approach my career since."

Another tells us, "For many years I have been on the technical side of the business. I have been in the industry longer than most of my colleagues, but in the beginning was not taken very seriously. I really have to prove myself more than any male counterpart."

The more things change...
So, with all of these answers providing the landscape for women in comms, the question remains, have things improved over the past and will they continue to do so? According to you all, yes... and maybe?

Fifty-eight percent think the industry has gotten better for women over the past 20 years, compared to only 10% who think it has gotten worse and 31% who say it's stayed the same.

Of course, not everyone feels that way. As one survey respondent told us, "Absolutely nothing has changed for women engineers in over 30 years. My daughters refused to go into the profession due to the daily challenges I face."

And another, "Not many companies are doing enough to increase their female workforce or to increase the number of women in higher executive positions. This combined with the fact that the communications industry is primarily a "boys-club," I am afraid that it will remain a "boys-club." (This phrase -- "boys club" -- came up a lot in our free responses.)

Accenture 's research finds that the gender pay gap in the workforce could close by 2044, and 53% of women think we may have gender parity at this time as well. An optimistic 11% think we'll see it by 2020, in just three short years, while 40% never expect to see an equitable split of men to women.

"It's such a sad statistic," McKinsey's Yee said of the 40%, "but it's not surprising given what women are experiencing day to day. If a logical person getting less access to opportunities see their gender play a role in how people treat them -- they have less opportunity, no sponsorship -- if we look at the fact that men are promoted at a faster rate than women, it's not surprising you might say I'm not convinced it'll ever be different."

Figure 14:

From Catlin's point of view, what has improved for women in the industry is that there's more awareness about the challenges that women face -- but that took until 2017 to accomplish. Women, in general, today have more options for mentors and women's groups, and benefit from a healthy discussion going on about what the world of work they are going into. Catlin believes they are more empowered to be selective about their careers and what kind of managers they want to work for, which can only bode well for the future.

Her three pieces of advice for women to keep moving forward and at least improve their chances in the industry include:

  • Build a professional network that will help connect you to opportunities and who you can connect to opportunities as well.

  • Be able to talk about the work you are doing in terms of the business impact it has.

  • Look for opportunities to make your work visible.

"It's a big gnarly problem, the male dominated industry we have," Catlin says. "Cracking the nut on diversity and inclusion is what really needs to happen. It's big but also doesn’t mean the average person can't play a role. The average person who is in every position of privilege -- chances are it's a white male or anyone in more power and privilege over others. That person has a role to play in making their work place more inclusive. It doesn’t have to be hard."

Women shouldn't be discouraged by the numbers they see here and elsewhere, Yee added. Yes, the numbers are sobering, but the transparency is a good start. With everything on the table, we -- as an industry -- can design a system that looks and works differently, she said. No industry is better equipped to do so then the next-gen comms industry.

"I think it's important for women in comms and tech to not be overly discouraged by these numbers, but to know that's the situation we're in and it puts context for what they feel and experience each day," Yee said. "If you think about where the telecom industry was and the type of devices and infrastructure to connect those devices now versus the next five years, I have to believe if we applied that ability to innovate the industry, we could change the workplace too."

Your personal stories

THE GOOD:

  • I am an entry-level marketing specialist and am fortunate enough to have a wonderful female mentor at my company. Although there are instances of bias at our company, there is an effort by many in the company to support women in our company as well as in the industry.

    • I feel the technology world has much evolved with a lot of women leaders up in the forefront -- e.g., even in the latest TMF event, there were women keynote speakers who were very impactful. Being a woman in fact is even an advantage -- just because of the curiosity element that people sit up and notice what you have to say. It is then up to oneself to carry oneself with maturity and display strong understanding and sense of control!

    • I've been lucky. I've been in engineering since 1983 and the comms industry since 2009... and I have no complaints about the opportunities I've been given or the environment I've worked in. I've found that almost all engineers are data-driven: when experience shows I can do the job, I get the respect of my co-workers. The number of co-workers I've had problems with is a very small number -- and they are people who are jerks to both men and women. I chose to work part-time until my children were in school, and I got the hours I wanted, and was still doing the same engineering work, just fewer hours. I was even promoted to manager while I was still working part-time, because my boss wanted me in the role, and worked with me to make it work with my reduced hours.

    • As a 23-year-old female I get placed in the millennial group, which has a bad reputation. It is hard enough being a young female in the work force and it doesn't help when age groups are talked down to. I am very fortunate to work for the company I work for because of my small dynamic group. My manager and VP of marketing really push for me to succeed. I am very grateful for my company because they treat me fairly and respect me and actually CARE about my well being. If I were to leave to work for a bigger company, I fear that my "millennial age group" would leave me at a disadvantage.

    • THE BAD:

    • I have a gender ambiguous name, and find that the assumption always is that I'm a man, not a woman!

    • I was asked to be at a meeting for a project kick-off and the meeting took place in another country. My husband was traveling leaving me without childcare for this period. I said I would be able to participate remotely only. I was not admitted onto the project although I was the expert in a specific area, until much later at the go live phase, missing all the architect phase.

    • Many leaders are equitable and try hard. The problems are with the everyday work with middle management. Travel is another issue. Telecom is very international and requires lots of long distance travel making it impossible for a working mother to keep pace with non-mothers.

    • Most companies who declare adopting diversity and inclusion do not put measures in to measure it. It is just said to look nice. They don't mean it.

