Reading 04: Homogeneous Valley
The technology industry has a diversity problem, and that should not come as a surprise to anyone.
The problem, of course, being that not much diversity even exists within the tech industry. Demographically speaking, Silicon Valley, and the industry as a whole, is quite homogeneous. Technology is dominated by two demographics: Asian and Caucasian males.
Again, this should not come as a surprise to anyone, and HBO’s Silicon Valley even brings it to light as Hooli CEO Gavin Belson ponders how groups of coders always seem to look the same.
The flip side to two demographic groups being so heavily represented in the tech industry is that every other group has to be very underrepresented in the industry as well.
Women only represent around 18% of computer science majors and have quite similar numbers for how much of the technical work forces of major technology companies they make up. Additionally, the representation of African Americans in tech is far worse. Within recent years, this demographic made up no more than 1% of the technical workers at the largest tech companies.
So, what should be done?
Many major tech companies have been making notable public efforts to increase diversity within their workforce. In June 2016, 33 companies agreed to make efforts to encourage and increase diversity.
It’s encouraging to see changes being made, but much more needs to be done. The lack of diversity is a deeply systemic problem within the tech industry and even in wider society. However, it need not be the reality.
As a society, we can work towards changing the narrative towards a more diverse and inclusive tech industry, but it will take much more than simply trying to find more talented women and African Americans to hire.
Efforts also must be made to reform the tech workplace to better accept women and minority groups, and we need to redefine the stereotypes of the programmer.
The Atlantic article previously linked to discusses some of the discriminatory and exclusionary views that can run wild in the tech workplace. Silicon Valley culture fetishizes the beliefs that the best coders are the people with a born gift and genius to code. The damaging part of that is that many people in the tech environment belittle women and minority groups in tech then because they believe these groups tend to be lacking in this “innate intellectual talent”. This can cause these underrepresented groups to feel less like they belong and much more uncomfortable in the tech industry.
But furthermore, the public perception of a programmer or a tech founder needs to adapt and expand. When most people think of Silicon Valley, they’re bound to have images of Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, or some hacker in a hoodie (probably a white or Asian young male — age diversity is a whole other issue in itself).
In order to get more young women and minorities to want to major in computer science, this perception has to change to expand to better accommodate the underrepresented groups in tech. With role models in tech for these groups to look up to, it’s much more likely for them to believe they are capable themselves.
Another significant obstacle for women in the technology industry comes from the oft sexist culture of the workplace. This issue is also not limited to tech but expands to much of the American work culture.
Perhaps the most notorious example of this in the recent past is the toxic culture that existed at Uber. Multiple women have come forward to discuss their horrible experiences working for the company and have described the exclusionary and sexist culture. While many similar incidents have emerged in the media at a variety of companies through the #MeToo movement, Uber’s story has been one of the worst and illustrates how the tech industry can be a hostile environment for women.
All of this points to the technology industry not being conducive towards diversity in the workplace and as a society we need to work together towards reforms.
The modern technology industry impacts all aspects of life including healthcare, entertainment, travel, and finance, and so we as a society owe it to ourselves to welcome all to play a part in the revolution.
