Women in tech world deserve more respect and recognition
Though it is well known that women are often underappreciated and undervalued in the work force, the prejudice is greater in some professions than others. In engineering and tech jobs, the lack of respect, equal pay and credit given to women is particularly problematic.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s gaffe earlier this week confirms this discriminatory mindset even among leaders in the field. At a conference for women in technology, Nadella responded to a question on what he would tell women who are hesitant to ask for a raise by saying, “It’s not really about asking for the raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along. And that, I think, might be one of the additional superpowers that quite frankly women who don’t ask for a raise have.”
Nadella then continued to say that it is “good karma” to be this way as a woman in the workforce and that he would trust such a person over those who expect or demand raises. This discriminatory attitude against women emphasizes the struggle that women in technology have had and continue to have for gender equality.
Since entering the workforce, especially in jobs within the tech world, women have been undervalued and often even forgotten. According to NPR, Jean Jennings Bartik and five other female mathematicians were some of the first people who worked on programs for one of the world’s first fully electronic general-purpose computers because, as NPR reported, “men didn’t think it was an important job.” At the time, however, the press didn’t identify these women, and they were lost and forgotten despite their incredible contribution to the age of technology.
The stereotypes associated with women in the tech force have also led to many women completely leaving science industries. According to another NPR piece, women tend to drop out faster than men in these educational fields.
In fact, in various studies done in classrooms, if women were reminded of the stereotype that men are better than them at math, their performance dropped dramatically. Psychologists call this “stereotype threat.” With this constant “threat” looming, women tend to monitor their conversations, worried that they might not say the right things or sound stupid and because of this fear, they just seem more incompetent. This effect is not seen, however, when women are talking to other women — only when women are talking to men.
The lack of women pursuing engineering degrees is astounding as well. According to Brian L. Yoder, director of assessment, evaluation and institutional research at the American Society for Engineering Education, statistics show that women earned only about 18.4 percent of bachelor’s engineering degrees in 2011, 22.6 percent of master’s degrees and 21.8 percent of doctoral degrees. Women need to take more part in the evolution of science by increasing these numbers.
The issue of dealing with such stereotypes has become a serious problem in the workplace. Nadella apologized, tweeting, ”Was inarticulate re how women should ask for raise. Our industry must close gender pay gap so a raise is not needed because of a bias.” He also wrote a letter to employees expressing remorse, saying, “Men and women should get equal pay for equal work … If you think you deserve a raise, you should just ask.” Though Nadella apologized for his misogynistic comments to both the public and his employees, the damage has already been done. The apology was heartfelt, but the fact that the sexism was justified in some way, whether inadvertently or not, adds to the discrimination that accompanies women’s roles in the technological work place. With such acknowledgements and the reality of the jarring differences between men and women in the tech world, both in terms of salary and respect afforded to them, action must be taken. Increased recruitment of women for such jobs might help the colossal differences between women and men. Even more incentives for women to excel in such jobs, which would enhance the idea of encouragement and perhaps destroy the “stereotype threat,” could be part of a great solution.
Both men and women need to work toward women being treated equally in the tech world, both financially and psychologically. Without such women, programs for the very first computer might never have existed. And, without the highly intelligent women that have fought so hard against such stereotypes by excelling in technological fields, our world might very well have been different. If we can learn to support women in the tech world, who knows what both men and women might come up with to further our society?
Chelsea Hernandez is a senior majoring in English (creative writing). Her column, “Foot in Mouth,” runs Wednesdays.