Healing Workplace Trauma 2026: Women in Tech aka WiT

I grew up in communist Romania, a system with many deep flaws, yet one of the healthy beliefs it gave young girls was a powerful one: women are just as capable, just as intelligent and just as worthy of opportunity as men. In school, admission was built around academic performance. Those who studied harder progressed. Merit mattered. Girls grew up believing they could become engineers, scientists, mathematicians or leaders, because many women already were. Technical careers felt natural, visible and attainable.

When I left Romania, I carried that belief with me and I still do. I came from a place where women in technology were common enough that their presence felt ordinary. In many technical environments, women held strong roles and contributed visibly across the industry. I expected that same sense of belonging everywhere. My mother was one of them a great example to follow.

Then I moved West, and suddenly I became unusual.

Becoming “the woman in the room”

The biggest shift was subtle at first. I was no longer simply a professional working in technology. I became “the woman in tech”, a category, an exception, sometimes a symbol of diversity, and often someone expected to prove competence repeatedly in ways that felt heavier than for others around me.

I have experienced salary conversations shaped by assumptions about future motherhood, where the possibility of having children entered discussions about present day compensation, I have seen freelance work valued differently for equal or superior expertise. I have felt the quiet pressure that many women recognise, where excellence becomes the baseline expectation rather than something that opens doors.

These experiences rarely arrive loudly. They accumulate quietly over years and create workplace trauma that slowly reshapes confidence, belonging and ambition.

The deeper cultural pattern

Joris Luyendijk describes how leadership structures often favour those who carry what he calls the Seven Ticks, the traits that historically make belonging to power circles easier in Dutch society:

• Male

• White

• Heterosexual

• At least one highly educated parent

• At least one parent born in the Netherlands

• VWO / Gymnasium diploma = access to the highest secondary education track, which already opens doors socially and academically

• University degree = access to higher education and elite networks that follow.

Those seven traits represent a small percentage of the Dutch society, yet they remain strongly represented in leadership, business and positions of influence. Leadership often recognises itself in those who look familiar, sound familiar and travelled similar paths. When opportunity keeps circulating within the same circles, talented people outside that profile often carry a heavier path upward.

Women in technology feel that weight, especially when they also carry other dimensions of difference such as cultural background, motherhood, age or neurodiversity.

The hidden workplace trauma for Women in Tech

Workplace trauma for women in technology often grows through accumulation rather than one defining moment. It grows through unequal pay wrapped in polished explanations, assumptions about life choices shaping career opportunities, carrying representation pressure as one of few women in the room, and navigating environments that still often reflect masculine patterns of leadership and communication. Over time, this creates fatigue (sometimes even depression and/or burn out) that reaches deeper than work. It shapes confidence, voice and the willingness to keep pushing forward.

Why I still mentor women into technology?

Despite these experiences, I remain deeply passionate about helping more women (and men) enter technology, especially young girls. I want daughters to grow up with the same healthy belief I grew up with that their intelligence belongs in technology, their ideas belong in leadership, and their future in engineering, cybersecurity, development or operations can feel natural rather than exceptional.

That is one of the reasons why, as Community Manager at DevOpsDays Sibiu 2026, I made sure we offer free tickets for teenagers and build a programme with a balanced number of female and male speakers. Inspiration begins early, and representation matters. When young people enter rooms filled with builders, thinkers and innovators who reflect the richness of society, they begin to imagine themselves there too. That moment can quietly shape an entire future.

What leadership can do

This challenge asks for thoughtful leadership. Organisations can create healthier cultures by building transparent pay structures based on contribution and expertise, investing in sponsorship programmes where leaders actively open doors, creating visible female technical role models, widening hiring practices beyond familiar networks, supporting mentoring pathways for girls and young women in STEM, and designing family friendly policies that recognise parenthood as part of life’s richness rather than a shadow over career potential.

Leadership also grows stronger when it consciously expands whose voices are heard, whose ideas receive attention and whose potential receives genuine support.

A final reflection

Women in tech carry knowledge, creativity, resilience and perspective that the industry deeply needs. When workplaces embrace cultures rooted in fairness, respect and belonging, that potential flourishes naturally. When young girls grow up seeing technology as a space where they fully belong, the next generation of architects, engineers and leaders enters the field with confidence, curiosity and the freedom to rise. That is the future worth pushing for!

Start building gender equity and the world will be a more balanced and happy place!

Stay Synchrominded!