I have a lot to thank my women's network at work for. I've learnt way more about the company through it than I ever would through my own department, who are way too insular. I've learnt about how what departments do; I've learnt about things the company offers, such as tuition assistance funding, which the rest of my department now also know about. I've met all sorts of people I never would in the course of my day job, from all sorts of departments and locations and all levels of seniority. I've got involved in a project alongside my day job, just through talking to another woman at a women's event we held, and saying what she was doing was really interesting - and she's becoming a great friend personally, too. It makes me feel less isolated - I'm in a very male-dominated, techy department. It's given me opportunities to do things I wouldn't get in the course of my day job, including organising a "bring your children to work" event, and speaking on the challenges for women in STEM at a panel discussion at a diversity event held at work. It's just given me other contacts to talk to when I think my dear managers are being particularly crap at the people-management side of things - and it's given me the confidence to stand up and talk about those things.
And the fact that initially git manager tried to prevent me from being involved is reason enough for it to exist and me to be involved. (I was a bit disappointed he backed down on that - I suspect someone had a word, but I was quite looking forward to him going up against some senior women and the head of HR on that one.)
I work in IT - the majority of my colleagues are male. A lot of the managers are male. We do need men to be on board, at least some of them - there's no point educating women about things like unconscious bias if none of the male managers doing the hiring have any awareness of it. We need the men controlling the budgets to approve funding for some of the events. But it is all run by women, and the various events we run are attended almost entirely by women. Some male colleagues said, when I asked why they hadn't attended a particular event which would have been useful to them, and which I had made sure they were aware about, "but it'll be all women!" I responded with a withering look, and pointed out that it's been like that for me almost every single day of my career, and maybe they should consider how it feels for everyone else around who isn't a white male.
A well-organised women's network is definitely a treasure. I was contacted today about a job opportunity elsewhere. One of the things putting me off is that nowhere on the information I have about the company does it mention anything about a women's network or whether they have policies supporting women in any way. I've previously been interviewed by a company where I knew very quickly that I really wouldn't be comfortable working for them - it seemed very female-unfriendly, and I've developed a pretty thick skin after 20 years in IT. There are some pretty good employers around, but there are still others which are proving why there are still problems with attracting women into tech roles.