Since I joined the tech industry, I have been heartened to see an evolution which has left a lot of old type of thinking behind.
We are far from able to celebrate a victory lap, and often the backlash to progress can be as painful as the old place, but I am happy when old conventional wisdom is challenged, and is no longer seen as wisdom at all.
The broken pipeline
Not too long ago, it was easy to dismiss progress on diversity and inclusion as something we can achieve in the future, because the only problem is a "pipeline problem" — that is to say, if we teach the children differently, we might eventually change some things. It didn't work, because it wasn't children being harassed in the workplace, passed over for promotion, or stereotyped into giving up on technical roles.
I think this notion received eye-rolls for a long time, but eventually it received mainstream critical challenges. It is still an idea thrown around, primarily by old heads clinging to old ideas, but it is no longer acceptable to think of these challenges as things we can't achieve right now.
Moving the goalposts
The goal posts have moved, and have to keep moving. Our industry still has too many invisible barriers, but industry leaders can no longer entirely hide behind bland euphemisms. The next phase is not accept small wins, but demand big wins.
A tech financial slowdown seems to have led to a slowdown in investment in diversity and inclusion — and this can't be acceptable. We know this is today's problem, not tomorrow's especially in tough tiimes.
The future must include everything, we must accept that a faster pace of social progress is necessary. We must be able to let go of yesterday's ideas (like the notion that it's still cool to do #shecoded in face of the reality that given enough scrutiny, it was an exclusionary idea).
Happy coding, everyone!
Top comments (9)
I've worked in places that had a more diverse workforce. E.g. Finland has more female engineers and it's even better in China. Some of this stuff is simply cultural. The Finnish education system is world class and women benefit from that. Chinese students are ambitious and laser focused on results and economical outcomes in terms of job perspectives. And that also means they are more likely to study something that gets them somewhere. Like computer science. You see the same in India.
A lot of millennials in the west are instead studying topics that are bit more hand wavy (male and female) and then end up doing things like opening a coffee shop or travel the world after getting a degree in something completely without job prospects. I know people with master degrees in that did that. A lot of women self select out of tech careers long before they leave high school. That's not an inclusiveness problem but a cultural issue.
That being said there are of course problems with remuneration, career progression, and outright sexism and harassment. Some companies are better than others on this. This industry can and should do better when it comes to that.
But, I've been old enough to have seen that there isn't a whole lot of progress though. Diversity was a problem in the mid nineties when I studied computer science and it still is. There were only three female students in my year out of 50 or so people in total. They all did well in their career, or so I assume. But I doubt the numbers are much different these days in universities.
"But I doubt the numbers are much different these days in universities."
Funny how few people bother to ask "why?" and fewer still actually work to change that. I guess it's just the way things are, huh? Nothing to be done. Move along.
Plenty of people ask why. But asking that apparently isn't moving the needle. And there is of course the notion that the answers might be a bit uncomfortable.
The assumption that it should all be blamed on men or that it's a problem with the workplace seems flawed to me. It's a simple question to ask: why do women on average opt out of tech related topics consistently long before they even leave high school or have been exposed to any negative things that might happen to them in a (so far) male dominated workplace? Even if girls are obviously showing signs of being well capable of such a career (e.g. by getting good grades on stem topics) they still seem to opt out of pursuing anything related to that career wise.
There's a pattern there where women pressure each other not to. Women in general seem sensitive to peer pressure. Especially teenage girls in high school with all the uncertainties that come with being a teenager. And it isn't men that are the source of that pressure but other women. There seems to be a bit of group thinking going on there where even showing an interest in technology is seen as risky that is re-enforced and actively policed by women themselves.
How do you fix something like that?
How do you fix that? Well, you could start by not making wild generalizations about "women" – unsupported by any evidence except your anecdotal observations – as if they were some monolithic mass.
But I see your reasoning clearly: the problem, obviously, is women. They are doing this to themselves. Isn't victim-blaming fun?
Ah, these patterns you see, all of which conveniently let you off the hook! So then you don't need to do anything to fix the problem. You can't even really see the problem.
I wonder what any woman interested in tech who read your article or your comment above would feel. Would she think, Wow, I can't wait to get into tech and meet men like Jilles. Or might she think, Hmm. Maybe tech is not for me.
Perhaps the needle isn't moving because people like Jilles van Gurp are standing on it.
You do realize we are two guys debating this issue, right? Strikes me as mildly ironic given the topic. And the women in tech I do know would definitely call bullshit on that. They aren't victims but professionals. It's you that seem to feel a need to mark them as such. And if there's one thing I know from having actually talked to women in tech about this is that they don't like being victimized.
People are more than welcome to read what I write. You seem to need to portray me as some male chauvinistic pig. I don't think I am. But not going to argue that case with you.
Your tone is a bit overly aggressive btw. Doesn't exactly strengthen your case. You might want to be a bit more respectful. Just calling that out as a thing you might want to work on. People (male or female) reading this might jump to some conclusions about what kind of person you are.
I don't identify as male or masculine or a man, so we are not "two guys debating this issue". And we are not debating. I am calling out sexist comments you've made publicly in both an article and the comments. Furthermore, my tone is blunt and honest, not aggressive, but it is interesting that you appear to think that you can say anything, no matter how abhorrent, if you just couch it in bland terms. And anyone who finds your comments loathsome and says so frankly can be dismissed because... "decorum". That's an old trick widely employed by, among others, those who practice sexism and misogyny.
But you're right about one thing: readers will decide. Although they'll also project their own wants, needs, and fears on the text. Which means you'll find plenty of support out there from, hmm, sexists, of which there are many in tech. Somehow, I don't think your comments will play quite as well with people who identify as women.
We're done here, I think. You can have the last word.
Absolutely agree! The other day I recall reading an article with furious slamming of OOP that reminded me of the days when Stack Overflow would be steaming multi paragraph long aggressive technical arguments that were full of bravado and rather exclusionary or intimidating to those without as much gusto or frankly, time to read. It was probably around 2010-2015 times I recall reading people with femme image avatars would be dogpiled on GitHub for suggesting code of conducts. And what a positive change!
For sure, despite more visibility I do sometimes see people moving into leadership without the right amount of support or backing. The "glass cliff" I heard.
I'm working on the pipeline. I agree we can achieve things_ right now in the adult world_, but we do also need to continue to support and encourage diversity it STEM.
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