Why We Need More Women in Tech
From Facebook to Flutterwave, and companies like RiseVest. The growth in the tech industry has been on the rise and we want everyone carried along.
A simple reason why we need more women in tech is that we need more people in tech. Statistics show that women are underrepresented in the tech industry, and although there have been calls for more women in tech, we’re not where we need to be yet.
Recently, we’ve seen women being encouraged to apply to tech roles, and take up careers in tech. We’ve also noticed that programs like the She Code Africa mentorship program catered to mentoring and guiding women who want to transition or go into tech careers have sprung up in different parts of the world. It’s a great start, and we have to ensure that it continues in this manner. As more people take up tech careers, we hope that a reasonable amount of them are women.
The need for more women in tech goes far beyond wanting to increase the population of people in the tech industry. There are many other reasons why we need to encourage women to take up tech careers. We’ll be exploring them in this article.
What are Some Career Paths in tech?
Career paths in tech are not limited to programming or engineering roles.
They include a wide range of careers ranging from design careers like product design, user experience design, and interface design to many other career paths such as product management, quality assurance testing, technical writing, technical community managers, technical support and many others.
In the engineering/programming fields, we have software engineers, frontend and backend developers, blockchain developers, mobile developers and many more of them.
Unsurprisingly, women are underrepresented in nearly all of these roles. This is something we need to change and here are some reasons for that.
Reasons Why We Need More Women In Tech
There is an array of reasons for wanting more women in the tech industry, let’s discuss some of them here.
- Closing the gender gap: Women are still severely outnumbered in the tech scene. There is a significant difference between the number of men and women in engineering and tech roles in general. Only 19%of employees in the tech industry are women, and in order to reduce the gender gap in workplaces, more women need to be hired. Organizations and individuals need to discard the view that women won’t deliver as expected, or that some tech roles are not suitable for women. By doing this, the level of bias reduces and the hiring process improves.
- Proper representation of women: When representation in the workplace is mentioned, what comes to mind is seeing someone like you in that space. A person whom you can relate to, and who, through them, you can see what it is like to be in such a position. Lack of representation can severely limit a person’s potential for success in an industry. When women see others like them in high positions, they are encouraged to dream and work towards attaining the same. To properly represent women in the workplace, organizations need to be open to hiring more women. This definitely does not mean that the bar will be lowered for women, however, what is expected is that women are given equal opportunity and treatment during the hiring and employment processes. Hiring more women will increase the chances of women from different races, tribes, and religions to get into the industry.
- Creating role models for young girls: When young girls see women in tech careers, they are able to envision themselves in such roles and are motivated to study STEM courses in school. More women in tech careers mean that there will be an increase in role models for the younger generations. There will be an increase in the number of female engineers, designers, founders and many others to look up to. This will ensure that a black, Asian, Arab, or white girl will no longer have doubts about whether she is suited for a tech career path. She will easily see someone like her in a career path she is interested in and will find it easy to relate to them.
- To create a balanced view of things: Most stories we hear are unintentionally one-sided because there are not enough women in the industry to make their voices sufficiently heard. When there are more women, we can hear about issues from different perspectives and see what affects different people in their workplaces. We need more women in the tech industry in order for us to get a balanced perspective of what happens in it. For instance, we won’t easily know what it feels like to have a full-time tech job as a mother if we don’t have a significant number of mothers in the workforce. Men and women think in different ways, having a team that includes both helps in bringing a fresh perspective to things. When creating products, it will be easier to design a well thought out product that caters to everybody’s needs and ensures that no one is left behind.
These reasons are part of many others that cannot be exhausted. However, just stating them will make no difference. The focus should be on how to get more women into tech careers.
What’s The Way Forward?
In order to close the ever-growing gender gap in the tech space, women should be encouraged to take up tech careers. They should also go through fair hiring processes that are free from bias and discrimination.
Young girls should be shown that pursuing a career in tech is achievable and should be encouraged when they have interests in tech/STEM courses.
Additionally, programs that have been created to provide mentorship and guidance to women in tech should be supported in all ways possible.
Finally and very important, if you see someone who believes that women do not belong in tech, make sure to correct them and help them see that there is enough space in the tech industry for everyone interested.
