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?

You do need a particular streak of obstinacy to stick with the techie areas of IT. Even when people are being nice, it can still be very othering, like when I got cheered signing in for a storage course, because it's so unusual for them to see a woman doing it (and to be fair, it wasn't my choice, but they didn't know that.)

Exactly, this "othering" is so wearing that women get impostor syndrome just for doing their jobs!

I'm driving my son round university open days and on Friday we went to Bath. The Mech Eng course is 15% female. As part of the 45 mins presentation we were shown a film by women in Mech Eng at Bath & I saw quite a lot of women in their practical labs. We went to Bristol on Saturday, no mention of the gender ratio & I can't think of any women being in their films. Quite a lot of the hosts in the labs were female.

I think it's hard for schools to recruit & retain physics teachers, this could partly explain why there aren't as many girls studying physics. A bad physics teacher isn't going to be as good as a good chemistry teacher, unless you want to do engineering or maths, chemistry is fine so people will chose chemistry over physics. Pupils are preventing themselves from being engineers or doing comp sci at 15 when choose their A levels.

Why does the bad physics teacher thing not impact both boys and girls wanting to study the subject?

It does. There still aren't huge numbers of anyone doing physics!

Yes that's the bit I don't get.

Or is the idea that with a crap teacher, girls are double put off as not only do they have to face up to all the socialisation etc but also they don't have much fun once they're doing it. If you're going to go out on a limb against societal norms then you want some kind of reward (not reward but enjoyment etc) and for some girls on the borderline of this and another subject it might be the push to non physics. While for boys the initial pushback isn't there so it makes them opt out less?

You're probably onto something there. Studies have been done into what sort of teacher matters for students to be encouraged into further physics study. It seems that there's no difference if the teacher is male, female, a specialist, a non specialist, foreign domestic, exuberant, quiet or anything, as long as they are clearly passionate about physics and are knowledgeable.

I'm in a STEM job I've had some very heated discussions surrounding company outreach days and focusing on primary school kids not year 11 or 12 kids that have already made up their minds or have selected Exam subjects that now make it impossible for them to realistically pursue a STEM career straight out of school, I'm always told I'm wrong

Personally I've found the constant sexism, criticism and general need to put in 10 times the effort as my male colleagues draining and it has had a detrimental effect on my mental health, I can see why many women leave.
I'm a stubborn bitch so I have so far refused to leave a job I would otherwise love but I'm getting to the point where if it doesn't improve I'm going to have to leave and find something else to do

Personally I've found the constant sexism, criticism and general need to put in 10 times the effort as my male colleagues draining and it has had a detrimental effect on my mental health, I can see why many women leave.
I'm a stubborn bitch so I have so far refused to leave a job I would otherwise love but I'm getting to the point where if it doesn't improve I'm going to have to leave and find something else to do

This, this, this. At a similar point, considering grievance.

I've felt similarly drained in the past - for me though, moving jobs within tech helped (working for two feminist male bosses in a row really helped).

The problem is figuring out whether you're jumping from frying pan to fire. I ruled out one place after googling the head of engineering, and finding some sneery and dismissive comment about "wifey's hobby project". I always check out how many women are in the dept on walk arounds, and want to see that there are women in senior roles. If I know women in the company that helped. I avoid places that have hired known misogynists and have told recruiters why. I still don't move jobs as often as my male peers and I suspect I'd be paid more if I did.

Plus, in tech I'm lucky - I have plenty of choice. If I'd gone into research, I guess I might be a lot more restricted in choices.

I'm a career changer too, so having switched to tech later in life, I'd found my previous female dominated career pretty misogynist - majority women at ground level and first line manager, then an abrupt switch to majority male at the next management level and getting worse from there. So I wouldn't go back to that!

Thisisouting and EBearhug I do hope you can find a better place to work! Bloody men and their insistence that tech is their domain :(

Late to this

Just a bit of anocdata

Was hanging round in a school corridor last week (there was a valid reason) and this school has some great poster size photos of some of the children doing school stuff

One giant poster had a male teacher and two children, one of each, experimenting with a bunson burner. One child was doing the experiment and the other chikd was watching them

There is absolutely no prize if you guess which child was which

The company itself is good - our board is over 50% women, and there are lots of other reasons I'd like to stay. It's "just" the department...

EBearhug can you talk to women on the board about this?

Oh, yes, yes and a bunch more yeses to it being draining! I'm very lucky to have an excellent, very supportive male boss (and father of two teen girls, I suspect this matters), so criticism and overt sexism aren't so much of a problem. I won't have any of it, and god have mercy on the poor sod trying to complain to my manager about anything I've said in response.

