Comments on: Women in Tech and Empathy Work

By: Brendan

Brendan — Mon, 27 May 2013 02:12:03 +0000

I find this article interesting from a variety of perspectives. The first is that the gender issue should still be raising it’s head in an industry that is relatively young by most standards. It is easier to understand that there would be gender discrimination in law or banking or construction, industries that have existed for millennia. Affirmative action has been in existence for almost as long as the tech industry and yet you show that discrimination has worked its way in here also.
“And the developers I hired were mostly men, despite intense efforts to recruit for diversity. I console myself with the fact that as a tech company with two women at the helm, we were definitely challenging norms”. Did you intentionally set out with affirmative plans in mind to hire women only, or was the search simply for diversity? Would you have taken a less qualified female candidate if they were still able to do the job? Would you have considered this a way to help create the skilled females in the marketplace that you seem to be lamenting? A strong affirmative action recruitment policy can often result in a loss of efficiency, or profitability when the lessor candidate is selected based simply on sex or race. Did you take this into account with your search for diversity, or did you always seek to serve the shareholder by taking a weak affirmative policy, by only choosing diversity when it was between two equal candidates? If the walls and ceilings are truly to be broken down then it would appear to me that the strong affirmative action would need to be taken in all cases, until even the previously disadvantaged throw their hands up and say “Enough!”. The last forty years of women’s liberation, women’s equality are still not producing sufficient results for us to be able to say that equality has been achieved with regard to women.
Naomi Wolf wrote in her book ‘Fire with Fire’ that if the old boys network, or glass ceiling were in the way then the women who had got themselves into those higher positions then needed to work to create the ‘old girls network’ which would help to break that glass ceiling. You seem to be talking more about glass walls that are keeping women in the ‘softer’ side of the tech industry, but I suppose that the principles still hold true. Women who are in these positions of authority have the position and the ability to help reverse discrimination and to support women’s equality and yet seem reticent to do so. Affirmative action may not be needed in all industry or all roles, but clearly there is a need for stronger affirmative action policy to be implemented to effect change that is ongoing and lasting. One serious issue that arises with this in New Zealand is the Human Rights Act (1993), which in Section 22 (2) seems to prohibit any form of affirmative action in employment. The section states “It shall be unlawful for any person….procuring employees for any employer to treat any person seeking employment differently from other persons in the same or substantially similar circumstances by reason of any of the prohibited grounds of discrimination.” So the government has legislated to achieve equality but in doing so has legislated against strong affirmative action that could be used to promote and achieve a greater level of equality. This represents a problem for the employer that wishes to provide an affirmative action. They must take a weak affirmative action policy to hire the ‘disadvantaged’ person in a group of equally qualified individuals, so as not to raise the ire of an overlooked candidate.

What is intriguing to me is that even with higher numbers of women progressing in business or politics, ie Sheryl Sandberg at Facebook, Marisa Mayer at Yahoo, and even Hilary Rodham Clinton as Secretary of State, they are still seen as extraordinary. If equality was truly in existence then these women would be seen as part of the normality and not as some oddity, or as something to be celebrated. True equality will only exist when a woman (or a man) appointed to a role will not be celebrated, but simply noted.

As the father of three daughters, I look forward to that day.

By: Anne

Anne — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 06:45:35 +0000

“Help! I have just been assigned to head a new product design team at my company. The division manager has high expectation for the team and me, but I have been a technical designer for four years since graduating from college. I have never ‘managed’ anyone, let alone led a team. The manager keeps talking about her confidence that I will be very good at creating lots of teamwork. Does anyone out there have any tips to help me to accept this challenge? Help!”

By: Jen

Jen — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 18:52:11 +0000

Loved this post (found via women 2.0). I think in many ways the technical vs non-technical elitism conflates with gender – unfortunately it’s just math – so a non technical woman among technical men is treated as inferior and the emotional balance goes unrecognized. Interestingly, I am a technical woman (in product management after previously being an engineer) at a large tech co; my husband is a non technical guy at a very small startup and gets a lot more crap and under-appreciation than I do. I openly acknowledge my emotional and cultural contributions in my performance reviews since I believe it’s a big part of the PM role the way I do it. I even got a surprise peer bonus from my tech lead after arranging some furniture improvements in the office. So there is hope

By: Kronda

Kronda — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 07:09:03 +0000

Here’s a conversation I had with my former boss at my first review after graduating from intern to full time employee:

Him: So, what are your professional goals for the next 6 to 12 months?

Me: I really want to focus on becoming a better programmer.

Him: Well, you know $male_coworker has been doing this for over 10 years… I’m not sure if you’ll ever be on his level. Have you thought about project management?

Nuff said.

By: How SendGrid and PlayHaven bungled the Adria Richards situation and how they could have fixed it | Impressions Matter

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 19:13:17 +0000

[...] language and perception matter when it comes to tech companies. Lauren Bacon points this out nicely in a post from a couple of months ago about how women are perceived in tech work, and the unspoken assumptions about who does what, and [...]

By: The Broad Experience #13: When women ask for a raise | Skillcrush

The Broad Experience #13: When women ask for a raise | Skillcrush — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:42:29 +0000

[...] Valley, which got Lauren Bacon thinking. Losse’s book isThe Boy Kings. And here’s Lauren’s blog post, ‘Women in Tech and Empathy Work’, which spurred our [...]

By: Joe Cardillo

Joe Cardillo — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 18:22:55 +0000

Cool! I will check it out. Looking forward to catching up on your other writings also

By: Lauren

Lauren — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 22:49:31 +0000

Hi Joe – thanks, I did see it and I also wrote a recent piece on Etsy that you might enjoy: http://www.laurenbacon.com/inclusivity-double-standard-forbes-wrong/.

Thanks for your comments!

By: Joe Cardillo

Joe Cardillo — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:46:07 +0000

@Lauren I just noticed you published this column on Quartz too so you’ve probably already read the Etsy article. Woops..

By: Joe Cardillo

Joe Cardillo — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 21:43:23 +0000

Some really interesting discussion here. I just wanted to chime in w/this article —> http://qz.com/52277/etsy-figured-out-how-to-fin-more-women-engineers/

Being aware of and not making excuses for the ways in which gender and other distinctions operate, allows us to combat unspoken assumptions and maintain a diverse workforce. You can’t just make a pipeline argument because the problem is the whole ecosystem of tech biz is infused with these things you talk about. Because they are unspoken they have power.