Why aren't there more women in tech?

[MrsJamin]

I work in tech. Most men assume women just aren't into tech and that's why we're in the minority. Is that really the case? It frustrates me that more women aren't welcomed into tech, so why do you think it is?

Of course it's not the case!

Women always have been and still are excluded from industries that make lots of money for men. They are discouraged from birth from taking an interest in STEM related activities and subjects and the ones that persist and get to work in the industry are dealing with male colleagues who are being paid more than them for the same work.

I took an access course in engineering a couple of years ago. 2 women: 18 men in the class. Our first presentation it was suggested I base mine on how a hoover or hairdryer works . A couple of months in I resorted to telling a classmate to fuck off after repeatedly telling him I didn't need him to help me with my practise paper. Most of the year I spent listening to men repeating what I had just said back to me as if they were teaching me something. That was in between having to listen to their rape jokes and having their "hilarious" porn memes passed under my face.

I'm in tech and am the only female here. I do suspect it's largely down to interest but I'm not sure where the drive comes from, is it conditioning in childhood or nature?

I like to stay out the nature vs nurture and men's brains vs women's brains debate as the science isn't in on it. However one glaringly obvious oversight is the contributions from women in STEM is rendered invisible and not celebrated anywhere near enough.

Beatrice Shilling - Fixed a design flaw in the Spitfire that caused the engine to stall doing certain aerial manoeuvre.

Ada Lovelace - Widely regarded as the world's first computer programmer

Bertha Benz - Wife of Mercedes-Benz founder, who to prove the viability of the motor car by embarking on the first long distance car journey, invented the break pad along the way.

Sarah Guppy - Architectural designs were copied and used by Brunel.

I think if we want more women in Stem we need to correct the injustices of not celebrating the contributions of women in these fields.

I'm in a STEM field too, my current work place is unusual in that there are plenty of women. In previous jobs in bigger companies I've been heavily outnumbered. I was one of only 4 women on my Masters course. I've been fortunate that I've not experienced any outright hostility or macho/sexualised culture.

From my other experience as a teacher, girls are turned off STEM very early on by outside pressure even if they have an aptitude. It's very hard to fight against that in a mixed setting. Girls schools I think can do this more easily.

I work in IT. It's not because there's no aptitud

...no aptitude (ignoring my typing incompetence there...)

I shall return to this, but I am meant to be working just now.

Because by the time women actually get to the age of making career decisions, the odds are generally already stacked against them.

And it's interesting that women's participation in tech decreased once it was established as a graduate entry field. The 1940s and 1950s had armies of women working with computers. Grace Hopper anyone?

I work in STEM as an academic. I don't think it's a coincidence that I went to all-girls schools from the age of 6.

People assumed I was in marketing rather than development 😡 purely based on the fact that I'm a female. As if how Im dressed isn't a massive clue. Sigh...

When I was growing up, my younger brothers were encouraged with technology more than myself.
For example, I knew how to set the vhs to start recording at a certain time but my parents would ask my brothers to do it. My brothers also got more STEM based gifts than me despite them doing essay based qualifications and me studying maths and science.

One factor is the pipeline of people studying technical subjects at school/university - and the amount of effect this has varies over time, I've found, as (at least in some tech fields), the pendulum seems to swing between insisting all new hires must have techy degrees/background, or being more open to people from varied backgrounds who are then trained in-house. Certainly in my experience, places that are willing to do the latter get a much more balanced male/female intake.

But at the moment my impression is that the pendulum's swung more the other way - maybe because of the pressure to cut costs, meaning companies are less likely to want to spend money training up new hires and more likely to want "finished products" - and there are still significantly more men than women studying most tech subjects, so even companies that were previously relatively mixed are getting more male-dominated again.

Obviously that's only part of the answer though, and leads on to other questions like why more men than women are choosing to study in those fields in the first place, why more men than women seem to stay in the industry, and so on....

I brought this up at work btw when I saw some of the recent graduate intakes, who were virtually all male vs. my "generation" of staff who are much more mixed - and was told it was mainly down to so few women vs. men applying in the last couple of years....

I've posted before about studying mechnical engineering. Course interview: you'll be the only girl on the course (i was most definitely a woman).

Day 1: wow there's 4 of you, we only needed 2.

Day 10: boys will know about engines from their cars, I'll find out what the female equivalent is.

And so on. This is a modern uni, young lecturers. I thought I was fairly resilient, mature student could rise above it bit honestly if I hadn't made solid friends very quickly and then some brilliant industry contacts I would have jacked it in.

