A Square Deal for Women
Thoughts from a Square Code Camper
This past January, I had the chance to spend a week in San Francisco, where I visited well-known start-ups, learned new development languages, and met with tech stars such as Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and Square. Perhaps surprisingly, I did all this with 20 other women. Our trip was sponsored by Square as part of its second annual College Code Camp, an initiative to encourage women to enter technical fields.
As a student at Wellesley College, a women’s school, I have taken for granted that technology is and should be a viable career option for women. Since my first computer science course at Wellesley (which I took on a whim, I might add), I have had the luxury of studying this subject in an exclusively female environment. In this setting, I have never been embarrassed to ask a question, hesitant to answer a question, or worried that I might be perceived as less intelligent because of my gender. This is truly a privilege, though one I may not have fully comprehended until participating in Code Camp. For me, it was a revelation to see how unusual and exciting it was for my fellow Code Campers, brilliant and inspiring women, to learn, discuss, brainstorm, and write code exclusively with other women.
As the week-long program progressed, I began to think about why so much interest and advocacy has been generated around encouraging women to pursue STEM subjects. What was the trigger? Why is Square so invested in this issue that it flew 21 students out to San Francisco, put us up in a hotel for the duration of the program, and rearranged Jack Dorsey’s schedule to talk with us for an hour? Why has the company gone so far as to create a program for female high school students to come to Square twice a week and learn computer science in preparation for the AP exam?
One important reason is statistics. When a significant portion of half the population (i.e., women) opts out of an industry’s workforce, it is virtually certain that the industry has squandered valuable resources. Any smart company realizes that encouraging women to enter STEM fields, and eventually recruiting from that pool, is not just good business, but a potential competitive advantage.
But it’s not just a question of attracting talented workers. Adding diversity to the workforce can make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. Just as people of different ages and races bring unique perspectives to the table, so too can the inclusion of both genders provide a critical dimension of diversity.
The benefits of diversity extend beyond simply including different perspectives. Imagine a young woman new to the workforce who starts a job as an entry-level programmer. When gender diversity doesn’t extend through leadership to the highest levels, how can she be expected to picture herself as a CEO, a CFO, a COO, or any other C-[insert letter here]-O if she has never seen a woman succeed at the top? While there is much to learn from male leaders, female leaders have their own unique lessons to teach and examples to set. We all benefit when we can learn from a variety of leadership models.
Let me be clear: I am emphatically not suggesting that a woman receive a C-level position because of her gender. In fact, I think that would actually be detrimental to her, the company’s success, and the reputation of female leaders. As important as diversity in leadership may be, it is also essential that our leaders are qualified to do their jobs. In the STEM fields, this requires years of practice. It’s not so much that women consciously opt-out of STEM subjects, but that at an early age, they choose not to opt-in. For example, females constituted less than 20% of the high school students who took the AP Computer Science exam in 2013. If these patterns persist, we will face slim pickings when it comes to diverse and qualified leadership.
Despite these disheartening numbers, I have a lot of hope for the future of women in computer science. I have not been deluded into thinking that the make-up of the Computer Science department at Wellesley represents the make-up of computer programmers in the real world—though sometimes I do forget that male programmers exist. Rather, what gives me hope are the kindergarteners I work with at a local Boston area school. I help teach basic computer science concepts to these kids using ScratchJr, an educational programming language developed at the MIT Media Lab and Tufts University. I am often astonished at these children’s ability to grasp new ideas, explain concepts to each other, and implement the programs they envision. Watching these students makes me optimistic about the future of girls in STEM subjects—at this young age, there is no obvious gender division in skill level, and more importantly, in interest level. I see girls help boys, and I see boys help girls, but more importantly, I don’t see any girl who chooses not to participate because computer science is “for boys,” or because she feels “less qualified” than the 5-year-old boy across the table.
This program is valuable not only because of the head start these students have in learning to program. Rather, the true value is in the confidence they gain at this young age—confidence that will influence whether they decide to continue their computer science studies; their comfort level in what will likely be male-dominated classrooms; and ultimately, their career choices. It can be intimidating to hear of fellow computer scientists (often males) who began programming their first games when they were in middle school, and had already released multiple mobile apps by the time they were in college. The chance to start learning basic computer science skills on a relatively level playing field, before any gender divisions have developed, is a huge advantage, and one which can provide the confidence needed to assure oneself that “I can succeed in an engineering classroom/position/team/etc. as well as anyone else.” I have hope that one day, perhaps when all students have the benefit of being introduced to computer science at an early age, programs like Square’s Code Camp will not be necessary; but, for now, they are useful, even vital correctives.
My week at Square was a revelation on many levels. Being at Square allowed us all to go beyond our own stereotypes—we saw that there are all kinds of women who have found a comfortable place for themselves in the STEM fields. And beyond the incredible women, it was encouraging to meet all of the men who were just as passionate about creating a supportive environment for both women and men. We could not have felt more welcomed by the people there, and it was clear that our excitement about the program was reciprocated by all the “Squares” we met. We could easily envision making a career at Square, or places like it.
Not only is Square doing the right thing with its Code Camp initiative, it’s doing the smart thing—a classic case of doing well by doing good.
