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If you thought of programmers a few years ago, you probably thought of some nerdy guys wearing flannels or rather unflattering sweaters. Nowadays I guess that you will visualize some dudes in Marvel t-shirts with iPhones in their hands. Two drastically different images, but both of them still regard men. However, what if I tell you that the IT world used to look rather different than that the current one?
#1 When the Computer wore a skirt - quick history of women in IT
Let’s start talking about our industry with looking back at its history. Some people are not aware that at its beginnings computer programming was considered to be a feminine job. It all started in the XIX century with Ada Lovelace, whose well-educated mother wanted her to not end up like her poetry-loving father and introduced her to mathematics.
Luckily for us, Lady Byron’s wish came true. Her daughter ended up writing the world’s first machine algorithm for an early computing machine and became world’s first computer programmer. She even predicted that machines would be used in creating music, graphics, and science, what came true after 100 years. You can read more about the interesting story of "The Enchantress of Numbers" on Ada Lovelace Day’s website.
After that came more and more inventions, as well as more and more women that had an impact on the IT world. Such incredible people as Grace Hooper, Radia Perlman, Hedy Lamarr, and (my personal favorite) Dame Stephanie Shirley have forever changed the game. Not a long time ago we were introduced to “Hidden Figures”, a movie about three African-American women that made a huge contribution to digital electronic computers at NASA. Those smart ladies are sometimes forgotten or overlooked, but that doesn’t lessen the impact they made on the modern world.
Before computers became the machines we use now, it referred to humans who compute. Computing was regarded to be a job well suited to women since it was “soft” and "trivial" in comparison to building hardware. Back then computers wore a skirt but let's leave history to historians for now - what about the present?
#2 Modern women in the modern IT world
As I’ve mentioned at the beginning of this article, nowadays the IT community is associated with men. The survey conducted in 2016 by Stack Overflow clearly shows it - 92,8% of developers identify as male, while 5,8% of programmers are female. However, it’s only fair to add that there’s a footnote in their summary which states that this data doesn’t include such Asian countries as South Korea, India, and China, where more women work in the IT industry.
Source: Stack Overflow Developer Survey Results 2016
The same survey also stated that women usually work as Designers and Quality Assurance Specialists rather than Developers. Why is that? Well, obviously generalization is never an answer, regardless the gender. However, while researching the subject and reading about the stories of female Developers, I found out about a rather peculiar phenomenon - in many cases, it's simply harder to be a programmer while not being a man.
While the work of both genders may be of the same quality, there are still people who will consider codes written by women to be worse that those created by men. What's more, the same code is more likely to be approved if its creator doesn't disclose her gender. Some may argue that such a case may be true for some small-minded company, but unfortunately not a long time ago even super-progressive Facebook encountered a problem with the gender bias!
However, the good thing is that our industry is (slowly but surely) progressing. As I was talking with the President and Vice-President of Geek Girls Carrots, they assured me of the visible change:
Women are increasingly more interested in science studies and switching their careers to IT. They find more courage and faith in their skills, while companies are learning that gender is not a factor that determines a good employee. With every year, women are more and more confident with being experts in their field. Up until now, many of them were hiding behind the back of their male colleagues. Not because of the lack of knowledge, but because of fear. The only thing that most of us need is faith in ourselves.
-Amanda Waliszewska (Vice-President of Geek Girls Carrots)
#3 It’s all about the education
As everyone knows, if you want grown ups to behave in a certain way, you should start teaching them when they are young. The study conducted by the European Schoolnet (EUN) on behalf of Cisco Systems showed that teenagers (regardless their gender) are equally interested in the computer science. The disparity starts to be visible when they are beginning to think about their higher education. Luckily, that’s when the “Girls as Engineers!” campaign (Dziewczyny na Politechniki!) enters the game.
Their primary goal is to both familiarize female high school students with technical/engineering studies and promote this educational path as interesting and beneficial. The newest report of the campaign shows that there already is a positive change in this regard. While an overall number of engineering students in Poland is smaller due to demographic decline, the percentage of female newcomers has increased by 34 percent during the last ten years! The other interesting fact for the Polish IT industry is that more and more women are studying Computer Science. It can only mean that not a long time from now our labor market will be filled with skilled female professionals!
Source: 2017 report of "Girls as Engineers!" campaign
Universities, however, are not the only place of encouragement when it comes to including women in the IT world. There are a lot of groups dedicated to fighting for this cause, and one of them is the previously mentioned Geek Girls Carrots, a global grassroots organization focused on attracting women to tech. They are not only organizing meetings and workshops but also encourage women to be seen as specialists in their fields.