Nonibaloni that's awful :(
I can't help but think that a lot of young women think through who else will be on a course and whether they'd find friends on it. I took a stereotypical girls choice at uni and there were two blokes in my year, the rest women. On alternative stem courses there were hardly any women and the women who were on it seemed socially awkward, to be totally honest - not really the kind of people I'd think I could be friends with. I can't help but think that many young women make decisions about courses based on a similar social basis. I think I'd make different decisions now, obviously, but it was important to me back then!

mrsJ absolutely, I wasn't put off by being the only girl on the course initially and thankfully the other 3 thought the same. But how many thought no thanks. Especially if they weren't massively socially confident- which should not be a barrier to any course.

We go through little phases of calling out every day sexism but those are days where very little gets done.

I work in STEM. In my professional working life, women have always been well represented.
I think I've been lucky.
Attended a seminar today - at least half the attendees were women, including the most senior people there.
The industry is medical / pharmaceutical. Especially in Quality & Regulatory, women seem to be very well represented.

I work in STEM, mid level. About 15 % representation of females in our team. Non in the higher ranks. I was asked about potential promotion but can't go for it because my DC is young and I work full time but flexible. I also can't maintain the stamina / put in the hours the men seem to do. Similar for the other female I know. The fathers don't seem to have this issue.

Our area is filling up with young enthusiastic males who are flooding all the graduate or apprentice slots and making impact. We have one female coming in this way in three years. And we have ran girls programs to promote the area.

Just observations from my specific organisation.

MrsJ, I was a under confident teen and was definitely put off by the thought of being the only girl. It's a shame because I was quite techy - loved computers/IT/gaming. I often think I would have carried on with my interests in an all girls school instead of funnelling of into essay subjects. Now I think I'm just too old to attempt that sort of career change.

I think I might have been influenced by women teachers too. I loved using computers, creating stuff with computers (and this was before the Internet was readily available). It's frustrating that I didn't think then to go for computer science as I would be in a much better paid role in tech than I am now. Hmph.

It goes wrong really early. I went to pick up DS from a maths enrichment course run at the local university for primary school children (year 3) from all over the city. I bumped into a couple of friends as I waited - three women with STEM PhDs - and we watched in horror as about 50 little boys and 10 little girls trooped out. What happened? Were the schools pre-selecting mostly boys for the course? (I don't think my son's school would have done that, but maybe some others in the area). Were the girls themselves or their parents saying "no, not for me..."? It was really depressing. And made me think of a comment from probably about 25 years ago, when I got talking to a female grad student in comp sci. She was from Barbados and totally shocked by how few women there were here - in Barbados, her undergrad classes had been 50-50. So it's a cultural thing in the UK.

Noni's comment about the less socially confident girls being put off is definitely a thing. We (my female colleagues and I) chat about this quite often over lunch. When we look at our male colleagues they span a huge range of personality types, from outgoing and confident through to very quiet and geeky. All the women are confident - because there's a sort of Darwinian selection process at work - to kick back against the constant social pressure not to do STEM, you have to have a very particular type of "bugger you, I'm going to do this anyway" sort of attitude. Which makes us wonder how many equally talented but quiet, retiring women have fallen by the wayside because of arbitrary personality traits rather than scientific aptitude.

For the same reason there are so few women working outdoors, in all weathers at the top of a ladder. They freely choose not to.

I work for a tech company and I'm proud to say the split of male/female is pretty much 50/50! I'm aware it's unique though...

No-one should be at the top of a ladder in all weathers. Not safe. Penises aren't fall proof.

Childrenofthestones, nope, sorry. Not a good enough answer to the question. In fact, the question is "why do women/girls 'freely' choose not to go into STEM when they have the aptitude and it would give them access to well paid careers?" What is influencing their "free" choice, and are we happy with those influences?

Totally agree AssassinatedBeauty, I don't think it can be a totally free choice. It's about how children perceive tech and other stem subjects, are they appealing? Provide opportunities to be creative, to work with others who are fun and interesting? I don't think tech appeals in this way but I've found its fun and creative.
Do we need to be more obvious and be role models for the next generation of girls? A friend's daughter got a special certificate for her work in a scratch lesson and her parents didn't seem to be very excited about the prospect of her going into tech, despite career prospects being excellent, etc. Parents probably don't have the right expectations for a career in it, either?
M0stlyBowlingHedgehog I found what you said really interesting. I have always not been that fussed about doing what anyone else was doing, prefer to do something differently. It drives me crazy that so many intelligent skilled women out there could have really fulfilling well paid roles in tech but mediocre men are in them instead.