Women in Tech: equal treatment is not enough
My arduous path to becoming a female Data Analyst and why we need to acknowledge inequality instead of pretending it doesn’t exist.
Luckily we live in a day and age where it is not so rare to see women taking up IT roles. But it’s still not the norm.
TechFunnel recently released a collation of 15 reports on the state of women's representation in the IT industry. According to one of them, only 1 out of every 4 tech workers are women. Besides, only 10% of women currently in the industry report being part of a female-majority team.
Why is that? Is it that women are generally not interested in data and technical fields in general? Or is it that any eventual interest is stifled by parents, teachers, professors and, eventually, the workplace?
“If your dad asks, your toy cars belong to your brother, ok?”
Data analysts tend to have their brains wired in a particular way: more logical, curious, and methodic. For some, this can show from an early age, and that was certainly the case for me.
Dolls and mom & baby roleplays never really interested me. Instead, I liked to be buried in books or - and I’m showing my age here - into my computer’s CPU while it laid open on my bed.
I was lucky to have a mother that never liked the idea of training me to be a housewife. She would not allow people to gift me dolls, kitchen sets, or mini-brooms. She would encourage me to spend time in front of the computer and started buying me Harry Potter books in English when she noticed I was picking up the language on my own at 9 years old.
My dad, on the other hand, had more old-fashioned ideas. I remember when Hot Wheels released a City Collection where you could have the Fire Department, Hospital, Police Department, etc, on a paper layout of a city. I loved it to bits, and my mother would give me a playset whenever she could, but with one condition: I’d have to tell my dad that they belonged to my brother; otherwise he’d be mad at her for buying me toy cars.
Being a female student in a Computer Science degree
It felt like, besides all the hard work involved in completing a Computer Science degree, I also had to carry the weight of a heavy mast with a flag for the underrepresented category of women in tech. It was exhausting.
Given my interest in computers, I applied to and was admitted to a Computer Science degree in a very competitive public university in Brazil. I was only 17 years old and part of a class of 40 undergrads — of whom only 4 were women, including me.
I don’t want to stigmatise men who are in tech fields, but in that particular experience, most of them seemed unused to being around women. At first, the 4 females in the class would get together for group assignments. Later on, I found 2 male classmates who were capable of interacting with me with minimal normality, and we remained friends until I quit the course 2 years later.
And why did I end up quitting the course? Honestly, the male-dominant environment intimidated me. I felt uncomfortable asking questions to my professors because I felt like I couldn’t show that I was struggling. I was always mindful of not confirming the stereotype that women do not belong there. It felt like, besides all the hard work involved in completing a Computer Science degree, I also had to carry the weight of a heavy mast with a flag for the underrepresented category of women in tech. It was exhausting.
Don’t get me wrong. I was never subjected to overt abuse or harassment from fellow students or professors. But this sense of “not belonging” comes in the little things. For example, when all the books included in the coursework are written by men. Or when, over the course of 2 years, you have only 1 female professor — she taught Discrete Maths, one of my favorite lectures by coincidence or not.
I was lucky that later in life, with more experience and maturity, I had the opportunity to go back into tech. But how many of the 37% of talented women who drop out of tech degrees never return to the field?
The power of an encouraging workplace
According to the Professor of Information Science, Vandana Singh, females make up only 27% of the tech industry workforce compared to 57% when considering all industries. Another research found that 59% of the time, men are offered higher salaries in tech. No wonder Accenture found that, in the US, 50% of women are likely to quit their tech jobs before they hit 35.
I was part of the Sales team when I started in a UK Health & Beauty company. Years after quitting my Computer Science degree and now a proud holder of a Public Relations BA, I was settled for the client relations path — much closer to the nurturing nature some people think women have more of.
Soon my team noticed my knack for spreadsheets and maths as well as my poor negotiation skills. I was moved to their Category team as they needed someone to manage and digest the large amount of data they had. They were not a tech team per se, but this was my first data-driven role and where I finally realised and accepted that I belonged in the data world.
My current data team at a French CX consultancy company has a good gender split: 8 women to 5 men. We have some very talented women displaying their tech skills and being recognised for it, even though the head of the team is still an also very talented male. I feel more motivated than ever and am not considering leaving the tech industry.
But this is not the norm.
According to the Professor of Information Science, Vandana Singh, females make up only 27% of the tech industry workforce compared to 57% when considering all industries. Another research found that 59% of the time, men are offered higher salaries in tech. No wonder Accenture found that, in the US, 50% of women are likely to quit their tech jobs before they hit 35.
Bottom line is: women should not be treated equally in the tech industry. WHAT?
The reason why there are fewer females in tech is that we haven’t been able to create an environment that compensates for the fact that, from school all the way to the workplace, we’re made to feel like we don’t belong in technical fields.
Equality in tech will not come by ignoring the elephant in the room: women are a minority in tech industries and there are reasons for that.
If you believe it’s because women are biologically less prone to liking and being good at STEM subjects, I highly suggest you read this New York Times Magazine article by Eileen Pollack.
The reason why there are fewer females in tech is that we haven’t been able to create an environment that compensates for the fact that, from school all the way to the workplace, we’re made to feel like we don’t belong in technical fields.
We need to go out of our way to foster female talent in tech.
- When people noticed my liking for numbers and encouraged it, rather than trying to distract me from it, I was able to learn data analysis skills.
- Whenever I found a supportive environment where I could learn at my own pace without feeling like I had to fight against the stereotype that women don’t belong in data, I flourished.
- Whenever I felt like I didn’t have to be three times as good as a male counterpart to have my work recognised, I felt free to show my innovative ideas to the team.
So, I believe women do need to be treated differently in the tech industry.
- If you’re a parent to a young girl who is showing interest in technical fields, encourage her and make her feel like she’s more than capable of excelling in whatever career she chooses.
- If you’re a professor in a STEM degree, check in on your female students and listen to how they feel about being in a male-dominated class and give them whatever support they need to overcome any issues they face.
- If you’re a tech employer, make sure women have the opportunity and are encouraged to show their work.
Oh, and for f@$% sake, just pay women the same salary as the males with the same skills in your team!
I’d like to hear from you. Are you a woman in data or in any other STEM field? Can you relate to my experience? If you’re a male tech worker, how did this article hit you?
