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Subject:Re: Who are we? From:barryk -at- MDHOST -dot- CSE -dot- TEK -dot- COM Date:Wed, 21 May 1997 11:23:09 -0700
On Wed, 21 May 1997, Steve Evanina wrote:
> My experience is from the hardware side of the fence. I have seen very
> few women documenting hardware and I'm not sure why. We have had a few
> women writers here, but they never lasted. One female coop left in
> confusion before her assignment was complete. In fairness to her, she
> was not given an easy task; "part out" a huge system that was not
> documented (engineering documentation) correctly. Note that our
> systems consist of electrical, electronic, mechanical, pneumatic, and
> computer (several) systems. Here, women engineers are in the minority.
> We have some, and the ones that are here are extremely good and easy
> to work with. Engineering (EE/ME) seems to be a male dominated
> profession.
>
> In my past experiences (mostly documenting hardware) all tech writers
> that I knew were male. I was in the business (TW) almost 10 years
> before I met a female writer and then it was when I was documenting
> software.
I work at Tektronix where we have a staff of about 35 technical writers,
almost half of the writers are female.
All of the technical writers at Tektronix document hardware as well as
software. When assignments are handed out, there is no consideration given
to the gender of the writer.
I have worked with many female technical writers, and I can tell you that
I have not met one yet that is afraid or lacking the technical expertize
to accurately and succinctly document electrical, mechanical, and software
systems.
I am sorry you had a "bad" experience, but believe me, it was a fluke.
Barry Kieffer
Technical Writer
Tektronix, Inc.
Speaking for my own self anyway...
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