Female advocates of equal pay and friendly workforce have come a long way since Hidden Figures. However, diversity reports in the field of technology are still far from ideal.
Just as the recent Uber diversity report indicated, many sexy unicorns in the Silicon Valley have only around 15% of women engineers. As for some well-established tech firms, such as Google and Apple, the number is slightly higher in the 20-30 percentage range. However, they all show that the engineers are predominantly male.
Why is the number so important? Some people think that if a company has a higher women-to-men ratio, it is more employee-friendly. Many companies hope to increase their diversity figures in order to attract top employees. But do better diversity figures really reflect on a better culture? It is true that women cohorts can raise the awareness; yet, a "bro" culture that discourages gender friendly can hardly change anything. Therefore, companies should invest in something more than the numbers.
According to recent reports and projects, 60% of women in the Silicon Valley has faced sexual harassment and 84% of women have been told that they are too aggressive.
Imagine you are a woman walking into a meeting room and sitting with people who are predominantly male. The uneasiness can scale up quickly. You may want to raise a point, but suddenly, you feel awkward about following the way your colleague act or talk. As a result, you may start taking notes and find yourself less engaged in the conversations. Your words are constantly looked over. Then, you realized that you are struggling to engage in the conversation. You are stuck.
This is a common story that prevails in Silicon Valley firms. The rooted “bro” culture are driving the progress, and we must face the fact before launching another campaign to help promote gender equality.
We need female leaders in Silicon Valley to inspire women as role models. We need supportive groups and conferences that encourage us to lean in. We need to gather the brightest women and show them the great possibility ahead. Major tech companies have provided mentorship to support women engineers, but we must educate men to recognize the importance of women. The workspace cannot succeed without an intrinsic belief of gender equality.
Does everyone in high tech think the presence of female engineers would help develop more holistic products? Does everyone acknowledge the people skills that women possess are essential to the growth of a company? If the stated benefits are not fully appreciated, women will constantly be undervalued and the hidden biases will not diminish. What's worse, more efforts in promoting female engineers might fuel a hate culture of “why women?”
Overall, we should change the culture for men because gender equality does not happen on one end. We must recognize the achievements of women who are driving the moonshot of the Silicon Valley dream, and we still have a long way to go.
