It's not mimimi: why it's hard to be a woman and work with technology
Talking about gender equality is always a complicated matter, but the debate is so relevant that, even though we are not within an ideal pattern of discussion, where there is respect and self-analysis, the subject has been increasingly addressed. Alphr has recently brought us some interesting data about the role of women in the technology sectors.
Although the first programmer in history was Ada Lovelace, a woman, the Information Technology universe is predominantly male-dominated throughout the world. At Microsoft, only 17 percent of technical employees are women; among Google engineers, 83% are men; Of Apple's staff, only 20 percent are women.
This is not to say that they have no interest in the technology field, but that the preference at the time of hiring remains for male candidates. The situation gets even worse when the few women who work in the sector decide to question the lack of female labor - they are often called pejorative victims.
Brianna Wu, creator of Revolution 60, a game created solely with female characters, has not only been the target of nasty commentary, as it does whenever gender issues come into focus. Brianna had to relocate after receiving grotesque threats of rape and death. Game critic Anita Sarkeesian has also had to move because of the leak of her address and the constant threats she received - we talk about her case in this text, which addresses precisely the hostility suffered by the female audience in the online gaming world.
In October 2014, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made a rather controversial statement that women should not ask for pay increases - women earn less than men, even if they do the same job - and instead, should use their "additional superpowers" to favor their karma when it comes to getting a raise.
For systems developer and engineer Randi Harper, women who work with technology often quit their jobs because the environment is toxic. According to her, it is no use encouraging women to take engineering and technology courses if the work environment is so full of inequalities.
For Pam-Marie Guzzo, the misconception about women's role in technology influences adolescent girls, who end up believing that certain roles are more appropriate for men: “I don't think it's a gender issue, I think it's people being arrogant.”, she said.
Obviously, we are not generalizing and saying that all tech companies hostile women and pay them unequally. Research indicates that companies with good human resources teams are the least likely to have sexist episodes. Still, hostility seems to be far from over.
A Microsoft executive, who declined to be named, said what happened was a kind of "bullying culture." “I think it's because these guys were bullied at school. They don't know any other way, ”she said of an episode in which one of the bosses shouted at an employee something like, “ And why do you think I'd be interested in this garbage? You are an idiot?".
Lynn Anderson, who leads a movement that promotes women into the technology environment, says hostility in the industry is the main reason why more than half of women who start working with technology end up resigning. They do not feel that they are recognized and valued for the work they do.
Randi Harper explains that "a woman's ideas will be discarded without even being considered, and the man who does it doesn't even realize he's doing it because she's a woman." For her, this kind of situation makes the few women who work with technology go so far as to give up their profession.
Another factor that often precludes hiring women is the possibility of becoming mothers and needing to leave maternity leave or, in relation to those who already have children, who need to take time off work because of a health problem for which the child come to pass.
On Facebook and Apple, for example, there is an incentive for egg freezing programs, so companies pay the costs for women to freeze their reproductive cells and thereby postpone possible maternity-related plans. Apple even covers the legal costs of adoption processes. In smaller companies that cannot afford these costs, the policy is simply to eliminate female candidates who plan to start a family one day.
As if that were not enough, a global survey conducted in 2013 that drew testimonials from 6, 000 people working in science, technology, engineering and calculus found that women in these technology companies also often suffer some form of sexual harassment. Most reported having heard songs when wearing a skirt or a stronger lipstick color, for example.
One of the interviewees, who worked as a manager at a company, reported an abusive situation in which two directors tried to get her drunk with another employee during a work meeting. The situation got to the point where the other director was “inappropriately touching” another co-worker, in the interviewee's words. The case was reported to the company's management and no action was taken on it.
“I heard you were victimizing me. The company took me to HR one day when I was wearing a suit and they said, 'We have received complaints that you are dressing inappropriately for work.' I looked at myself and said, 'What's inappropriate about this?' and they said, 'No, it's not about today, it was another day, ' but they couldn't tell me exactly what I was wearing that was inappropriate. ”
"If women cannot confront the sexism that still exists in technology without fear of reprisal, then [technology] cannot call itself a female audience, " said Alphr author Stewart Mitchell. Do you agree with him?
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