Head of Women Who Code on the position of women in the IT industry
One of the hottest The topics on the agenda are equality of career opportunities for women and men. This topic was in the foreground a year ago, when the giants of Silicon Valley published reports on the gender composition of their employees and it became known to the whole world that Google, Yahoo !, eBay and their like make up less than 20% of the total number of employees. One of the most frequently cited reasons for this state of affairs is the reluctance of women to work in the field of computer technology, difficulties in building relationships with the male team, the reluctance of employers to hire female employees and cultural prejudices. In anticipation of the release of new data, we talked with Aleina Percival, the executive director of the Women Who Code NGO, which helps women build a career in the computer industry.
Many people believe that women are not interested in working in the technical field. Have you had to deal with this?
It seems to me that in many countries women since childhood have been told that exact sciences and technical disciplines are not for them. I can not say anything about Russia, but by what I heard from women from Ukraine and from other Eastern European countries, it seems to me that it is not so common there. In these countries, girls are encouraged to engage in the exact sciences. However, in other countries things are different: for example, one woman who grew up in the southern United States once confessed to me that she was not encouraged to do mathematics at school, but, on the contrary, pushed towards languages and humanities, although mathematics was better for her. . No one said that she could not do the exact sciences, but the humanities were clearly given preference. According to statistics, in many Western countries, girls stop doing mathematics and technical subjects as a teenager, even if in high school they managed to do it on a par with boys.
Do you think that girls need an extra push in order to choose a career as a programmer or engineer?
No, but I think they should receive no less support than boys.
Who do you think you need to convince more when it comes to the technical career for women: women themselves or their potential employers?
Definitely by the women themselves. In the media and pop culture over the past twenty years, a very definite image of people from technical professions has emerged as antisocial hackers who are not attuned to contact with the outside world, even insurgents. And this image does not correspond to reality, because in fact, for example, a software developer is a very prestigious, well-paid profession. These people are easy to get a job with good conditions and flexible hours - which is especially important for women. Such work involves a lot of communication with your team, constant mastering of new skills, overcoming difficult tasks. If such an image prevailed in the media, then many women, I am sure, would otherwise have looked at these professions.
It takes a lot of work to change our perception of the ideal woman. Modesty will not lead you to the board of directors
Have you noticed any changes over the past few years? Are there more female programmers than before?
I think now more and more women are thinking about the career of software developers, and many come into the profession in alternative ways, for example, through developer courses. And the market must somehow adapt to accept them. We are talking not only about women, but about all those who received education not from universities, but from alternative sources. Among such people there are a lot of women who decided to change their career at 30, 40, 50 years.
About a year ago, a famous report came out of Silicon Valley, from which it became known that, for example, at Google, only 17% of employees are women. Following Google, the same reports were issued by other large companies, Yahoo !, eBay, etc. Do you think we can expect any changes this year?
I think this is rather a long-term commitment. Of course, the picture we saw last year was alarming. So, I think, technical companies are really trying to achieve gender balance among their employees and are now looking for ways to accomplish this task. Intel, for example, spent 300 million dollars to ensure that women accounted for 50% of their employees. And if this spring we do not see any changes in their reports, it means that they have problems.
Of course, it will take many years to solve this problem. And those figures that we see, quite correspond to the situation on the market. Which means that we need to involve more women in technical specialties. However, Women Who Code is more interested in more women remaining in this profession. The problem is that many women leave this area, on average, after ten years of work, and it is important for us to keep them. Otherwise, we get a bottomless barrel: what's the point of attracting more women to a career in the technical field, if they do not stay in it? From a business point of view, this is impractical: losing an employee at a ten-year turn, a company loses an experienced person who could be a good leader and an example for younger employees.
Where does this ten-year boundary come from?
When women are just starting to develop, they experience the same thing as their male colleagues: they can't wait to start solving difficult tasks, etc. But after about ten years they feel as if something was pulling them down . They do not feel sufficient support in the company. They see that they are paid less than their male counterparts, and ultimately refuse to careers. Many often find it easier to change their profession or stay at home with their family. We are working to achieve greater transparency on the part of employers, because even if it is profitable for them to underpay their employees at the beginning, they suffer great losses in the future, losing this employee when he gains experience. These losses cause business much more damage, which is incomparable with the money that the company saves 10% of the unpaid salary.
The more we work, the more we become convinced that this is the most important part of our work. Also, the influence we gain over the companies that cooperate with us is very important to us. They really want what we do. In the end, our ultimate goal is to help women succeed in their careers and help them maintain their careers - this is of course important.
How do women’s careers develop in the future, do they stay in touch, do they follow the development of the situation?
Women work with us when it suits them. Someone comes at the beginning or the turning point of his career. Many come to make new acquaintances after moving to a new place. There are those who attend our events every week. For many, our groups are an opportunity to meet people from other big companies or start-ups, get to know their internal culture, see if they like it, and maybe find a new job.
In your speech in Hamburg you said that many women are embarrassed to declare their successes. Why is this happening?
I think it's just a part of the culture. Not that there was any direct prohibition here, but women are really uncomfortable talking about their achievements. Surrounding is also often uncomfortable to hear that. This is due to the way women perceive other women, and the way men perceive them. More delicate behavior is expected from women ...
It turns out that here we are dealing with a certain ideal of femininity, according to which a woman should be more quiet and belittled?
I would say modest. Perhaps it requires a very delicate work to change our perception of the ideal woman. Modesty does not lead you to the board of directors, after all. Therefore, we must work hard to change the perception of this ideal woman in the workplace, so that we will no longer expect modesty from us. Of course, ideals change depending on culture, but it seems to me that a lot can be achieved simply by changing our cultural norms so that women can talk about their achievements and not seem boastful and narcissistic. It is important that a person near you is ready to tell others about your progress and support you.
How can you highlight the achievements of women in their work? It's always easier to talk about the achievements of others than about their own.
We try to focus on the small successes we achieve every day. Over the last couple of months, you have probably written a couple of articles that were the best of everything else that you did before. In the case of software development, this could be a project that had been worked on for several months, and it finally started. We try to create a culture in which it would be customary to talk about the achievements of women at work. You can see it in our newsletter.
Studies show that companies benefit from team diversity.
It often happens that events dedicated to the problems and assistance to women attract almost exclusively female audience. Don't you think it would be important to involve more men in such events?
Women are half of humanity, and we will not achieve anything without the help of the other half.
Are women more isolated at the moment when we begin to conduct activities aimed solely at them?
This is not our case. WWCode usually helps women get to events, where 90% of the participants are men. Or, helping 17% of those working in large computer corporations to meet other interesting women working in the same industry and enlist their support.
The events that are organized by WWCode are primarily aimed at women, but if men want to join us, we will not hinder them. True, if they act contrary to our plan and, for example, come to us in search of romantic acquaintances, we block them.
And there were such cases?
It happened that people went to the pages of our participants through our website and invited them to dates. We closed access for them. But, of course, if men come to us to learn programming, they get acquainted with our participants in the process and then invite one of them for an interview, we do not stop them. In general, we welcome everyone if they do not violate the established procedure.
Do you think greater diversity in the work team can benefit employees and businesses?
There are studies that show that companies benefit from the diversity in the team. If all your employees are 25-year-old white men, it will be very difficult for you to find an approach to the target audience.