By Kate Russell, Guest Contributor
I remember the first time I walked into the all-male offices of gaming magazine publisher, EMAP Images, back in 1995. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was finding the answer to the question I would be asked most in my nearly three decades of technology reporting: Why don’t more women work in tech?
For starters, it was incredibly intimidating. I saw on the faces staring back at me, a mix of curiosity, amusement and distrust. It felt a little like being the new exhibit at a zoo. Perhaps my story is more extreme than the norm (even for 1995) as I was starting work in an open-plan office populated by gaming magazines. Twenty-or-so games journos, with pale faces and hoodies, barely old enough to shave, and (I’m going to reveal my own biases here) I want to say, probably not much experience with girls. And me.
There's a scientific term for the negative impact on performance caused by a collective expectation of failure: stereotype threat. It’s a psychological condition where you put so much pressure on yourself not to live up to the negative stereotype perception of you, it can cause you to underperform. I grew up fighting my brothers for time on the family gaming console, so it didn’t faze me too much. But I was always aware of a ‘sexist vibe’, especially when we were playing games together.
Luckily, we’ve moved well beyond those times and diversity and inclusion are at the top of boardroom agendas globally. Women are now a strong presence in the global workforce (47.7% according to Statistica). But when you look at the numbers of women working in IT, we seem to be stuck in the 90s.
Today’s culture is the end-result of a thousand or more years of social programming. Do we really expect to debug it in just a couple of decades?
In preparing for this article, I looked back at my earlier writing for inspiration. The first time I referenced gender diversity in a tech talk was in 2013:
“Only 17% of ICT jobs in Britain are held by women and that figure has DROPPED from 22% in 2001.”
I was shocked at the time. You can tell by the way I wrote it in caps lock, even though the script was only for me. For all the work and promotion people like myself had been doing to advance women working in IT, we were experiencing NEGATIVE GROWTH.
I’m glad 2013-me couldn’t see the latest statistics from the ONS Labour Force Survey, as she might have busted her keyboard seeing the figures.
Percentage of female UK IT professionals:
2016 – 18%
2017 – 17%
2018 – 17%
2019 – 16%
You may have noticed; this is not progress.
So, what’s going on? And what can we all do to start moving the needle in a meaningful way?
There might be some clues in a 2020 diversity and inclusion report by Mercer, which showed a leaky pipeline for women in leadership:
And among the largest publicly listed companies in the European Union (EU 27) in 2021, only 20.2% of executives and 7.8% of CEOs were women according to the European Institute for Gender Equality.
Also in the Mercer report: whilst more than half of board and senior level executives are actively engaged in diversity and inclusion programmes and activities, there is a marked drop in high-level participation at middle and front-line manager levels. Given these are likely the people handling your initial recruitment drives, I would say their full engagement is fundamental to the desired outcome.
The landscape is even more stark for black women, according to the BCS Chartered Institute for IT’s October 2022 report ‘The Experiences of Black Women in the Information Technology Industry’. It found there are over 20,000 black women ‘missing’ from the UK IT profession. And worryingly 67% of women polled for the report felt they faced more barriers to entry into the tech industry than women from other ethnicities. Added to this, 21% believe that current diversity and inclusion policies are having a negative effect on their ability to progress.
So, I think we’ve identified some symptoms here. And modern office culture has us running in circles to treat these symptoms. Diversity awareness campaigns, gender-conscious recruitment and proactive HR messaging all work to create a space in which diversity should thrive.
Women are now a strong presence in the global workforce, but when youlook at the numbers of women working in IT, we seem to be stuck in the 90s.
But it doesn’t. Because you must treat the cause, as well as the symptoms.
I believe the reason it’s been so hard to pin down the cause is because it's unconscious. The UN’s 2020 Gender Norms Index revealed that 90% of men and an astounding 84% of women worldwide still show some biased attitudes towards women. We don’t mean to do it, but we must remember we are each a product of our life experiences.
Being aware of our biases and consciously trying not to pass them on to future generations is, I believe, our best hope for true global equality.
Science generally agrees that the fundamental shape of our personality is set in place by the age of about seven. What you saw, heard and felt around you in your formative years is part of your emotional and intellectual foundations. It influences your thoughts and actions in subtle ways you may not be aware of – especially if you’ve never looked for them. It’s just the way you are. But viewed through the lens of someone highly attuned, perhaps because they have suffered or witnessed discrimination before, your actions or words could tell a different story.
Awareness is the key.
When you next have time, I recommend taking an unconscious bias test. Better yet, suggest to HR that the whole company takes one. Prepare to be shocked too. I took one about 10 years ago, at the height of my diversity campaigning activities, and could hardly believe the results. But I guess it’s called ‘unconscious bias’ for a reason.
The good news is we’re starting to make progress. For five decades, US scientists have been tracking gender-science stereotypes by asking large samples of children to ‘draw a scientist’.
A 2018 meta-analysis of the data revealed that while from 1966-1977 only 1% of children drew a female scientist. In 2016 that figure had risen to 58% – the increase being driven overwhelmingly by girls. Boys in the same study still drew a male scientist nearly nine times out of 10.
This calls to mind another point I’ve made repeatedly in keynote addresses and panel discussions over the years – boys need good role models too. And in recent years (amidst the rise of the fabled Karen) I would like to add children of privilege to that list as well.
For me, the most impactful thing we can all do is get out there and meet pre-GCSE aged students of all genders. Kids with disabilities, from underprivileged areas and underrepresented cultures. And kids that don’t tick any diversity boxes at all. Open the doors of your business to the local schools. Do facility tours. Offer to run classes and workshops or take part in careers fairs. Let the kids see you – the women and men of modern industry – being who you are at work. It will help them imagine both themselves and the world around them in a different way.
The bonus is that activities like this are a great way to raise awareness of your company as a local employer and the opportunities you can offer. It’s not a short-term fix, I’m afraid. But if we can’t get the pipeline full, we’re never going to balance the faucets.
I think, most of all, we need patience and perseverance. Although the statistics look grim for the number of women working in IT, there are in truth many more thousands of women studying and entering the field than at any time in history. The trouble is the field is growing so darn quickly.
It’s also worth remembering (and I say this to myself as much as to you, dear reader), today’s culture is the end-result of a thousand or more years of social programming. Do we really expect to debug it in just a couple of decades?
The good news is we’restarting to make progress.
