Saturday, January 3, 2015

Women in Tech Need Outreach and Retention To Increase Numbers and Counteract Unwelcoming Culture

Director Dr. Jan Plane launching the
 Center for Women in Computing
Source: The Diamondback
Women are greatly outnumbered by men in the technology field, where the jobs require diverse and creative thought, and that needs to change in order to keep pushing the field forward. To increase the number of women in tech, schools need to introduce girls and women to computer science and support the women who are currently in the major. Growing the number of women in tech through outreach and retention will help change the culture that currently drives them away.

Women in Tech Need to Reach Back to the Next Generation

Increasing outreach is an important goal at the University of Maryland, where only 14 percent of students enrolled as computer science majors in the 2014 fall semester were women. Director of the Center for Women in Computing, Dr. Jan Plane, highlights the need for women in technology to reach back to the next generation to build up the community of women.


She talks about the need for a constant cycle of reaching back in order for the number of women in the field to actually grow. One of the university's solutions to this gender inequality is its participation in the Building Recruiting And Inclusion for Diversity (BRAID) initiative which funds programs that help recruit women and minorities to the field.

One outreach program is Computer Science Connect, which teaches middle school girls how to code. At the launch of the Center for Women in Computing, these girls showcased their projects and their new skills in programming. This is a strong example of how university students are introducing more girls to field of computer science by reaching back.

One retention program that is being created at the university is a group for female students in the introductory computer science course, CMSC131. Many young women are suddenly struck by the fact that there are very few students like them in their first major class, one that is challenging and requires support from peers. Dr. Jan says the group will provide support for these women and help them if they are struggling.

There are Few Women in the Tech Field Because of Its Culture

Source : Department for Professional
Employees

Statistics for Women in Professional Occupations in 2014 show that only 26 percent of workers in computing are women. This is in contrast to other fields such as business and life sciences, where the number of women is close to half. To explain this low number of women in the working as computer scientists, we have to look towards the culture of the current tech field.

According to Fortune's article on Why The Tech Culture Drives Women to Leave, over a quarter of the women 716 women surveyed experienced discomfort in their work environment. When women are the minority, they are more likely to experience more discrimination and feel like they don't fit in.

Only 3 percent stated they would like to return to the field although they almost all stated they enjoyed the work. This isolates the work environment as the reason why they left. Working in a place run by men that doesn't support a women's need for flexibility as a mother was definitely a factor for many women who decided to leave.

The first step to solving this culture problem is to fix the "broken pipeline", which causes the gender discrepancy in the first place. The pipeline is the stream of women entering the tech field, which is fueled by the number of female computer science graduates. This is in turn supplied by the number of girls interested in computing as a good career choice, which sits at a low 9 percent, hence the broken pipeline.

The outreach and retention programs like those at the University of Maryland are helping solve the pipeline problem. Increasing the volume of females interested in computer science will create a larger pool of future women working in the field. Organizations like the Association of Women in Computing (AWC) at Maryland  also help support women in the major and prevent them from feeling forgotten and falling through the cracks. Overall, increasing diversity will create a more welcoming and open culture that will benefit both the women and men in the field.

Women in Tech Working Together Will Help Fight Negative Gender Bias

University programs targeted at young girls and women studying computer science are the biggest step towards solving the gender gap. Another step is bringing the professional women out in the field together to help the next generation succeed. Those women that are successfully part of the workforce in computing have the experience of going through college and working as a minority that they can share to help others through the process.

Dr. Jan discusses the idea that although it's hard to make significant change as an individual, professional organizations exist to help like Women in Information Technology (WIIT) which is located in Maryland.



By increasing the number of women in technology, a "critical mass" can be achieved that will help to attract more women to the field and create a healthier environment for the women already in the field. Tackling the problem as a group and through structured organizations like WIIT will be more effective than trying to make a difference as an individual.

Source: Fortune Magazine
One issue that women need to fight against together is the gender bias that occurs in the workplace. In a Fortune study on performance reviews in the tech field, 76 percent for women contained only negative feedback, while only 2 percent for men contained only negative feedback. 81 percent of the reviews for men contained only constructive feedback.

High-achieving personality traits were seen as "abrasive" or "bossy" in women when describing their leadership and "emotional" or "irrational" when they objected. Their personalities were criticized, while men were not given the same critical feedback and even told to be more aggressive. The gender of the manager also had no significant effect on the gender bias, meaning that women also perceived other women more negatively.

This is the culture that women considering computing careers are afraid of. Working to fight these subconscious negative perceptions about women in the field will create a more fair and balanced workplace. Changing the environment of the workplace helps not only the current generation, but future generations entering the workforce.

The tech industry is growing fast, and the proportion of women in the field also needs to grow. Female managers and leaders need to avoid falling into the negative mindset themselves that other women are not as qualified as men. Women in tech need to work together to increase the number of other women in order to neutralize the negative bias against them.

People Need to Be Educated on Female Under-representation and Diversity in Tech

More people need to be educated on the challenges that women face so that they can be aware when discrimination happens. It is the responsibility of both men and women in tech to diversify the field in order for it to keep growing and innovating. Half of all technology users are women, and thus, women should also be helping to create it.

Dr. Jan talks about the unintentional discrimination that occurs by men not realizing the under-representation of female students.



The situation she describes can be very harmful in perpetuating the idea that female students are not as "cut out" for computer science as boys. The hacker hoodie-archetype which consists of young, male, white programmers needs to be broken down to create a more inclusive environment for girls and women. Women don't fit these molds of what "real" programmers and leaders in technology should look like, discouraging them from pursuing opportunities in tech.

The university educated people about representation and celebrated diversity in computing at the launch event for the Center for Women in Computing. Attendees contributed to the conversation with the hashtag #umd_diversity on Twitter and Facebook. You can visit the tagged Twitter stream and contribute your own thoughts on diversity at the university.

Tech companies are also taking a step to educate people on the under-representation of women and minorities. Google recently released its workforce demographic in order to show the discrepancies in its gender and racial distribution. It gave publicity to the issue of diversity in the tech field and showed that even a giant tech mogul like Google needs to make improvements in its workforce.



Interactive display of the gender disparity at Google overall, in tech, and in leadership.

It takes a combination of both outreach and retention programs that will help grow then number of women in tech. Having this greater representation of women will then help fight the uncomfortable culture that discriminates against and lacks support for women.

It will take more than one generation of reaching back to finally achieve and equally distributed workforce in the technology field, but it will be well worth it. Great ideas come from teams who have many varying points of views, and that requires a diverse group of people.

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