From early education right through to secondary school, we were educated in an all-female environment. In retrospect, we can clearly see we had the advantage of growing up in an environment filled with strong, successful women. The idea that we couldn’t become whatever we wanted simply didn’t cross our minds.
It wasn’t until we started working in the STEM industry, that we realised just how male dominated the sector is. As developers, senior colleagues - most of whom happened to be male - have commented on us having a pink theme during a live demonstration.
We were then labelled as the “pink team” and whilst we love this name, it dawned on us that no one else with a blue or grey or any other colour background was being categorised.
So, who decided pink wasn’t professional?
Well, it certainly wasn’t us! Our names are Caitlin and Jemma. We met in university where we studied Computer Science at Ulster Magee. We’ve always had similar interests and career aspirations and this led to us working together in Learning Pool as software developers, making us the ultimate dream team. We didn't go into this industry to be “women in STEM”, we went into this industry to be like every other developer. We were drawn to this line of work as it is a challenging and dynamic space that provides excellent career opportunities.
We expected to work hard. What we didn’t expect was to have to work even harder to be seen as equals to our male counterparts. On the bright side, Learning Pool has given us an excellent platform to speak about the challenges women in our industry face.
Barriers to women in STEM
It’s important to first acknowledge the female experience in the workplace. A 2011 study found that women in STEM experience an informal culture which positions them as outsiders, they have a major lack of role models and experience outright sexism (De Wekde and Laursen, 2011). Many participants in this research describe the workplace as an ‘Old Boy’s Club’.
The difficulty is the majority of the workforce in STEM (in other words, men) are completely unaware of these barriers because they simply do not experience them..
Drawing on our personal experience, we strongly recognise a lack of female role models. Going back to 2009, there were 124,075 women working in the UK tech industry. By 2019, this figure had increased to 180,600. Whilst this sounds encouraging, it’s important to remember how quickly the tech industry is growing; in 10 years the percentage increase of women in tech has only improved by a measly 0.7%.
Progress continues to be painfully slow. During the academic year 2020/21, 3340 undergraduates studied computing in Northern Ireland, with only 22.55% of students being female. It is clear that there is much more work to do.
Does the issue start in schools?
So, why are careers in STEM not attracting enough women? Is it lack of awareness and education? Biassed stereotypes? Or is it just pure and simple misogyny? We can’t answer this question in one blog post - but perhaps the problem starts in school.
Professor Looney, Executive Dean at the faculty of Engineering and Computing at Dublin City University argues that many women are simply not aware of the opportunities and career progression within this industry.
Professor Looney goes on to suggest that more needs to be done at school level to educate our young women about the vast array of career opportunities within the STEM sector. It is imperative that young women understand that studying computer science does not mean that they must become software developers.
Girls Who Code
Reshma Saujani,the founder of Girls Who Code, found that 74% of girls resonate with careers that impact and change the world -for example, a doctor or an activist.
Reshma highlights that part of the problem with computer science is that women don’t have an accurate image of what it means to work in the tech industry.
She found that many women’s image of a computer programmer was a solitary male, surrounded by energy drinks who works long hours and is no longer in tune with society. Many women want a more meaningful, sociable and impactful career. They are failing to see how STEM can help shape society and change the world for the better.
With this research in mind, it sparked our initiative to set up an outreach program that involves going out to schools and educating young female students on the benefits of various career paths within the IT sector.
Over the past few months, we have successfully set up this outreach programme and visited St Genevieve’s High School in Belfast. It was clear that the students lacked awareness of all the different career paths available in the IT industry and how they can get there. The majority of students underestimated their potential to get into the university course, never mind make it in the industry.
It needs to be made clear to our young female students that everyone has the opportunity to have a successful career in IT and there are many ways to achieve this. The students were concerned they needed high A Level grades and to go to university before being considered for a job.
There was a total lack of awareness about the different routes into the sector. For example, apprenticeships, tech, coding bootcamps, online courses etc. Perhaps if getting into STEM was made more accessible, we would attract more young women into our field.
Get involved
We strongly believe that if we can get more women into STEM then we can change the way women are treated in the workplace. Having more female role models and colleagues will result in a more inclusive working environment.
More people need to be a part of this movement and join the fight. It’s imperative that if we want to see more women thrive in IT, we ALL need to do better - industry wide.
While encouraging women is a great first step, companies globally need to change their attitude towards women in the workplace, so women feel comfortable to work within the sector.
We couldn’t find an answer to the question who decided pink wasn’t professional? But perhaps we can start to change attitudes towards women and femininity in the workplace by simply saying this. Pink is more than professional– it is powerful.
More Information
Learning Pool creates learning experiences that deliver extraordinary outcomes for workplaces investing in the performance and skills of their people. Supporting thousands of businesses investing in learning experiences for their global learners, Learning Pool’s innovative AI learning platforms and skills solutions, combine integrated technology and adaptive content to produce actionable insight on every learner’s performance.
STEM, an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, refers to a group of academic fields that focus on problem-solving and innovation in the areas of science and technology.
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