I think it’s important to have pieces like yours that document the fact that women can have good experiences in the tech industry, made better by respectful colleagues and an unhindered career progression. I worked in a team adjacent to yours at Africa Internet Group a couple of years back and so I know firsthand the respect that the mostly-male team had for you — and the fact that you earned it by being an expert at your job. As someone who was previously in the tech industry and has had mostly good experiences, I’m as troubled as you are that the narrative around women in tech these days. It’s dominated very much by tales of abuse and victimhood.
But it doesn’t help to dismiss this narrative offhand based on one personal experience. It’s not as simple as “whoever is good is good”. Meritocracy is fundamentally flawed. Social attitudes towards gender that deter young girls from going to STEM from early ages are what prevents them from making it into the ‘hiring’ pile in the first place. This is something that is deeply entrenched in many societies — even Western and first-world ones — because they are deeply influenced by a tangled mix of culture and education and marketing and advertising.
The ‘meritocracy’ argument also flies in the face of mountains evidence showing that psychological bias in hiring does not favour women, and that although more women than men are enrolled in and graduate from higher education institutes in many countries, fewer of them make it up the corporate ladder for reasons that are not related to performance.
Like you, “ women in tech” events make uncomfortable because they create a kind of siege mentality among women in the industry and they do a disservice to men and women both— but I understand why these events exist. What these women (and other advocates for greater female representation in tech) are up against is a systemic problem that in many society begins with how girls are being brought up at home and in schools, from a very early age. These events are quick fixes to a problem so deep that it would only improve if all of society changed their attitudes. The intention is good — to provide the support that women might not have had in their education or their careers.
The ‘meritocracy argument is also ironic because the idea that ‘hiring or promotion quotas in favour of women would result in a less qualified candidate being hired or promoted’ is hinged on the automatic assumptions that a)all men in high-ranking posts deserve their positions and b) it’s highly unlikely that you would find a female candidate more qualified than a male. People are not asking to throw a rock out the window and hire the first woman it hits — we’re asking for diversity to be given greater consideration within a pool of already qualified candidates.
I believe in the potential of women, exactly because of women like you who are strong and capable leaders, that is why I find the current statistics showing that only 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women insulting and unbelievable. What I think needs to change is how successful women frame the conversations around the current gender culture in tech. What can we do to make sure that there are efforts and initiatives to promote greater female engagement in the industry without creating more exclusivity that isolates women?
