Women, Tech IS for You
Oftentimes, I’m excited to see diversity in the news. Some days, though, the news is incredibly frustrating. For example, when a disgruntled Google engineer’s sexist tirade hit the internet over the summer, my jaw just dropped. If Google has any preferential hiring practices, it’s for smarter-than-average people. Why, then, did the author of this screed wrongly suggest that biology has anything to do with the dearth of women in tech? Doing so is an outrage and an attack on the many successful women, like me, who have led multiple companies, and it’s an affront to the many women who are successfully on their way to doing the same.
This controversial “Google memo” engendered a lot of responses from both women and men. One of my favorite of these responses came from Susan Wojcicki, YouTube’s CEO. Short and to the point, Susan begins her response by repeating a question asked by her child in the wake of that engineer’s anti-diversity manifesto: “Mom, is it true that there are biological reasons why there are fewer women in tech and leadership?” After making reference to the slights that women in leadership everywhere unfortunately continue to face along the way, Susan ends her brief comments with the only reply that she verbalized to her daughter: a simple, “No, it’s not true.”
That it’s 2017 and such conversations are happening between mother and daughter ought to be more shocking than it is. It’s frustrating that female tech CEOs and tech executives are still too rare of a breed, and it’s unfortunate that our daughters still question why -- although I’m glad that they do, for noticing a problem is a step on the path to solving it. When news hits that anyone has an idea about why there aren’t enough women in tech, people consider the information presented as a plausible explanation based on what they see, even if that explanation lacks scientific data. We’re lucky if young women do what Susan’s daughter did and ask us about it. My worry is that we’ll be unlucky, with too many women altering their life course to avoid a field that someone in it suggests just isn’t for them solely based on gender. While they may not make that choice based on one memo alone, what they risk in reading between the lines of that memo is that there are men who will challenge them, men who will write ten-page memos questioning their fitness to work in tech, let alone to lead in it. As Susan Wojcicki indicated, and as I can attest, those challenges do happen. How, then, do we send a counter-message to women that tech is, indeed, hospitable to them, despite all of these things?
From a leadership perspective, diversity and how to improve and increase it is on my mind regularly. I see and appreciate first-hand how all forms of diversity, perhaps especially diversity of perspective, adds value to our mission. Dedicating time encouraging and mentoring women in their pursuit of technology careers comes easily to me because of how much I’ve enjoyed my own path to high tech leadership. My suggestion is that to move forward from this engineer’s fifteen minutes of ill-gotten fame, we consider more ways to found a culture of inclusion and to increase the number of women in tech leadership along with renewing our commitment to striving harder to avoid unconscious bias in our hiring practices. As well, we truly must demand for all people in our employ to foster a culture of inclusion and respect. Sexism has no role in any workplace.
To the women out there who read the news and feel disheartened, please, forge ahead. It will be a great day when there’s less of a gender imbalance in high tech leadership, and we are getting there. Women like me who’ve been here for a while have your back, and we have lessons to share with you, from tips on how to survive and thrive in tech to ideas about valuing gatherings among women. You’re not alone, you’re valued, and there is room for you in today’s high tech workplaces and among its leadership. Get there by believing in yourself, through advocating for your ideas, and with good, hard work. In the meanwhile, trust your leadership to be taking on memos like this. We’ve got this.
Originally published on LinkedIn