Diversity in tech: we’re doing it wrong
The tech industry is trying to improve its gender balance. There are many resources out there with the data, and honestly, it’s bad. Fortunately, more and more people realise the problem and are trying to do something about it.
I was happy to participate in a few dedicated events over the last year, from EWIT in Amsterdam to PWiTS in Warsaw last week, I attended some of the Women Techmakers evenings in Berlin and talked in internal events within my company. I was invited to share my experience as a lady in tech by the flamboyant Iveta Zaklasnikova at a public online event, and a few times elsewhere, publicly and privately.
These events are a great opportunity for an under-represented group to meet and inspire each other.
But we’re doing it wrong. From listening to people in the industry, from colleagues to panellists to random strangers met at events, I see a pattern. A progression of awareness. The industry, as represented in the events I recently attended and the teachings from the various speakers, is currently stuck at step 2, and this is from the most progressive companies, the ones who actually sponsor diversity at all.
Disclaimer: not all men, not all women, not all white people, etc. I know. For the sake of readability throughout this post, the terms boy, girl, man and woman describe the majority of people socialised as such.
Step 0 — The negationist: “I don’t see gender”
To be honest, I started counting at step 1, like normal people do. But then I remembered this story.
As an architect for a previous company, I was part of the process of recruiting an extra person in the team, and was talking to a colleague about the process, the job description, the disturbing questions our manager was asking during interviews, and why the team would stay very male if we didn’t change anything.
“Oh, you know, I don’t see gender. To me a man is the same as a woman.” said my colleague.
(In this sentence, you can freely replace gender with colour, disability, age, or any other clearly visible discrimination factor.)
It only means that this person is not even aware of his own biases.
Biases are natural
Everyone has ingrained biases, because the human brain is wired to find patterns and very quickly apply them to the information it gets. If you see a massive dog jumping at you, you will not stop and ask the owner whether the dog is nice. You will defend yourself (or run) before thinking and this is why the human race is not extinct. If you see women in life, in movies, in stories, being nice and caring, this is what you will expect of all women, unless you make a conscious effort of checking your biases and working against them.
Don’t feel ashamed of your biases. You see a black person and mistake them for the janitor? Well, that’s horribly racist but that’s what is taught by our environment. Don’t feel ashamed but work every minute to deconstruct them. True humility is the only antidote to shame.
Step 1 — The bystander: “What can I do, women don’t apply”
Why are there only 10% girls in computing at universities? “What can we do, girls just don’t apply! We can’t force them to come in. They’re just not good at intellectual work, or they would get the highly-paid jobs.”
You cannot force them into your recruitment process, your academic programme or your tech conference, but you can certainly chase them away, and you probably are.
Research shows that girls over the world are better at math than boys, yet they are oriented towards care work, away from hard science and innovation.
Carnegie Mellon’s revolution
In 1995, Carnegie Mellon University enrolled 7% of women in Computer Science and decided to act.
For example, they changed the programme description. In addition to demonstrated academic competence, the Admissions Office began giving more weight to non-academic factors, looking for applicants with leadership potential and a commitment to “give back to the community.” This is typically the kind of vocable that girls are taught identify to. After 5 years, the enrollment was 39% women.
Allan Fisher also conveyed to the Admissions Office his goal of a gender-balanced program. He felt it was important to get the message out that “no prior programming experience is necessary” to enter the CMU computer science program. The image of a CS student as someone (usually male) who has played with computers since early childhood is widespread. This often discourages many otherwise talented students from applying to a computer science program.
Think about it: if you grow up socialised as a girl, or if you come from a low-income (typically non-white) family, you are not likely to get a computer as a Christmas gift and learn to hack away at the tender age of 8. You will enter university barely able to type, surrounded by lanky boys and their nerdy t-shirts, who look and act like they own the place. What are your chances of feeling included and in your right place? What are the chances you will stay?
Interview questions
I had a successful interview 5 years ago, nice and efficient. Around the end, probably from a lack of other ideas, the manager recruiting me asked: “How do you feel about working in a male-dominated environment?” This is a terrible question for way too many reasons.
First, at this point of my life, I had been a developer for 5 years; add to this university and even a technical high school, I had lived in a 90%-dudes environment for 14 years. I would have been more disturbed by a female-dominated or even a balanced environment, and that was basically written on my CV right there.
Second, what does it tell about the mood in the team? Should I accept this job, will there be alpha-boy competitions and sexist jokes every day? What does it tell if the manager himself is asking this, will I get any support if I fall victim to any unacceptable behaviour? It reached such a level that on the first day, it took a push from my mother to make me dare wear a skirt, and I was seriously thinking about keeping my child a secret as long as possible to avoid being labeled as a mother rather than a professional.
The answer was yes, it was indeed a terrible place to arrive as a woman. Thankfully I found a few allies who helped me change the mood and became really good friends.
Step 2 — The virilist: “Teach women to be more manly”
After admitting that there is a problem, and that we in a company can do something about it, what do we do? We teach women to be more like men.
“Join us for three days of workshops on how to be more assertive in your leadership!” “Come hear our experts and learn how to better negotiate your salary!”
Listen louder
One of the speakers in Warsaw told us a story.
A lady came to her and said: “Teach me to be more assertive in my communication.” She was a leader, a successful manager, and wished to modify her communication style.
“Why?” asked the coach. “Why do you want to be more assertive, as you say?”
“My manager told me I need it in order to be heard.”
“Well,” answered the coach, “why don’t we teach your manager to listen instead?”
Most of the events I attend that are targeted at women in tech fall in this category. We want more ladies, but only if the ladies are more like men. Doesn’t it destroy the whole concept of diversity? (And this too applies to any discrimination factor. How many people of colour have to change their accent, their habits, their clothes, cut their hair, in order to look more like white people?)
Next step — Change the environment
One of the first few ladies with whom I had the chance to work was defined by her ambition. She wanted to thrive, reach for the stars. Admirable and inspiring. Her methods were totally masculine: her strategy was to become one of the guys, follow me or eat the dust. It put a stop to our friendship. To be honest, I believe that in a healthier team she would never have needed to develop this behaviour and become so poisonous. If more of her team had listened to this tall blond sexy lady instead of speaking over her and drowning her under everyday sexism, we would all be in a better world.
Girls are taught to shut up and look pretty. I would love a tech industry where men shut up and look at least a bit more soigné. Girls are taught to care for others: mothers, nurses, nannies… Who in your family never misses a birthday? Who in your team organises the team events? It is a duty that is deeply ingrained in quite a lot of cultures on Earth, and never recognised. Organising the birthday parties at the office will never get you a promotion.
We all need to share the glory, the seats on company’s boards and in parliaments, share the columns of the newspapers, but we also need to share the task of caring for each other. Women have been fighting for their rights to vote, to dispose of their own money, to earn a living, to be heard. It is time for men to pick up the under-glorified task of keeping society together.
Women are constantly erased from the story we tell ourselves. Look up the stories of the ENIAC six, inventors and discoverers of programming applied to a machine, forgotten until the late 1990s. Look up the names of Annie Easley, Dorothy Vaughan, Dame Stephanie Shirley, Sister Mary Kenneth Keller, Elizabeth J. Feinler, Adele Goldberg. Ask yourself why you don’t know all of these names already. Our society listens to the men and speaks over the women.
How to start?
As a man, do your homework. Shut up and listen. Give credit, repeat the good ideas of the ladies around you.
As a company, change your culture. Stop accepting the toxic behaviour. Hold the men accountable.
As a woman, be yourself. You have a job, and except for specific cases, your job is not to educate the men.
