16b - One of the lads
London – 12:05 pm Tuesday
Welcome my online cyber thriller, The Phisherman. Be warned - although I've removed a brutal scene from this online chapter (when the book is published, this chapter will come with a warning), the subject will still be confronting for some. For anyone who thinks this subject belongs in the past, check the references at the end - and be prepared for a shock. However, if you want to learn more about the story and meet the three main characters first, click HERE. If you'd simply prefer to start at Chapter 1, click HERE. To select a different chapter, click HERE.
Alison raged inside. She knew she shouldn’t, at least not at Nick. He was far from the worst chauvinist she’d encountered. She couldn’t understand why he’d triggered her.
I haven’t lost it like that for such a long time.
Staring at Nick’s uncertain face, she knew she would never forget the many years she’d slowly, painfully worked her way above the cronies that sat in their cramped cubicles in the pit.
From the moment she’d arrived at the mysterious ‘Doughnut’1 in Cheltenham for her official interview with George, her middle-aged, balding section chief, she’d been fighting sexist attitudes. George’s expensive, poo-brown, tweed suit should have warned her of what was coming.
“Welcome to the team, Miss Simpson,” George had said in a falsetto voice that irritated her from the moment she heard it. He didn’t bother to stand, let alone extend a hand in greeting. He merely pointed to one of the uncomfortable, vinyl-covered chairs in front of his overly large desk.
“Please, have a seat so we can get this little interlude out of my way.”
Alison tried to find a comfortable sitting position as George drily continued.
“First, let me say you should not believe everything Edward and Gareth may have told you. I know they were excited to have you onboard after you solved their little puzzle. However, they do not have a lot of sway here. They are more at the bottom of the pile, if you know what I mean.”
Alison politely nodded her head when he gazed at her quizzically over the top of his large, thick-rimmed spectacles.
“Good. I’m glad you understand that there is an order to things.”
She inwardly winced at how George stressed the word “order” after a slight pause.
“So, I guess I should bring you up to speed with how things are in our section before you meet the lads. You see, Miss Simpson, we’ve never had a woman on our team before. The boys are a little nervous. Not that they’re nervous about you, of course,” he added with a wry smile. “They’re more concerned that you might be a bit more of …”
George paused again, then grimaced before continuing in his piercing tone.
“A political addition, if you know what I mean. You know. Technology is not something women are generally any good at, Miss Simpson. Understandably, the lads are concerned that you might not be as good as them. No one wants to be lumbered with someone that’s just not wired for it, if you know what I mean.”
Alison felt her heart drop. She knew what he meant. She had experienced it up close and personal too often.
For some reason, men everywhere think the cyber universe belongs to them. Women aren’t supposed to understand it, let alone enjoy it.
George blabbered on for a few minutes more, stumbling around his words as he tried to make it sound like it was merely going to be a challenge for her to work with a bunch of egotistical chauvinists. It was, supposedly, an opportunity to break new ground for women.
Though I know that was not what he meant.
Sadly, her encounter with George was nothing compared to the shock she experienced after “first contact” with her supposed team. Every one of them either leered in a way that disgusted her or made it clear from their transparent look of distaste that she did not belong there.
It was hard to tell what was the worst over those first six months: the constant putdowns, the regularly updated nude pinups and accompanying suggestive statements directed towards her, or the innumerable times the lads made “accidental” contact with various parts of her body.
Understandably, there were many nights Alison cried herself to sleep, wondering why she stayed. No matter what she did, “the lads” jeered her every move both online and in the real world. For months, she felt excluded merely because she was “a stupid girl playing in a man’s world.” It didn’t matter how many cases she helped them crack. The lads took all the glory, and Alison was left to clean up any mess. There were too many days when she’d wondered if signing up had been a terrible mistake.
There were two reasons Alison persevered and stumbled her way through that horrible time.
Firstly, and indisputably, it was her inherent nature. She never gave up. And the more sexist resistance and ridicule Alison encountered, the fiercer she became.
She had battled it from the day she connected online as a twelve-year-old gamer. She remembered how swiftly she learned that girls were not accepted as members of the online gaming universe. As soon as gamers discovered Simmo87 was a girl, it was non-stop ridicule and abuse until she left that game.
Four times within her first week, she’d signed off in tears. She was only twelve and had never experienced anything remotely close to the crude cruelty and disgusting demands she was subjected to from the prats bravely masked behind their anonymous gamer tags.
