New Year’s Resolution: Listen to the Young and We Might All Just Learn Something

Stereotypes form at an early age: this is a picture of me and my twin brother at our baptism. I am held by my godmother, dressed in pink. He is held by his godfather, dressed in blue. Later on, he studied engineering. I studied social science. I still ended up in the tech sector, but this path is far from linear for many women.

A few days ago, I conducted a small focus group with four young girls aged 16–18 to serve as input for some of the work we’re doing with 2hearts to support children and young adults from underprivileged backgrounds in finding a career path into the tech world.

When it comes to creating access, especially for young women from underprivileged socio-economic backgrounds, five things stood out to me. While most are not entirely new, the clarity with which the young ladies communicated and some of the examples they gave still created a mini moment of awakening in me — and an opportunity to share with you.

1. The media matters: The girls noted that tech and science have little representation in popular media, which is what teenagers consume a lot of. This makes it incredibly difficult for them to know what a career in these fields might look like. We can bitch about the representativity of Grey’s Anatomy, Ally McBeal, or Suits all we want, but they help young folks make some sense of what the work of a doctor or lawyer looks like (except for all that sex at the workplace). The girls also noted that IF women make it into TV shows, they mostly serve as extreme caricatures (the “ultra nerd” with an IQ of 160+), making it difficult for them to look at that image and say “YES, this could be me”. We need to normalise women/ people from underprivileged backgrounds in professional roles on TV.
2. We need more tangible examples: The above is important because the girls found careers in tech or science to be very vague concepts with often little tangible understanding of anything beyond “coding”, which is not a job in and of itself, or “social media management”. For example “product management” (what is that, anyways ;) or the business side of things aren’t jobs they have any clue about. The same goes for the products of tech companies. They know Instagram and TikTok, but what of all the other tech companies, often with a focus on B2B, that young people won’t ever hear about unless they have a network of people in these industries? The exception to this is Elon Musk and SpaceX, which in their different grades had inspired many boys and young men to consider studying a related subject or working in this area. Well done, Elon, but then rockets are also tangible as hell... Unfortunately for the girls, SpaceX had a distinctly “male” aura, and they found it difficult to see themselves having success in this field. More work needed here, Elon.
3. It’s never too late: While only being aged 16–18, the young ladies felt they had already “missed” the opportunity window to study a technical subject or consider a career in tech. It is thus important to spread awareness that to work in tech you DO NOT need to study a technical subject (in fact, tech will be better if social scientists and psychologists have a more prominent seat at the table, e.g. as UX/ product managers) and that lateral recruiting is a very viable entry path if you’d like to work in tech. We need to demystify the image of the hooded male kid coding since age four.
4. We know we’re not dumb, thanks very much: The “girls can do this, too” movement has not gone by unnoticed and while a lot of the female-focused initiatives aiming to make STEM and tech more accessible for girls are laudable, they had an almost repelling effect on the girls I spoke with. “There’s so much focus on YOU CAN DO THIS (*said in a high-pitched, over-enthusiastic fake voice*) that it almost makes me feel like they think I’m dumb”, one of them said. These young girls knew they’re smart, capable and have value, so constantly telling them that *they can do it too* doesn’t seem to help but hinders the actual cause. I have spoken elsewhere on the solely *female* focused initiatives potentially being both helpful and harmful, and this is another soft data point to point in this direction.
5. Fragility and male discouragement: While knowing that they are smart and capable, male discouragement presented a real challenge for girls who had ventured into technology in the past, e.g. by learning to code, but were then told the related academic degrees were “super tough” or “only for the smartest out there.” They implied that this does not include girls. I still need to dig deeper here, but I think especially at an age where the stereotypes driven by society around “good” male attention takes on a heavily sexualised tone for many women, such comments, even if not meant to specifically address girls, could pour gasoline into the fire. We need to educate boys on the effect that their communication to girls might have and foster resilience in girls early on.

My biggest takeaway from this conversation is that in order to try and have an impact on young people’s avenue into tech, I should stop speaking to people my age, and start listening way more to people their age.