Guest Post - Bias and Frustration: @puffskein

I apologize for the long blogging hiatus - I've been busy and distracted, but that's no excuse. While I'm working on polishing a long-form post and a link roundup to post soon, I wanted to share the perspective of a friend of mine.  She is in a technical role in a company not traditionally in the "tech industry" and encounters exactly the same kind of bias and frustration those in the tech industry face.  Below are her own words, detailing the issues she faces and the exhaustion she feels needing to prove herself at every new encounter.  I'm pleased to say that she has worked through many of the issues she describes below, but this experience is all-too-common.

By @puffskein

Recently I have been pleased to see a number of articles talking about the problems women face in the “Tech” industry. I have been honored to be surrounded by a group of very smart women whom I know because I was privileged enough to go to a very good university. Then work reminded me of all the subtle biases all professional women face.

I work in an industry that is for some reason not considered to be “tech” industry - even though I’ve jokingly described the company I work for as “trying to be like google but for advertising.” In the vein of STEM is for everyone, we need to broaden what we think of as the Tech industry - and start critically thinking about how we consciously and unconsciously treat women in all professional environments.

I have many male and female friends who are directly working as managers and leads in very technical fields. A few of them have erroneously pointed out to me that I don’t really work in the tech industry, or if you think that’s bad try working at a tech company, or the best, well, yes you code and do math, but you’re hiding in a border field. Women need to stop themselves whenever they feel they may say something to another women that minimizes their experience (this goes for more than just work related stuff - for instance, if a woman tells you about terrible street harassment DO NOT ask what they were wearing, it is irrelevant and rude).

Yes, I write code - usually for statistical purposes - but also sometimes for fun or just because I wanted to solve a problem. And no, that is not what we should be looking at when we consider whether or not a fields is technical or STEM related. It’s great to encourage people to code - but it is not going to solve the gender biases, both blatant and subtle, that women experience on a daily basis in the workplace. And I assure you that women experience the same things in non-STEM fields - having worked in a commercial kitchen, and a professional theatre (yep, both “male dominated” fields).

For years I thought it was just that I was “young” or looked young. But over the last few months I’ve realized it has nothing to do with that. Throughout my career I have been hit-on in unwelcome ways (by both male and female colleagues - to the point at one company where I felt I had no choice but to leave). I have been questioned by clients along the lines of “wow, did you do this all by yourself little girl?” I have had female executives at my own company say to me, “wow, you really know your stuff,” as if they were somehow surprised that another woman could be incredibly knowledgeable and competent. So please don’t think I’m just picking on men.

Many of these behaviors were not intentional or done with malice, and I make an effort to call people on them because they may not even be aware they’re doing it. I’ve even managed to make some colleagues aware of these situations so that maybe when they see them happening to other people they will stand up for what is right. This is still an uphill battle and the people who are aware of it are often left feeling like the weight of the issue rests on their shoulders and that it is their role and responsibility to change it. This I think is why many women who are successful in these fields duck out after a time. It is exhausting.

Every time a new “incident” occurs, it eats at you and your self-confidence, and through your shield of righteous indignation. No matter how much you know the person didn’t mean to do it. They didn’t mean to assume your male colleague came up with that idea (even when he said that you came up with it), it’s just a socially ingrained tick. It can leave one feeling a deep sense in futility towards doing good work - why bother if you’re not going to be recognized even when someone tries to make sure you are. Why get advanced degrees in your fields, when you will still be forced to prove yourself to every person you interact with just because you happen to be female? It is also exhausting to call out these issues every time they occur - people assume you’re being a combative b-word (which I actually take as a compliment, but some people do not, and I’ve gotten “performance review” comments along the lines of “too assertive” - which would never be written in a negative way on a male colleagues performance review).

As a society we need to address these subtle biases, not merely by convincing more young women to go into technical fields, but by also convincing more young men to follow their hearts to fields that might be atypical, or not be considered “masculine” enough. It needs to stop being about us “women” vs. them “men” - and stop putting the weight of solving this societal issue on women.

Specialist Science Teachers Send the Wrong Message

Science isn't just people
in white lab coats

There is apparently a push in Australia to put specialist science teachers in every primary school.  On first blush, this sounds like a good way to ensure that students have access to high-quality science education in early grades.  However, Charlotte Pezaro, educator, scientist, and PhD candidate says that this strategy is misguided.  She has a couple of concerns, most notably that this will "perpetuate the myth that science isn’t for everyone; that it’s for 'special', 'smarter', or 'nerdy' people, instead of the diverse group that primary school teachers are."  As she says, the science you learn in primary school is something that every adult should be able to understand, and having generalist primary teachers teach the subject helps demonstrate that fact.

