We Can’t Imagine: the Tech Industry Needs More Women

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Tonight, I’m talking to my daughter’s Girl Scout troop about a career in tech. I’m going to tell them that women have done amazing things in technology. I will tell them that they too can do whatever they want in this arena. But I’ll lie to them.

“You can do whatever you want” is half-true, because there are real barriers – if not barriers – that prevent women and minorities from truly excelling in this area. There is a diversity issue in the tech industry, and it’s not just a problem for these young girls, but for all of us.

Yes we have a problem

For now, these fourth graders see no reason why they can’t be a cook, astronaut, doctor, professional athlete, or any other job they might dream of. But around this age, girls begin to lose interest in STEM (science, technology, math and engineering), and they continue to lose interest in these subjects at every stage of their education . Even when they persist and declare computer science or another STEM field as their college majors , 32% of them end up changing their majors to something else , compared with 26% of men who have moved into a non-STEM field. After graduating from college and getting into high-tech jobs, women leave the industry en masse : 56% of tech women leave tech companies within 10 years, more than double the percentage of men who quit smoking (and no, that’s not because they all quit) … to have children).

To be clear, we have a diversity issue in the workplace in general – not just in technology and not just with women. This is a problem wherever people are discriminated against (overt or covert) because of their race, sexual orientation, religion, or any other reason they are considered “different”. Diversity concerns exist in virtually every company and industry ( including the media ). I draw attention to women in tech, especially because it is such a huge, powerful example that is very important to us here at Lifehacker. I have witnessed this myself and also talked to women who are currently overcoming these obstacles.

However, despite the numbers, many people continue to think that this is not a problem. People continue to have heated debates about whether sexism and racism even exist. Even crazier, people who defend under-represented minorities end up harassed and labeled as biased. But here’s why gender inequality in technology is a problem for us all:

So technology is one of the greatest opportunities available right now, if not the biggest. However, half of the population is extremely underrepresented and uneven in this area.

Why we have few women in tech

I’ve read a lot of articles and comments on articles like this one that basically says there is no problem and we should just shut up and stop “forcing” young women to get into technology. (They tend to say this less politely.) They say that women are not interested in STEM . Women just don’t know how to do it . Women are not biologically designed to study “difficult” subjects such as mathematics . Basically, they say there is a shortage of women in technology because we live in a “meritocracy” where the most qualified person gets and keeps a job! And if there are not enough women in the high-tech sector, it is because women cannot cope with it, or they simply do not care. (Who needs a high-paying, high-demand job that you can work for anywhere, regardless of your college education? Not women!)

You can guess where these arguments come from. The explanation by white men that diversity is not an issue in areas dominated by white men is, frankly, a sign of ignorance. This is similar to the time when Google’s white CEO Eric Schmidt, a white male, continually interrupted Megan Smith, female tech support chief, in a panel that discussed diversity and gender inclusion . This is the death of a thousand paper cuts , explains tech entrepreneur Saadia Muzaffar of TechGirls Canada :

He is encouraged to do other things rather than male-dominated pursuits. They say that it will be much easier for you to be recognizable in one area than in another. I think we are doing a disservice to fix our blind spots by talking about “disappointment” in such egregious ways as someone says, “No, you can’t do that.” Most of these biases are subtle, insidious, and therefore hide in plain sight – without control.

I don’t think that most men in high tech are trying to kick or alienate women from work. I think those who say we don’t have a diversity issue simply don’t see it because they’ve never been outside and won’t notice how seemingly harmless examples of sexism create an inhospitable atmosphere. People also tend to hire candidates who look and share the same interests and experiences as them . Privileges are invisible to those who have them , and the meritocracy that tech companies claim is a lie .

If you want to understand something, you must either experience it yourself, or talk to those who understood and empathize with them .

I’m on the fringes of the tech industry now, but when I go to tech conferences as a journalist, I’m repelled by my male colleagues (literally sometimes! Dude, I’m standing here). I see a sarcastic expression on the faces of representatives when I ask them about the features of their devices (as if they are laughing at me: “Oh, you know there is such a thing as battery life? What kind of doll are you.” Seriously, me. ” I was actually called “doll” more times than I can count.) Male colleagues took over the stories I told – because they are men? Because they think they are more experienced? Because they consider me less competent for other reasons? It is hard to say. This is another paper cut on top of the previous ones.

Sometimes, however, sexism isn’t all that subtle. When I was a CIO, people outside the company sometimes expressed surprise or condescending condescension when I talked about things like SSH accessing servers or updating the firewall (“Oh, if you could understand that, anyone can.” said one man.the contractor I hired once told me). And I’m not the only one. Gizmodo Editor-in-Chief Annalee Newitz also shares her experience:

I definitely ran into gender-based ignorance in the tech world, especially when I was just starting my career as a tech journalist. I had a lot of men at tech conferences asking me who my boyfriend was because they thought I was there just to be with some guy. To this day, people on the net often mistake me for a man because I write about technology and science. Even when they see my author with my female name, they will still call me “he” in the comments. However, I also had male mentors in technology and science who supported me.

