Equity Development Kit

Published in

Women in Technology

9 min readSep 14, 2023

Introduction

Let’s try to build an Equity Development Kit together. Probably all developers are familiar with this term, but for non-developers reading it, an SDK in Software Development is a collection of tools that facilitate the creation of applications. We are here to build one for Equity. What tools can we use to increase equity and make society and the workplace more equitable?
I put some effort into collecting tools that we could use to make it more actionable to achieve more equity.
Disclaimer: Sometimes, when we are talking about DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) topics, people want ready-to-use answers. However, I believe that’s not the way to go. What I will be sharing only makes sense if it is really thought through and analysed to determine if it is beneficial in each situation, reality, and context and adapted accordingly.
Lastly, as I am not a DEI expert but rather just another developer, probably nothing that I’ll be sharing here is new. Instead, I am trying to summarise things such as conversations with colleagues, insights from friends, articles, books, or the state of the art.
I hope you will take at least one tool for learning from this article…

P.S.: This is the written version of a talk given to raise awareness about equity in the efforts of International Women’s Day #embraceEquity together with Thoughtworks. Feel free to leave comments if you find anything missing, incorrect, or that needs to be adjusted.

Everything shared here reflects my personal opinion and research. I am not entitled to speak for my employer, Thoughtworks.

Slide deck 🛝
All the resources are linked at the bottom!

Who am I?

Hi, I’m Alice! I’m a Brazilian, living in Munich. Passionate about DEI, and aspiring Frontend Developer. I love dogs, beer, dancing and cooking. You can reach out to me on Linkedin or Instagram @alicezborner👋

International Women’s Day (IWD)

It’s celebrated on the 8th of March, but we celebrate it throughout the month! By “celebrate” we mean raise awareness, and share knowledge.

We do this effort during the whole year, but in this month we have a bigger focus on Women’s topics, because DEI goes way beyond the scope of WUGM (Women and underrepresented gender minorities).

And I don’t know if you know, but this years theme is:

Embrace Equity

Embrace is: embrace — verb — ɪmˈbreɪs — to willingly and enthusiastically accept, adopt, and espouse
I hope you will also start embracing equity, and become an advocate for it!
Maybe, just maybe, to make sure I set the context well, I would like to briefly talk about What is Equity? Most of you might know, but I know some people (including myself) who feel/felt a bit insecure about the term. There are so many ways to define equity, but I would like to bring up one definition, just so we are all on the same page. And no, equity and equality, which I think is a common confusion people make, are not the same.

Difference between Inequality, Equity, Equality and Justice. From https://achievebrowncounty.org/2021/05/defining-equity-equality-and-justice/

Exercise

Please check the slide deck, slides 6–8 (and speakers note).

Let’s talk facts

What is happening?

Women are more likely to quit tech industry
Equality decreases with rise of seniority
Women in the tech industry earn less than their men counterparts
Women are more likely to be perceived as incompetent (or unprofessional)
Women are more likely to be pushed to non-technical roles

These are some facts found by different surveys. There are multiple surveys like this with similar results. These are things that women face daily at work, so they may be obvious for some people, but it’s still nice to put things into words. It helps make it clearer and helps us see that it is not an individual problem, but a systemic problem.

But this still didn’t feel like enough for me. I would like to understand how it started and why it is like this. You might know that it was not always like that. The first programmer was a woman. You have probably heard of Ada Lovelace, or maybe you watched Hidden Figures (a movie about women programmers/computers who worked at NASA during the 60s). So how did it build up to be a “men’s thing”?

It was when I remembered this book called “Brotopia”. I know some people don’t like this book and call it very sensationalist, but it still helped me understand the timeline in an easy way, which I found great. Giving a short overview of the book:

Brotopia book

Women were computer programmers in the beginning
At this time Women were considered better as programmers because of their patience and attention to details -> associated with a manual job
Report in 60’s came out saying: Men are more likely to be antisocial, so better programmers. The dominance in the industry after this report created the false assumption that it’s a men’s job
It also started to be perceived as an intellectual job, as a product of the time intellect was considered a male trait not female
In 1984 about 40% of CS (Computer Science) degrees were held by women, against 18% in 2011
This was because computers were considered a “boy’s toys”
There are studies showing that there is no pre-existing computer skills distinction between girls and boys
This stereotype was perpetuated by toy manufacturers, teachers, parents, and children + pop culture
The nerd stereotype was the first one to come from tech industry. Turned tech into a Bro culture that is an unwelcome workplace for women
In silicon valley some meetings took place in hot tubs and strip clubs, putting women in a difficult position if they join or not. Meeting rooms being called “Conference Room G”, in reference to a strip club called Gold Club

Maybe such stories are the reason why people call this book a bit sensationalist, and doubt some of them…but yeah, people doubting women, no news here, right?

But it’s important to remember that there is no conspiracy to keep women away from tech. However, from a young age, through university, and in hiring practices (such as not having a diverse interview panel which would avoid bias against women), and finally, the problems mentioned above that cause women to leave their jobs, all demonstrate how inequitable the entire process is.

