Because we were supporting legacy hardware that was being phased out, and I was surprised it hadn't happened a few years earlier. But why it was me rather than my two male peers - well,they chose the selection criteria that will give the result they want. I didn't actually mind, as I was ready to ho, and it was a decent pay off - plus those who stayed, I definitely got out at the right time, and there sre far worse things than being paid to leave a job.
However, in all the research there's been on why aren't there more women working in tech and the leaky pipeline- I wonder if anyone has done research on the number of women who have been the only woman in a techy department and they are the one selected for redundancy, because I've seen it again and again over the years - Windows team, the only woman went, networks team, the only woman went, and me the only eoman in the Unix team. Of course, they would have had their reasons on paper, but strange how it often seemed to be the woman. I think in at least two cases I can think of, she wasn't as technically capable, but she was good enough for the role, just didn't get as much support on learning the role, and wasn't as likely to be involved in those casual chats on a day out at the track, things like that. I'm sure the men involved in making the decisions thought they were being completely fair, and yet, it seems to be a pattern.
We've had some contractors terminated and permits benched on a project this week. None of them women, but in the department concerned, there aren't any women anyway.