Lifehacker founding editor Gina Trapani was there too:

I was discussed in meetings; he is expected to take notes and perform other “secretarial” tasks; mistaken for the non-technical person in the room. They called me “not a REAL programmer,” teased my male colleagues for “hitting a girl” on programming tests, as if “girls” had no right to program well.

And another example from a female engineer who wished to remain anonymous:

There is an absolute bias against women in engineering. I do not face this every day and certainly not with every person, but it does arise. I often find myself interrupted when I try to speak in meetings. When I make a statement, I am constantly asked and asked to justify myself, much more than my male colleagues. For most of my career, I was the only woman in a group of about 10 people. My boss often assigns me secretarial work (scheduling appointments, making copies, taking notes, planning parties, etc.). It might be excusable if I were the youngest member of my group, but I’m not. I am uncomfortable with filing this complaint with HR because, as the only woman, there is no way to do it anonymously.

I’ve been an engineer for over 5 years and have a track record of doing my job well, so I don’t think this treatment is warranted. The constant struggle is frustrating and discouraging, and I often think about changing careers. I’m not surprised to read about how many women are leaving STEM. However, because of this, I often feel obligated to stay in STEM and try to improve things for the next generation of women, which is even more frustrating. My white male colleagues do not carry this burden.

In short, the problem of women in technology is a cultural, systemic problem . It’s not that “math is a difficult task” for women. Girls lose interest in technology when they are told, directly or indirectly, that it is not for them. Whether the frustration begins in elementary school, college, or beyond, it’s palpable. CIO Jennifer Trost told me:

When I went to my first computer science class, we had about 30 students. Out of 30, only 4 are women. We had a male instructor. By the third week of classes, only I was left of the girls. I think the rude comments from male students and our apparently sexist professor got them hooked. I continued and when we had our first big test focused on binary. He passed the test, I passed it before anyone else, and when I passed it, he said: “What, you didn’t know the answers?” I finished the course, but immediately wrote to the dean after the semester.

So I would say that after I got my college education, I definitely felt frustrated by continuing to work in the information technology industry.

Obviously repulsive things like jock jokes in the workplace don’t help, but there is also a quiet broker culture , a deep and subtle problem of sexism, and silly stereotypes that we just won’t let die . (Can we stop the silly “technology is so simple that even your mom or girlfriend can figure it out” meme?)

It’s not just a pipeline problem, it’s a management problem

Over the past few years, huge efforts have been made to encourage more women and minorities to pursue careers in technology, including TechWomen , Girl Develop It , Black Girls Code, and Women Techmakers . The challenge is not only getting more women into high-tech jobs, but keeping them there and taking on leadership positions. One woman who has worked for 30 years in predominantly male fields – the military, law enforcement and aviation – told me how gender inequality at the government level is a huge part of the problem:

There was a clear prejudice against female air traffic controllers both among staff and pilots. The pilots questioned the woman’s instructions and argued about the frequency if they thought they could get the female controller to do it their own way. I have heard many cases where a male controller controlling the frequency of a female controller would be surprised to hear how some pilots behave. We put up with a lot of shit that men didn’t have to do.

Most of the guys I worked with were nice and welcoming, and many were even supportive and encouraging … but there was a high enough percentage of sexist jerks that it made the job unbearable at times. The worst part was that the so-called leadership did not solve this problem. There were too many cases when managers not only did not solve, but also actively participated in the problem.

My observation is that if senior management wants women to be present, they will see that the work environment is not hostile and stressful. They will provide a welcoming atmosphere. If they tolerate or encourage discrimination and set the wrong example themselves, then employees will feel free to behave inappropriately and hostilely. It all depends on the attitude at the top. […] I am not saying that every woman can be successful in the technical field, but I think that many of them could not get the support, encouragement and recognition for this. Leaders must create an environment that supports them.

As Rachel Thomas writes on Medium, if the tech culture changes, everyone needs to change – just teaching more girls and women to code isn’t enough to solve this problem.

It’s also not because women choose babies and not tech careers.

All other arguments about why more and more women are not working in influential fields like technology or in leadership positions have been rebutted. Including these gems:

“Women are not as ambitious as men.” Consulting firm McKinsey & Company has found that women are as likely as men to assert their desire for leadership positions. In addition, they are more likely than men to strongly agree that they want to move to the next level in the company. 81% of 797 women surveyed said they were willing to sacrifice part of their personal life to achieve senior leadership, and 70% actively asked for a promotion.

“Women prioritize family responsibilities over work.” One of the assumptions people make about the shortage of women in boardrooms and leadership positions is that women “refuse” to take care of their families. Fortune, however, surveyed 716 women who quit tech, and while 484 of them (68%) said motherhood was a factor in their decision, only 42 women said they wanted to be housewives:

Many women said that motherhood was not the only thing affecting their careers. Rather, it was a lack of flexible work schedules, an unfavorable work environment, or insufficient wages to pay for childcare. As Rebecca, a former motion graphics designer, said, “Motherhood was just an amplifier. Because of this, all the problems that I have always put up with have become unbearable. “

“Women just aren’t that interested in technology.” It is true that computer science is the only STEM field in which the number of women pursuing bachelor’s degrees has actually declined since 2002. But colleges and universities that have worked to make computer science more hospitable and inclusive for women have seen huge enrollment rates for women in CS. : 40% of computer science students at Harvey Mudd College are women, 40% of computer science students at Carnegie Mellon University are women, and UC Berkeley has more women than men in the introduction to computer science.

