10 somewhat fascinating facts about women in tech
The International Women’s Day is right around the corner and it remains to be a big deal. Well, for some of us at least. And it’s a shame, I think, if it would have been a big deal for most of us, we could be so much closer to gender equality, fairness and total and absolute happiness for all.
In the meantime, I think this time of year is as good as any to freshen up some knowledge about the state of affairs for women in tech. In order to do this I went away to the deep end of the Internet and came back with 10 somewhat interesting and sometimes fascinating facts related to women in tech not more and not less.
Some of this facts may make you say ‘Daah’ and some “Whooa?!” — let’s find out!
1. Ada Lovelace — first programmer ever?!
That’s right Ada Lovelace was born in 1815 and died in 1852. She is referred to as the first programmer because she had written notes that explained how the notion of a specific engine could transition calculation to computation¹. So, why jeans and a hoodie are considered a programmer’s uniform ?
2. WES — Women’s Engineering Society — is a 100 years old! Well, 101 to be precise
Many women joined the effort to electrify homes in the late 19th century, including Alice Mary Gordon, who wrote a book called Decorative Electricity, Electrical engineer and physicist, Hertha Ayrton, was the first woman admitted to the IEE (the Institution of Electrical Engineers) and Katharine Parsons worked on the steam turbine engine and later founded The Women’s Engineering Society — the first of its kind in the world (!) .
“Several of the women who went on to be founding members of WES were also involved in the women’s suffrage movement”² — this is probably a coincidence.
3. Freelance Programmers and discrimination of male programmers
Steve Shirley founded software a company called Freelance Programmers in 1962 after becoming sick and tired of sexist environment at her workplace. She wanted to create job opportunities for women and mostly employed women, with only three male programmers in the first 300 people in staff. This practice, of course, became illegal with Sex Discrimination Act 1975.
4. A good day for a James.
In 2017 New York times came forward with some curious numbers: women were 50.8 % of the U.S. population at the time. There were roughly the same amount of women among chief executives of Fortune 500 companies (~5%) as there were men named James (~5%)… awkward.
Venture capital investors in the largest tech deals of the previous 5 years were 9% women and 11% men named David, James and Peter³. Gosh, this names are probably very popular.
5. There are other valleys
Interesting and fascinating, that the gender disparity in IT is not global at all. The ratio of female to male computer scientists is significantly higher in India compared to the western countries and in 2015, over half of tech entrepreneurs in China were women⁴.
In government universities in Saudi Arabia in 2014, Arab women made up 59% of students enrolled in computer science⁵. United Arab Emirates Mars Mission aims to provide a complete picture of the Martian atmosphere for the first time. Women make up 80% of the program’s scientific team⁶. Way to go!
6. We all know that diversity matters, but it also pays out
According to a McKinsey study⁷, companies in the top quartile for diversity metrics are 35% more likely to have financial returns above their national industry peers. I mean, I’m not suggesting that everyone should aim to reach diversity at workplaces because giving the same opportunities to people with different backgrounds and features — is fair and bringing these people to the places where decisions are made — makes the world a better place for everyone, what I’m suggesting is — do it for the money!
7. I would like to live forever, but at least another 99 years
This is Yellowmouth rockfish, oldest one on record was 99 years old. The gap between men and women, measured in terms of political influence, economic gain and health and education, will take another 99 years to disappear, according to the World Economic Forum in 2019. So, it may as well be that the lucky rockfish that will see the bright and equal future has already been born.
…
moving on!
8.
Apparently, 60% of managers who are men in the US and 40% of managers who are men in the UK are uncomfortable participating in a common work activity with a woman, such as mentoring, working alone, or socialising together⁸. And this one is particularly sad one, because not being able to participate in mentoring and generally to do work normally harms women’s careers. No wonder, there are less women in senior leadership, if men feel it’s harder for them to collaborate why would they step forward and promote women? But it shouldn’t be like that and I truly hope that soon, those managers will get used to the fact that women are just people and we as a society we will prosper like never before.
9. Subconscious bias — is a beast!
News for everyone, to be honest: if you think you are not biased, you are probably biased! A recent report by UN found that, almost 90 % of people (!) hold some kind of bias against women, and half of men felt they had more of a right to a job than a woman⁹.
In another study where managers were asked to give a performance review to some fictional employees, they rated women with the same qualifications lower then men (not news unfortunately), but what is interesting, is that managers who believed that “gender discrimination wasn’t an issue” were the most biased against women!¹⁰
10. Don’t believe everything you read in the internet or hear from incompetent sources
Programming languages that are loved and adored by women the most are Ruby and Perl because they sound kind of shiny and precious, Closure comes next, because who doesn’t like it and least appreciated is obviously Python because most females aren’t into snakes that much. According to the bathroom wall in the University of Nonsense.
Ok, these were my 10 somewhat interesting facts for the time being. I hope someone knows more now, then they used to, some want to research further and learn more, some are more aware of the state of affairs with women and not just in tech.
On a serious note. We all owe each other to try to be better and the things each and everyone can do is to share the knowledge, to open a discussion, to be curious and support the ones that need it, contributing to making the world a tiny bit better place for us all.
Thank you !
[1] T. Simonite, 2009. Short Sharp Science: Celebrating Ada Lovelace: the ‘world’s first programmer’
[2] Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Engineering_Society
[3] NY Times , 2017 https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/upshot/fewer-women-run-big-companies-than-men-named-john.html
[4] Nü Women: Female entrepreneurs are seizing their opportunities in China’s Entrepreneurial Age https://nu-women.com/#:~:text=In%202015%2C%2055%20percent%20of,The%20State%20Council%20Information%20Office.
[5] Alghamdi, Fayiq, 2016. Women in computing in Saudi Arabia.
[6] UAE women scientists lead Arab world’s first space mission to Mars (2020) https://www.dw.com/en/uae-women-scientists-lead-arab-worlds-first-space-mission-to-mars/a-56513724#:~:text=UAE%20women%20scientists%20lead%20Arab%20world's%20first%20space%20mission%20to,of%20the%20program's%20scientific%20team.
[7] V. Hunt, D. Layton, and S.Prince, 2015. Why diversity matters
[8] LeanIn.Org and SurveyMonkey survey, February 22-March 1, 2019
[9] UNDP, 2020 https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/news-centre/news/2020/Gender_Social_Norms_Index_2020.html
[10] J. Hamzelou, 2020, NewScientist. Managers who think gender bias isn’t a problem make it worse