    • Only a few are strong enough to fight for gender equality in this company. Females who do so are viewed as dragons (very Games of Thrones feel).

    • The men in the office are VERY loud and it's frustrating. They often mansplain, but they do it to the men as well. I feel like I don't make enough for how much work I do and how responsible I have to be for accounts, so I feel underappreciated. I don't care about verbal praise, the proof is in the pudding.

    • There is a systemic issue, which no one company can solve. Most women in high level jobs in comms are in non-strategic roles like HR, Legal, Finance, PM. Women are not part of decision-making that impacts the company. I have been the only woman in meetings too many times to count -- and this is true of customers as well as internal meetings. M&A's have not helped because there are more senior people chasing fewer high-level jobs.

    • Unlike other industries I have worked in, telecom is still the industry that keeps the wrong people in positions of authority too long. They do too much damage, protected by the 'He's a great guy' attitude. Most telcos don't see that their competition has changed, they need to be more responsive and productive, but hey, they are all led by a bunch of great guys.

    • THE UGLY:

    • Communications has been a boy's club for 30 years. It's a little better in 2017 but I still work in a group of 12 engineers and I am the only woman. This has been true for the last 20 years. I have been passed over to make the move to management too many times to count (not at my current employer but at multiple prior employers) and although I trained my peers on various technologies -- somehow they became the "Subject Matter Expert" and represented the group at training events, trade shows and internal executive meetings. Salary is another huge problem -- my peers get nominated for awards, get assigned the challenging and visible projects and ultimately make more money in salary increases, bonuses and awards.

    • Good old boy's club is alive and well:

      • I have had male leadership invited to my meeting and address meeting attendees with his back purposefully to me the entire time.

      • I have had male leadership take my work and claim it and market it as their work -- even take my name off a document and replace it with their name. (Too many times to count.)

      • I have had male leadership ask for my opinion and regurgitate it to other leaders as if it was their own idea. (Too many times to count.)

      • Many of my women co-workers have stated the same issues.

    • Wow! Where do I start? I have had some really wonderful and terrible experiences, like I would imagine a lot of other woman have had. Around '97, I had a co-worker sexually harass me and repeatedly ask me on dates. I told HR at the company at the time and they did nothing. A couple of months later, the guy comes in drunk and he tells the network operations center employees to reboot servers, then he gets fired. At another company I had a male employee who was moved under me tell my boss he refused to report to a female. He was extremely hostile to me during the run-up to this confrontation. Luckily, my boss fired the guy. At another firm during the 2001 tech bubble burst, I was laid off. Later, I found out that after having been moved under a boss, who was previously a general in the military, he did not want a woman working for him in a technical role, so I got the ax instead of the person who was technically less proficient.

    • Major boy's club here. I am often talked over or not asked my opinion. I work with some very loud and intense males. I work for a very patriarchal company.

    • Once very overweight, I was told by a male manager that if I looked like "another thinner woman" I wouldn't get passed up for promotions.

    • Once when I raised the question to my boss about my dissatisfaction on my pay scale, he said, "my wife has the same number of years of experience as yours and she draws almost the same salary." What a comparison!

    • Twenty-five years ago, when I started my first corporate job out of college, it was in a large male-dominated office. Within two years, I was doing the job of three people for no additional pay because three people had been fired, and I was the only person talented enough to take on the responsibilities and get the job done. And I did so; my only caveat -- because I was too afraid, at that time of losing my job, of asking for a raise or expecting workplace equality -- was that I wanted to come in early and leave early so I could pick up my infant son early from daycare and spend extra time each day with him. The response? My workday was 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., and I needed to have my panty-hosed butt in the chair every day during that time, no exceptions. Despite that I could get all of my work (and the other three people's) done in less than that. Despite that the men in the office left whenever they wanted to play golf (and made tee times blatantly during office hours).

    • Where do I start? From the time my boss told me how big his you-know-what was to being cut out and left out of meetings and emails limited to the boy's club. Discrimination is more subtle these days. Bottom line -- if you are not in the club, you are not in the know and can't maximize contributions and achieve your potential.

Read more about:

AsiaEurope

About the Author(s)

Sarah Thomas

Director, Women in Comms

Sarah Thomas's love affair with communications began in 2003 when she bought her first cellphone, a pink RAZR, which she duly "bedazzled" with the help of superglue and her dad.

She joined the editorial staff at Light Reading in 2010 and has been covering mobile technologies ever since. Sarah got her start covering telecom in 2007 at Telephony, later Connected Planet, may it rest in peace. Her non-telecom work experience includes a brief foray into public relations at Fleishman-Hillard (her cussin' upset the clients) and a hodge-podge of internships, including spells at Ingram's (Kansas City's business magazine), American Spa magazine (where she was Chief Hot-Tub Correspondent), and the tweens' quiz bible, QuizFest, in NYC.

As Editorial Operations Director, a role she took on in January 2015, Sarah is responsible for the day-to-day management of the non-news content elements on Light Reading.

Sarah received her Bachelor's in Journalism from the University of Missouri-Columbia. She lives in Chicago with her 3DTV, her iPad and a drawer full of smartphone cords.

Away from the world of telecom journalism, Sarah likes to dabble in monster truck racing, becoming part of Team Bigfoot in 2009.

Subscribe and receive the latest news from the industry.
Join 62,000+ members. Yes it's completely free.

You May Also Like