Everything changed when a game master2 contacted Alison online to discuss the abuse. His daughter had experienced the same thing. Ever since, he’d made it a mission to help young female gamers survive and thrive in the online world. After gaining Alison’s trust, he helped her create a new profile where she was a male. Then he taught her to change her vocabulary.
Alison was rapt to join the online gaming community, yet shattered that she couldn’t be who she wanted to be. Importantly, it taught her that there are always means and methods to circumvent shallow chauvinists and beat them in the end.
And I loved beating them.
The other reason Alison stayed at GCHQ was because of two staunch supporters. They propped her up and skilled her to receive the recognition owed her by the prejudiced pigs that littered her workplace then. And neither of her two allies worked for the British Government.
The first person was her beloved Game Master. He kept in contact with Alison, constantly surprising her with the technical knowledge and skills he shared along the way.
He was also highly protective of her. Because of the abuse his teenage daughter had endured online, the Game Master could support Alison through many difficult times. And on her sixteenth birthday, he’d sent a message that made her believe she could live her dreams in the world of technology.
u are like a daughter to me. i cant wait to hear of all u do with the amazing life u are yet to liveHer other ally was a bigger surprise. A few months after getting the job at GCHQ, Alison renewed her friendship online with her only childhood friend during primary school, Adam. He was the one who got her into gaming when she was ten.
However, Alison’s friendship didn’t blossom with Adam. Although he had reasonable IT skills, Alison had easily surpassed him by then. When she asked Adam for a fresh perspective on a problem she was facing, he recognised it was beyond his scope and ability. He referred her to one of his co-workers, a young man called Joshua Livingstone. It didn’t take Josh long to point Alison in the right direction.3
Since then, they had built a solid professional relationship. During her first two years at GCHQ, Josh mentored Alison, teaching her how to track and catch hackers. In Alison’s eyes, he was a genuine geek freak. The only person she considered his equal was the much-older Game Master.
And Alison appreciated her two cyber allies for much more than enhancing her resolve to stay at GCHQ. With the skills she developed under their guidance, she assisted security agencies worldwide as they responded to the attacks of a hacker collective calling themselves The Shadow. As Shadow members - known as Shades - were tracked online to their physical hideouts, Alison Simpson was in the thick of it.4
Sadly, even that was insufficient to overcome the overt prejudice in her team. Despite making her bosses look good, she’d needed to prove her worth time after time before being begrudgingly accepted into what would always be a boys’ club for some.
And Nick will always be one of “the lads” just because of who he is and what he does.
After the rampant sexism Alison had encountered in the world of technology since that awful day when she was twelve, she knew that abject apologies and condescending compliments would never mollify the beast within her.
Thankfully, I haven’t had to settle with that since the day the Game Master found me.
I hope you were made a little uncomfortable by this chapter; for many people, it is their story, whether as victim or perpetrator … or maybe a bit of both. If you’re a Phisherman subscriber, thank you for your support … I hope you’ll click the heart-shaped LIKE button at the end of this chapter. And if you have any suggestions to help make the story better or want to encourage me as a storyteller (either would be nice), please leave a comment.I must include this final note. For many women (and I suspect LGBTQIA+ people) working in ICT, it has been a struggle to get to the point where they are accepted by (hopefully most of) their male counterparts.
Sadly, the sexism Alison encounters in this chapter (including the part I’ve removed from this version) is loosely based on the experience of a woman I know whilst she worked in the IT sector. When I asked her to file a report with the police, she declined for fear of losing her job – how shameful is that!
And for anyone who asserts such sexist days are well and truly over, check out the following articles from 2022:
1 in 3 women abused online in work context
Women in tech still face harassment & inequality
SpeakUp survey of women in tech workplaces
The Doughnut is the nickname for GCHQ’s physical headquarters in Cheltenham. The name is derived from the building’s shape – it looks like a doughnut. Sadly, it isn’t covered with chocolate icing. To learn more, check out cheltenham [gchq]
Game Master generally refers to the storyteller conducting a role-playing game (RPG). A typical example is a Dungeon Master in ‘Dungeons & Dragons.’ Their activities include moderating how game rules are applied.
For those who don’t know, Joshua Livingstone is the main character in my first novel, ‘The Dream Walker.’ And his work colleague Adam is a bigger rogue than Nick Davies will ever be – scarily, his character is adapted from someone I’ve met.
You may remember reading Z’s side of this at the end of 9 - A Dark Past