In short, women are not shunning or quitting high-tech jobs because they are not interested or because they all become mothers. They leave the industry because they feel isolated and are told loudly or quietly that they do not belong to them.

What can we do about it

One of the most interesting things I’ve found talking to women in tech is a common theme: most, if not all, say they’ve been encouraged to get into tech. This was usually when they were growing up, but also early in their careers. I love this example shared by Gina Trapani:

A number of people in my life have encouraged me to get involved in technology. My father bought me my first computer when I was nine years old. When I was a teenager, I asked my brother how to use his new Windows 3.1 computer, and he sat me down in a chair at his desk, ran the tutorial, and watched me complete it. In college, when I needed a job on campus, the career department sent me to the computer lab. One of the help desk managers was this incredibly smart and capable woman that everyone looked up to. Seeing her example, working with her and with her for my first year, I decided to take her job after she graduated (which I did). My first job after college, my boss sent me the code for an internal application that was used there and asked me to read about the language, learn it and update the software to fix the error. He didn’t ask if I could do it, he asked when it would be done.

If she didn’t have such a positive experience, perhaps Gina would have chosen a different career path – and perhaps Lifehacker, ThinkUp, Makerbase and Todo.txt would not exist today.

The lesson for parents and educators is clear: we must educate children about technology and computer science and encourage them from the start, continuing to support them if they show interest in these areas. Girls, in particular, need more encouragement than boys, perhaps because girls tend to be more sensitive to judgments , but also because we are bad at convincing girls of the value of STEM. Lisa Abeyeta, Founder and CEO of APPCityLife , writes :

The problem isn’t that girls don’t think they can program; the problem is they don’t want to code hard enough to get rid of any doubts or weaknesses. If you think about it, why don’t the girls switch off? Think about what we see in movies, on television, or in the news. The entertainment industry rarely portrays “tech” characters with someone with whom young girls easily identify; all too often these characters are either bad guys from the fraternity or awkward losers – none of these stereotypes inspire girls to imagine they are enjoying coding careers. And if you read tech news at all, you know how often it is filled with stories of misbehaving leadership positions, unequal pay for women, and limited funding opportunities for women in tech. We, as a culture, are really not good at selling technology to girls.

“We need to leverage the strengths and interests of girls by encouraging them to participate in technology projects that create solutions to social problems or other issues of concern to them,” Abeyeta says. Show them that technology is a tool and skill set that other girls like them use. Show them how women in tech matter, women like engineer and founder of Adafruit Limor Fried , Microsoft researcher Dana Boyd , Dropbox engineer Tina Ven , inventor and CEO of Sugru Jane Ni Dhulchaointih , graphic designer Susan Kare and vice – Yahoo President of Research Yoel Marek .

Some resources you can use with your kids: Google Made with Code , Code.org (tutorials about Minecraft, Star Wars, and Frozen), DIY.org , Activity Hero (for finding kids’ science and technology lessons), CS Unplugged, and See our article on teaching kids to program .

For women technologists: keep going. Former Reddit CEO and “Internet’s most hated man” Ellen Pao has two tips for women in tech : “Have thick skin; over time, it naturally becomes thicker “and” Don’t be silent. “

In the meantime, I would say to any woman struggling in a male-dominated work culture: don’t give up. You’re not alone. Millions of men and women support you and want you to succeed. Many people will try to blame you – it is too difficult for some to admit their own shortcomings and the shortcomings of our system. It’s on them, not on you.

For companies, the solution is not to make all devices pink . And variety training helps, but it’s not enough. As Annalee says:

It is not enough just to be aware of the problems. The only solution is to hire more women. Hire more people of color. If this is too difficult for you, then you shouldn’t be able to hire people at all.

And promote them. You pay and treat them the same. And defend their work and sponsor them .

For everyone else: contact companies that promote sexist or discriminatory stereotypes. Listen to women and trust us as you share our experiences and the challenges we face. Think about your hidden biases (everyone has them!) And try to stand up for the people around you. If you work in technology, follow the School of Hackers Code of Practice . You can also head over to Makerbase , Gina’s current project, and add women who inspire you to this IMDb-like app site. Tell them why you value their work and give them credit. Also, let’s all agree to stop calling women in tech “girls.”

We are making progress. More people talk about discrimination today than they did a few years ago, and more people support diversity in the workplace. For example, more women were recently added to the Microsoft board , which is a big step forward.

However, we have not yet reached our goal. For example, more and more women have joined the class action lawsuit against Microsoft . So tonight I’m going to tell a group of 9-year-olds that math, science and technology are not “boys’ subjects,” and even if they struggle with it, that doesn’t mean they are bad at it. … I’m going to tell them that women have played some of the most important roles in STEM and they continue to do so today. But I’m also going to tell them that some people don’t think girls should take seats at this table, and that really isn’t fair. But we can show them differently.

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