Men: Women in Tech isn’t about Us!
Conflating Women in Tech, Feminism & Choice Helps No-One
by Ethar Alali
One of the fundamental mistakes us men often make when dealing with he subject of feminism, is exposing our rather obvious ignorance to the taxonomy, history and etymology of the term.
In tech it’s just as bad. Many seemingly conflating the issues of Women in Tech, if they’re even aware, egalitarian feminism and misandry. Some others also seem to jump on sexual orientation as in some way related to this (and gender identity) all of which are distinctly different axes. Furthermore, many men seem to take it as an attack.
Now, there are a few points with this and I must present a warning in advance, that I may mansplain. However, the characteristics aren’t in any way exclusively female and it is that human dynamic that pushes the direction of this community in the way it does.
Numerically, women are under represented in the software engineering industry. They are under represented worse than any other minority group, which is bad enough. Yet, entering or exiting the profession is arguably a choice women can make, as can anyone else.
However, add to this the fact that entry into the profession in the first place is significantly lower than men (though options/electives including computer science are starting to equalise, matching the performance of both boys and girls in earlier years STEM education, where it is already very close to 50:50 and has been for some time) and that the rate of women leaving the IT profession is also significantly higher (with the disparity being 41% v 17% in a ten year period in some studies corroborating the original research) and the true picture starts to shape.
General Picture
American colleges have seen declines in IT uptake since the late 2000’s and women are significantly under-represented in IT roles relative to regular engineering and sciences. IT is an industry that isn’t attractive to women as a primary profession and for those that invest in making it through the education process, something causes them to leave at significantly high rates than men and at a period not too long after.
Our industry is unattractive to women and struggles to retain them and in my view, this needs tackling. Whilst ultimately, the choice to leave a profession is anyone’s to make but sometimes the culture in organisations makes remaining there untenable. Akin to constructive dismissal, it forces the individual struggling against a tide of unfairness to finally leave, especially having been subject to the same prejudices and cultural bias time and time again.
Yet, in some companies this under-representation is significantly different to the graduation of women in university; attendance at coding camps and even the industry average (twitter 2014, I’m looking at you). This means that there is definitely something at work which is outside the norm and arguably procedural control of the organisations at work. Why is that?
Secondly, the nature of inclusive environments is they cause a clustering around them as people seek environments giving them the fairest opportunity and this applies across the board. Women are people at the end of the day, as are those from minority races, handling disabilities etc. an inclusive culture attracts.
If your culture is negatively described by its symptoms, it’s already too late.
Hence, if you are in a culture that is fair, and you have only been in a culture that is fair, the clustering means you will never see the cultural bias that causes that rejection. That said, if you are the sort of person starting out without a care to culture, which was the case even as late as 6 years ago (since very few places cared about culture fit), you may have entered the profession assuming a meritocracy. IT very definitely isn’t and hasn’t been a meritocracy for an inordinate amount of time. Hence, people are making intentional and unintentional biased — and biasing — judgements when hiring and also, when dealing with staff day-to-day.
HR procedures have been slow or non-existent in tacking this problem. Not because they haven’t cited policies and procedures to tackle it, but paradoxically precisely because they do. Their focus has been on maintaining a legally sound position for the company as a whole, not to treat the employee fairly. However, culture is almost invisible in this regard. You cannot adequately describe culture on a piece of paper. You can describe it’s symptoms. If your culture is negatively described by its symptoms, it’s already too late.
Men: Doing their Bit…
Finally, I’d like to deal with the premise of this article. What folk seem to think is a mutually exclusive relationship between egalitarian feministic positions in the Women in Tech movement and men. You don’t have to be female to contribute to the movement and it certainly isn’t all men that contribute to an exclusive culture, by any stretch. However, when it comes to the positions of mentoring, there is something women bring to the table for other women that straight, white, younger men simply cannot. I suspect, nay, am pretty sure that women in tech experience the industry differently to men (which is born out in the research numbers previously stated). After all, even on LinkedIn the number of personal solicitations women receive that men do not, is indicative their experience in industry and the world of work as a whole is different to men’s. Men have to understand that the women in tech movement is not
So, I wish to congratulate women who have found an inclusive place that appreciates them for their skills and achievements and contributions to the industry as a whole. Ultimately, I want the #WomenInTech movement to end, for all the right reasons. We’ve got big work to do!
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Ethar writes about tech, the tech industry, data analysis and anything with numbers. Follow along at medium.com/tech-sojourna.
