You're on Mute
13 Lessons for Women Frustrated with the Tech Sector: An Anthology
The revealing essay collection You’re on Mute celebrates what women and gender minorities contribute to the technology industry while also naming the sexist barriers they face.
Women in technology center Maddie Wiese and Maddie Yule’s compelling essay collection You’re on Mute.
Anecdotes from within the technology industry, as of women being shushed in a meeting, being pushed out of their companies, and of a woman’s boss passing her work off as his own, illustrate the book’s points about rampant sexism in the technology industry. Intersections of workplace discrimination are also noted: One Black woman was told outright that “Black girls don’t do computers.” This makes for a layered and self-aware compilation in which a bevy of perspectives are considered and respected. The book acknowledges nonetheless that one person’s experience often does not correlate with another’s.
Twelve of these thirteen essays extol the importance of women and gender minorities in the technology industry. Karina Nielsen’s essay “Bucket List to Business Leadership,” in contrast, is a success story related to this value. It expresses pride over the “healthy gender split” at her company, whose women employee rate is over 30 percent. In the essay, Nielsen also asserts that she never felt held back by her gender in the course of her career, making her experiences the exception among the book’s accounts.
Despite their topical similarities, the essays range in tone. There is an assertive essay with firm advice on finding one’s niche; there is an incisive essay that delves into why people distrust AI and other elements of the industry. One entry explores the difference between mentorship and sponsorship in a visual format that mimics a poem. The progression from entry to entry is compelling, keeping the book’s recurring points about sexism in the industry fresh.
Advice for women and other gender minorities hoping to succeed in the industry recurs throughout, as with encouragements to “find your people” and “document everything.” However, while the book’s claims are often undergirded by statistical evidence, it includes some generalizations and undersupported claims that compromise its persuasiveness. One writer asserts that “AI sparks connection,” for example, but only an example of a company whose “techs could now handle three times as many service calls as before” is included to support this assertion. Further, the book’s central metaphor related to gendered silencing is overused and loses some impact with each new instance of its use. Still, its closing challenge to women to help one another is encouraging and decisive.
The thought-provoking essays in You’re on Mute model ways for women and gender minorities to thrive in the technology industry.
Reviewed by
Carolina Ciucci
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the publisher will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