Especially at a young age, the message should be that everyone should learn science, regardless of whether they think they want to be an elementary school teacher or an astrophysicist.  This is, by the way, the same concern I have for many "girls in STEM" programs - that they send the message to girls that it's abnormal to be into STEM subjects.

But wait, you say - we have specialists teaching music, art, and physical education, and those aren't just for "nerds."   True, but it is clear that those subjects are not part of the core curriculum.  And I think even as a child I subconsciously understood that those weren't really things I had to learn, unlike what we did in the normal classroom.  The fact that my teacher may or may not have been good at music, art, or sports probably did send the message that it was OK for me also not to be good at those things; given my lack of artistic abilities, that was probably good for my self esteem.  On the other hand, I don't think we should be giving such an easy-out for science.

But I do think there is a place for science specialists to enhance the regular curriculum.  I remember in 3rd or 4th grade, we had a scientist who was the parent of a kid in another class come in once every two weeks for a special science lesson.  These were highly interactive, visual, and fun. We built electro-magnets, saw chemical reactions, and had other demonstrations of the type you'd see on Mr. Wizard's World (pictured left).   If the purpose of the science specialist is to make science more fun, rather than to teach the core science curriculum, then I think it's a great idea.

#YesAllProfessions

Recently, I've seen an uptick in articles about how people in various non-engineering/science professions should learn to code. From MBA students learning to code to know their business better to law students learning to think like a lawyer by first learning to think like a system designer, the cognitive benefits of learning to code are obvious. Fields such as finance are so heavily tied to data-driven processes that one venture fund actually put an algorithm on its board.  

While simply knowing how to program has myriad benefits even if you never write another line of code in your life, once you know how to code you are more likely to identify ways in which writing code can help you do your (non-tech) job.

You won't find writing software anywhere in my job description, but if I were to list all of the times I've written a computer program to help me better perform my job, I'd be writing all day. Writing code allows me to sift through large amounts of data to help myself and my colleagues make better decisions.   I make maps, graphs, lists, and summaries by writing short programs that we would otherwise either enlist interns to devote time making or would otherwise be unable to do entirely.

These programming tasks are often very small - sometimes taking just minutes to complete, and rarely more than a few hours.  Just to explain the problem to a non-lawyer developer would often take as much time as it takes me to write the program because I have the benefit of having both a complete understanding of the problem and the skills necessary to solve it.

This is, I'm sure, part of why V. David Zvenyach is writing a free online Coding for Lawyers book. While computer science is a complex and challenging field, learning to write simple programs it not hard.  I encourage everyone to take advantage of various free online resources to learn to code, such as the Code Academy or the Hour of Code exercises on code.org.

The Clogged Pipeline

Following up on the last post about why women leave tech, I decided to take a look at my network and see if the leaky pipeline theory holds.  That is - are women who are studying engineering and taking jobs in the field dropping out at a significantly higher rate than men?  I looked at women and men with degrees in either Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) or Computer Science (CS) from my alma mater.  The results?

1. 30% of the women left the tech world, while 8% of the men did.
2. Among those still in the tech world, the men who work at the staff are 50% more likely to have a "senior" title (66%) than the women (42%).
3. The men are also 50% more likely to make it to management roles - of the women still in the tech world, only 25% are in management at any level, while 36% of the men are.
4. While four of the men founded startups, none of the women did.
5. The only place I see parity is that women who stay in tech have essentially the same likelihood of landing a senior management role at a company they didn't found (12.5%) as the men (12%).  But those women took larger steps outside of their field than the men did to get them.

More details and an info-graphic after the jump:

Why Do Women Leave Tech?

Getting girls and women interested in tech is only half the battle.  My friend Krista sent me a link to a TechCrunch article titled "Women in Tech: It's Not Just a Pipeline Problem."  It points out that while we can clearly do more to encourage girls to pursue tech classes and major in STEM fields, that's not the only problem.  Women leave tech jobs at a rate substantially higher than their male counterparts.

Why?

The article suggests it's due (at least in part) to blatant sexism that exists in the industry.  And it does - a significant percentage of women report being sexually harassed.  The story that came out earlier this month about a woman founder being groped during a meeting with an investor was sadly not a surprise. However, for each of these major acute issues, there are hundreds of tiny issues that weigh on women.