What I find extremely draining, though, are the constant moments of low-level sexism - the stuff that you could easily overlook if it were just once but which keeps on giving. Being introduced as 'Bossy - she's my legally blonde manager' (obviously meant to be an ice-breaker - but my own boss is also blond; I doubt anyone has ever mentioned it). Meeting men in your own line of work and being invited to 1:1 'business' drinks (I've asked around, happened to ONE male colleague, ONCE - it's a regular thing for me). People naturally assuming I'm the junior and speaking to my co-worker (I'm his manager, as it happens). I could go on ... it just adds up over time until it makes you want to scream 'misogynist pig' at the next person you meet before they've even said anything.

Frustrating! And, yes, I love my job, not looking to leave. It's still draining, though.

This was interesting: www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-gardner-women-in-tech-20141207-story,amp.html

"It's normal for people's sense of empowerment and control over their work to increase as they gain experience and expertise, and the fact that this doesn't happen for women in tech is odd and troubling, researchers say. Multiple studies have found that attrition spikes for women in tech at about age 35. After 10 years of work experience, “The Athena Factor” found, 41% of women in tech leave the industry, compared with 17% of men."

Oh, God, that article is so depressingly true.

their bosses are friendlier and more supportive with their male colleagues.

Today, I found out my manager and the other two men on the team are all off to Goodwood. I'm not particularly interested in Goidwood, and someone has to do work. But how come this is the first I've heard of it? And I'm getting stick for not being inclusive because I don't talk about what I did at the weekend (fortunately, HR says I don't have to, but no one's asked anyway, and I never thought they'd be that fascinated by tales of laundry and cleaning the bathroom,) but they don't even mention they'very all planned a day out together.

EBearhug, that really sucks! I'd be miffed, too!

Actually, though, I've found this may even happen with colleagues your managers may NOT be friendlier/more supportive of in general. Some activities just automatically seem to exclude women. My boss goes to the gym with one of my subordinates. They're not even that close (I'm way closer to either of them than they are to each other). I would have quite liked gym buddies - but I feel it's not really appropriate for me to ask either of them. The nature of the activity would make this into a 'hey, lets get hot and sweaty with each other across gender and hierarchical boundaries where you get to see me in a tiny outfit' and, tadaaaa, we've got ourselves a slightly questionable situation. Annoys me to no end!

Same goes for interesting events: more often than not, a male colleague gets invited along instead of me (his right-hand woman in any other respect). I have actually questioned this one and was told, while he'd love to take me, boss' wife isn't really comfortable with him travelling with me. With all due respect, I'm not planning on sleeping with her husband and I can't bloody help being a reasonably attractive woman. Not fair!

What I find extremely draining, though, are the constant moments of low-level sexism
Yep, I hear this. Particularly the difficulty in being taken seriously or believed - this story was resonating with me again yesterday. It is so, so wearisome being disregarded and disbelieved.

Of course, when I model the behaviour of senior techies who are well-regarded, I am labelled difficult and a troublemaker. On and on and on it goes.

I get frustrated being talked over by men. I've started mentioning it to mutual colleagues so at least other men are aware when they do it and could back me up and let me speak. There was something that happened yesterday that could have been done in a conversation but as the guy disagreed with me, I knew he'd talk over me stating my position, so I emailed him instead.

Oh, they all go to the gym together, and from what I hear, can get quite competitive together. I will not use the gym at work because I do not need my manager to think he can be telling me what to do there as well. Also because it's in the basement with no natural light, and because I prefer swimming and yoga, but mostly because of my manager.

Same goes for interesting events: more often than not, a male colleague gets invited along instead of me

No, in that case, I get far more than my manager or anyone else in the department, partly because quite a few events I've been to have been women in tech things, but also because of my particular mix of skills. I'm better at writing up and sharing info, too, but I don't think that comes into their reasoning.

Of course, because some nice things happen, I am not allowed to be critical of anything else...

It's like smokers - the amount of networking that happens over a fag break is immense.

I remember my boss and a subordinate getting a peach training trip to some tropical island once, even though I'd been the one that had done all the leg work for this particular integration and would have been the better choice, because well, who wants to be the man taking a female subordinate to a holiday destination for a weekend - hanging out at the bar would be much less awkward with the man than with me, so I understand, but it's really frustrating.

who wants to be the man taking a female subordinate

See, funny enough it doesn't work the same when it's the other way round, though. At least not for me. I've taken tons of business trips, bar hopping bondings and late night meetings with my male subordinates and nobody bats an eyelid. This may obviously have a lot to do with gendered expectations around initiating sexual relationships etc. but it's still massively problematic that this holds me back whereas my male employees don't suffer any drawbacks from having a female manager ...

Can you imagine their response, BossyBitch, if you said "I'll only be taking the women in the team because it wouldn't be appropriate for me to take any of the men"!