#4 Women for women in the IT industry
While talking about the current situation of women in IT, Ilona Skarbowska (President of Geek Girls Carrots), stated that a lot of things have changed since the beginnings of the organization she leads. While their first meeting has only gathered a small group of people, nowadays they are working in 31 cities across the world, such Tokio, New York, and Berlin. More and more groups are being formed, while a lot of them are grassroots movements.
Among those active groups that gather women of the IT industry are Girls in Tech, Girls who test, Ladies That UX, PyLadies, and Django Girls. And that's only a fraction of the list, which is nothing but good news for the IT industry and their employers. The popularity of all of them shows that there are a lot of potential employees that might've been overlooked, but are ambitious, eager to learn, and highly skilled.
In addition to being a great place to gain knowledge, each meeting is also ideal for recruiting some of the best specialists in their fields. Maybe next time you’ll hear about them, send a link to you HR Department - I know that or HR Manager can be seen there! ;)
Post udostępniony przez MERIXSTUDIO (@merixstudio) 9 Lut, 2017 o 10:22 PST
#5 Women about women in the IT industry
In the previous points, I’ve briefly described what is done for women in the IT industry. But what women think about working in there? Few of them, coming from the various fields in the branch, decided to share their thoughts with me.
The main thing I’ve heard from almost every woman I’ve talked with was the visible change they saw during the last few years. It only seems like their coworkers got used to the idea of working with someone who is not male! ;) While at the beginnings of their career path they encountered some condescending behavior, now they are rather happy with the atmosphere in their companies. The thing that helped a lot of them, which was mentioned above by Amanda Waliszewska, is courage and faith in own skills. Those women are highly skilled and know it, so they were not afraid to demand respect or leave the toxic environment to find a place of better employment.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves - there are still situations when they feel like their work must be especially meticulous to be considered passable. Those instances are getting rarer and rarer, but some people still find women to be helpless when asking a question, while their male counterparts are simply seeking advice. Even so, Rome was not built in a day, and all of my interlocutors concluded that after a time of getting used to each other with their teammates and finding a common ground (both when it comes to working and office small-talk) they are comfortable with their position in the workplace.
A Frontend Developer from Wrocław described a problem to me that a lot of you probably have heard about. Her previous boss had a problem with hiring women not because of their skill or lack thereof, but because of the possibility of the maternity leave. His argument of not hiring women was that they would get pregnant as soon as they get a job. Bonkers, am I right? Especially when Polish men can use as many as 38 weeks (plus the additional two weeks of fully paid leave) to take care of their child. My other correspondent, who also is a Frontend Developer, added that sometimes bosses are scared that mothers will often skip work to take care of their children. Well, they are parents, but you know who also is? You guessed right, fathers! ;) Luckily such an approach is rather badly received and is starting to be a thing of the past in the modern companies.
So, what caused this change in comparison to the not-so-distant past? Personally, I would like to give credit to all those groups mentioned above. They not only introduce women to the tech world and the tech world to women but, most importantly, create an image of highly skilled professionals that just happens to be female. During their meetings everyone, regardless their gender, can broaden their skills - with the highest quality of their work they are popular among both women and men.
#wroclove#carrots#krzywykomin#meetup#newtechnologies#networking#testing#fun#friends
Post udostępniony przez Geek Girls Carrots (@geek_girls_carrots) 22 Maj, 2017 o 12:10 PDT
And, while talking about men, let’s not forget those that create an environment of equal chance. A Backend Developer from Warsaw I talked with gave credit to her peer, who made it loud and clear that the first female in his team must be treated fairly and without sexist remarks. While it may seem like a common courtesy and simply being a good boss, it created a safe working environment from the start. This deserves recognition since lasting change is made with one step at the time!
#6 What’s left to do?
Well, I hope that this article was at least a bit eye opening for you. Heck, it was eye-opening for me while I was researching it and talking to people! I’m well aware that this topic can cover a master's thesis, but with each article, there is at least a bit of change made in the industry. Personally, I knew about the glass ceiling, but I didn't worry about it since it wasn't related to the professional life of mine and my coworkers.
But what is the solution to this problem? As I’ve mentioned before, the most important thing is education. The second one is taking a good look at our own actions - if Facebook sometimes takes a step back when it comes to gender equality in the workplace, then maybe we need to fix something in our respective companies?
The easiest thing to do, however, is to talk and show the world that the change is indeed needed! Ladies, don't be afraid to tell those brogrammers that your work is not lacking anything! Don't think that you need to PROVE your worth - let your work do the talking and remember - you are not bossy, you are the boss. :) And Gentlemen, maybe chill out with the bias? You will be surprised by the positive effects on your work and your workplace if you include women and treat them equally.
At the end of this article, I would like to once again give a special shout out to all those amazing women that fight for the equality in the IT world. With every new workshop created by such groups as Geek Girls Carrots, with every new employment, and with every demand of being treated as equal to men, you are changing our industry. Keep it up!
Navigate the changing IT landscape
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