It's things like:

No Google, no I didn't. pic.twitter.com/9BtO4IjBTE
— Emily McManus (@emilymcmc) August 7, 2014

It's not getting to have a one-on-one meeting with a male supervisor because they are afraid you (or someone else) will take it the wrong way.

It's every time you meet new people and have to dispel their assumption that you have no idea what you're talking about.

It's getting recognized for good work and then worrying that others will think the only reason is because you're female.

It's not getting recognized for good work because you didn't claim credit for your work, but fearing that if you did claim credit, you wouldn't be liked.

These problems are hard to solve, but as the TechCrunch article says - the first step is admitting there's a problem.

Blind Auditions

Is this how we should conduct interviews?

SFGate's recent article, Gender gap? Tech could take a cue from orchestras, highlights parallels between orchestras in the 1970s and the tech industry.  The similarities are eerie.  In the 1970s, women were widely considered unsuited to performance at the top levels of orchestra.  Women just didn't get music, or didn't want to devote their lives to it, or something....  It was rare to see a woman in an orchestra playing anything but a harp.  In fact, only 5% of the top symphonies' performers were female.  But now the gender gap has shrunk substantially - those orchestras are now 40% female.

How did they do it?  Blind auditions.  Candidates were behind a screen while demonstrating their skills, such that the judging panel had no idea who the candidate was or what they looked like.  Can the tech industry accomplish the same thing with gender-blind interviews?  Sounds simple enough.  Would that work for tech?  Probably not, for two reasons.

1) Interviews tend to be less of a technical exam and more of a real-time interaction between interviewer and interviewee to get a sense of the applicant's problem-solving and communication skills.  To truly mask the candidates gender, you'd have to prohibit the candidate from speaking, which would make communication much more difficult.  At least until we have surrogates or scramble suits that mask our true identity in the workplace while allowing us to communicate and interact naturally, we won't be able to judge a candidates aptitude without learning their gender.

2) It seems that candidates are getting excluded before the interview stage.  Based on my experience and that of many of my friends throughout the industry, we rarely see women interviewing, even adjusting for the gender imbalance in STEM education.  So we probably need to address whatever is blocking the pipeline before radically reforming the hiring process.

So what can we do?  I have a few thoughts:

Mask applicants' gender where we can.  There's no reason to see gender-identifying information at the initial resume screen, nor when looking at writing or code samples.  An organization committed to leveling the playing field should consider masking names and other information that would tend to reveal gender, race, ethnicity, or national origin in the early stages of review.

Convince women to apply. Studies show that women don't apply for jobs at the rate that men do.  Women tend to select out of the application process unless they meet nearly 100% of the job criteria, while men are willing to apply with only 60% of the criteria.  This fact needs to be repeated over and over again until women (myself included) actually come to terms with the fact that we don't need to reject ourselves before we apply.

Bridge the confidence gap in resume writing. Women's resumes tend to be substantially less strong than men's.  That's because we tend to claim less of the credit for our accomplishments and use less-active verbs to describe our roles.  We "help" or "work with" or "assist."  Men "develop" and "lead" and "direct."  This is even true when describing the exact same task.

Ensure interviewers are aware of their own cultural blind spots.  When we do get to the non-gender-blind interview, we need to be aware of the subtle biases we all have. Cultural blind spots inadvertently exclude excellent candidates because they don't have the same hobbies, interests, and backgrounds as the main team.  This excludes not only women, but men who don't fit the exact image of the team - too old, from a different socioeconomic background, of a different race or national origin than the more common in the field.  Companies should take care to train those who play a role in selected candidates to be aware of their own biases.

Those are my thoughts - but I'd love to read yours in the comments.

Science is Natural for Everyone

Someone's been reading this blog.

Well maybe not, but Girls Love Science. We Tell Them Not To. from The Daily Beast echoes the points I've been trying to make - that so many of the attempts to get girls interested in STEM start from a premise that science is unnatural.  The article quotes astrophysicist Katie Mack who says "Gender-based socialization, and messages [ ] that tell girls that science is an unnatural thing for them to do, are incredibly pervasive in our culture."

The article is a spectacular take-down of the idea that science has to be made "girly" to be appealing to girls.  It tells us to toss aside the notion that "[g]irls will love science, [as] the EU has suggested, because Bunsen burners look like lipstick and fiber-optic cables are sort of like powder brushes."

Finally, the article quotes another female astrophysicist, Meg Urry, who notes "Discrimination isn’t a thunderbolt, it isn’t an abrupt slap in the face. It’s the slow drumbeat of being underappreciated, feeling uncomfortable and encountering roadblocks along the path to success."

A+++++ would read again!