My personal opinion: I liked the book, and would recommend reading it 😊

I wouldn’t feel confident moving on to the tools without first addressing the two big topics that encompass the daily life difficulties faced by women in tech. These topics are sometimes the root causes of the problems mentioned above.

2 big topics: Microaggressions + unconscious bias

We won’t go into detail on these topics, just a quick overview, because there could be a talk for each of them. I don’t hate the idea, in fact, I love it, and could talk for 3 hours about each of them, but I’m sure I would have used up your full attention span by half of it.

Microaggressions

“Microaggression is a term used for commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental slights, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups.” Wikipedia

I’m sure the women in this room have heard one or multiple of these sentences, or its variants.

“This is too technical for you. You wouldn’t like it.”
“You would be a great recruiter/designer.” → any non-technical role, like found by the research that women are pushed to non-technical roles
“You are too beautiful for an engineer.” → no comments on this one, omg
“For a woman, you are really skilled at this” or “you are actually good at it” → why the surprise? 🤨
“She wouldn’t feel comfortable in the team” -> only men in the team…
“You should be organizing more team events” → really? as a developer? not that it’s not maybe a team’s responsibility, but why me? what is this hidden expectation here?
“He didn’t mean like that” -> after a man says something inappropriate…oh, intentions, how I hate how people use it to minimize problems, and gaslight women at work. “Oh really, he didn’t mean it like that?” “Am I seeing things where it doesn’t exist?” “Am I exaggerating?” 😞 and then you start doubting yourself…

Besides of course all the mansplaining, manterrupting, etc. Assuming you are junior based on your gender, doubting your skills, having to prove yourself, over and over again.

It’s exhausting to be a woman in tech. All this time + effort we put to handle such things, could be so much better allocated…is it naive to day dream about this? 🤍

Unconcious bias

From the official slide deck from International Women’s Day. Explanation about the most common types of bias against women at work.

Likeability bias
Performance bias: A study by GitHub revealed that when the coder’s gender is withheld, women’s work is approved more often. Meanwhile in the workplace women are asked to check their code more frequently
Maternal bias: Tech is built for the single white man, without children. “Will you be able to do your work despite your kids demands?” Have men ever faced such questions?
Attribution bias
Affinity bias: Male-led companies receive more financial backing
Intersectionality: Black women are nearly 2.5x more likely than white women to hear someone at work express surprise about their language skills or other abilities. Lesbian and bisexual women and women with disabilities are far more likely than other women to hear demeaning remarks about themselves or others like them.

Just to lighten the mood after so heavy topics, have a little fun reading this letter from Ada Lovelace to Charles Babbage.

But by now you might be asking yourself, what about tools?

And I would like to ask you the same: what about tools? Now we have discussed what is happening, and a bit about the reasons. What are the tools you know of to create a more equitable society/workplace?

What about tools?

I divided this part in 3, trying to think in a pipeline/timeline format. How does it develop with time and what could we be doing?

Before work life

Encouraging and disrupting education at home: I’m not here to tell anyone how to raise their kids (this would be very presumptuous of me), I don’t even have kids, just a dog Flora 🌸 (yes, I have to mention her everywhere, everytime, I am in love). Anyways, the point is that girls are raised to be nice, gentle, sweet, caring, to not let people down, while boys are raised to be brave, creative, strong, etc. This might sounds like “oh that’s normal”, “it doesn’t make that big of a difference” except that it does. In Teach girls bravey, not perfection TED talk Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls who code, shared how this perfection is affeting young girls learning how to code. Definitely would recommend to watch!
Proper curriculum in schools + school programs: Preparing teachers at school to not reproduce certain bias, have knowledge about programming and have lectures in school time.
Hands-on experience. Example: Girls who code, Black Girls code, Rails Girls
Programs at University to support + attract students: “I feel alone” that was a common feeling during university times. “Is this really for me?” Caused by the strange looks, questions, doubts, by family, teachers, etc, these happen so often that we start believing the stereotypes ourselves.
Create common understanding of the expectations
Companies offering internships
Mentoring programs
Break perfectionism rabbit hole

At work

Leadership training
Clear career pathway
Creating a safe space
Proper feedback culture: Lots of women get as feedback “be more confident”. What is it for a feedback? How is it actionable? Women will have to spend more time figuring out the mystery of what you want to suggest to them than actually growing! Here is a research on how men get more actionable feedback than women.
Allyship
Mentoring + Sponsorship ❤
Supporting events like Girls Day
Get detailed data, not only pay gap, but also leadership positions
Ditching damaging dialogues that perpetuate the stereotypes
Help to report
Call out bad behavior
Give credit to women for their work
Diverse hiring panel to avoid bias

Beyond

Educating the next generation
Affordable childcare
Being a role model for others
Attracting more women to tech
Voting for women politicians
Filling in the gender data gap
Vocalizing your needs
Increasing visibility of female role models in the Industry
Learn about unconscious biases
Don’t rely on marginalized groups to educate you
Listen to and believe women

What other tools would you like to suggest? Leave as a comment here, and let’s build this together!

Thank you very much for reading, and collaborating. Don’t forget to reach out in case of any questions, or if you wanna chat. I would also appreciate any feedback you have to share 💗