Empower Women Is Not A Bad Word

I know what it’s like being the woman in the room. I was the only woman student in Computer Science class in High School. I was the only woman programmer in my team when I joined the Navy. I was the only team lead in a room full of commanders who were only men. And I still am the only woman in the room, even today….

In the beginning, I didn’t really care about being the woman in the room. I wasn’t aware that I am the only woman, I was used to it. I didn’t know anything else. But today I understand it is a problem. It’s a problem which is still here, and we need to be aware of it, and try to change it.

Introduction

The gender gaps in the High-Tech industry are large and clear: Only about a quarter of high-tech workers are women (17%) in Israel, and high-tech men earn an average of 18% more than women.

In this article we’re going to talk about the gender gaps, and the gaps in the natural thoughts in all of us in the 21st century. Those gaps, which start at a young age, lead the women not to choose a career in engineering. I’ll describe in this article my way to fight this battle, which many of you might think doesn’t exist today.

Where Gender Gap Begins

High-Tech is not for women is a feeling seeping from a very young age. It could be from many reasons: the competitiveness or crazy work hours that people said might not be suitable for women. Or it may also be because men now have three times more role models in this industry, something that will take years to change.

I think the reason for that saying seeping from a young age is because there is a thought that women are less talented in engineering than men.

A study taken in University of Maryland in 2010 was trying to identify what, if anything, is occurring in Math classes in high schools that may negatively affect the continued study of mathematics by young women. In this study, the researchers examined teacher-student interactions fully in Math classes in several different techniques.

This study shows a consistent pattern for more teacher-initiated contacts with males, that certainly point to unequal treatment. The teachers in the sample treated females and males differently in response opportunities, cognitive level of questions, praise and criticism, encouragement and individual help. The differences found generally work in a positive way for males — they received more teacher attention, reinforcement, and affect. Females, traditionally the “lesser sex,” received less attention. Some tendency was noted for females to become quieter and more passive in response to less teacher attention to them.

The classroom environments on the whole reinforced traditional sex-typing of mathematics as male. Nothing was discerned, in teacher language and behavior or the physical environment, that could be considered as working in a positive way to stimulate young women to continue their study of mathematics.

If you find this interesting, you can read more about this study here.

Those women, who are our next generation, got the thought that they are not good enough in math, that math isn’t for them. That they should find another path in their career.

This study shows us how much the society’s natural thought is that men are better in math than girls are. Even teachers who are females, who should empower girls in their classroom, do behave according to this stigma.

There is an unwritten thought that people in the High-Tech industry are very modern and open minded, and therefore there is a misguided opinion and expectation that there is no prejudice in this environment. You need to experience it by yourself so you will be able to acknowledge that there is prejudice here, in the so-called “superior” High-Tech industry.

Gender Gap In Work Environment

Having already entered this world, it is now also difficult to stay and hold on to it. The sense of capability we have built in spite of everything can break any moment. Whether it’s in a job interview, you’ll usually find yourself interviewed by a man. Or if it’s sitting at work, you’re the only woman in the room who needs to make her voice, and it’s usually a little harder than you think.

Not once I found myself in an interview, together with another guy or two, who asked me questions that made me feel unworthy, incapable. The interviewer once told me “I do not understand how you were even employed in your first job”. Another interviewer asked me “Are you sure you don’t know this question? The guy that was here before solved it in much more time than you did.”

I sometimes ask myself, why am I doing it? Why did I choose this men’s world, that no matter what, I will always be worth less? Will I always have to prove I’m at least as good as your worst programmer? And why is that?

And once you get a job, you’ll be one of the few women in the room, in the team, in the group, in the company. And you’ll have to keep on, because you love programming.

It’s very important for me to mention that NOT all work places behave like this and there are lots of places who do whatever they can to avoid uncomfortable and offensive situations for women in work interviews and work environments.

What Do I Do To Empower Women?

I was first exposed to the fight against workplace discrimination in my first job after my service in the Navy, at Klarna Israel. The entire management at Klarna reacted seriously to this situation and took many steps to create a work environment that is equal for both men and women.

We talked about it all the time, we said it out loud, by that we created awareness of the situation. Our HR team took care that women CVs will streamline to the top of the list so they could get an equal opportunity to join our team. Also, we created a comfortable environment in interview for women by always making sure there will be at least one woman interviewer in the room.

You can hear more about the Klarna Israel hiring process here.

The society naturally thought that men are better in engineering than women created a feeling that we are not capable of doing that. So I asked myself what can I do to create more sense of capability in women in this industry? And how can I pull more women to it?

The first thing I did was joining Baot mentorship program. My job as a mentor is to guide and help women that are looking for a job in the High-Tech industry. It’s hard looking for a job, especially when it’s your first time and you’re not familiar with this world. Sometimes you just need someone that will believe in you and make you believe in yourself.

Women tend not to send their CVs to places that they aren’t fit to all requirements, unlike men. I help them fix their CVs and send it to every place that they might fit, just give it a shot.

The second thing I did, which is my special project, is bringing the Node Girls Workshops to Tel Aviv. Node Girls workshop are workshops that are designed for women with no programming background. In those one-day workshops every woman can learn how to write basic code, and see if she likes it. They sit in small groups with a mentor. There they get a sense of capability, that hopefully they like it and will want to actually work in it.

You can read more about my Node Girls workshops here.

Conclusion

How can we create a more equal world, which women can be 50% of the people in the room? How can we avoid this automatic thought that men are better in engineering than women? we need to be aware. We need to know that this thought exists in each and every one of us, and we need to re-think every time it pops up.

It’s hard for a woman to get into the High-Tech world, especially because currently it’s mostly men. I hope my Node Girls workshops will expose this world to more women and give them the sense of being able to do it.

I hope this article gave you another point of view on the struggles women experiencing in the High-Tech world, thank you for reading! Until next time 😃