The headline says it all.
Interesting comment in here that all of the architects at one company are male. Almost every architect I have ever met in tech is male. They all seem to have huge egos, and 90% have been complete ah** and think no other architect is worth a darn. It seems to be a requirement for the job. One of my least favorite projects ever as a project manager was riding herd on a whole group of 'em working on some corporate standards. shudder
My D2 appears to be headed for a career in tech, and I am wondering how that will work out. She does not take misogynist crap from ANYBODY. She won’t sit silently by, that is for sure – she is generally not a very outspoken person, but that pushes her buttons. Just… no idea how this will work out for her. worries
I really did NOT like that article. I think it brings up some good points; but zooms in way too quickly on implicitly defining “The Tech Industry” exclusively as software development and IT. While that is a growing component of the “tech industry” landscape, there are other aspects of technology that are not as famously “macho” and woman-unfriendly. One need look no further than General Motors (engineer-cum-CEO Mary Barra) or Elizabeth Holmes as role models. The cited study speaks of STEM, but the entire rest of the article speaks exclusively of IT & Software Development.
There are obviously issues, and the article points out that Google has proactively countered some of them, but the article uses an extreme branch of the STEM universe to give a sensationalized fearful misogynistic view of an entire industry.
Are they leaving in droves? I am not seeing it IRL. When I compare it to IB it is a lot friendlier to women. I think I am a fairly senior manager in the high tech space. There are a lot more men than women, but I am not sure whose choice it is.
I started in tech way back in '87, when there were very few women. I actually felt I had it easier than many women working their way up the business side. While I did encounter the occasional jerk, who doesn’t? For the most part I found people in tech cared more about how good you were than your gender. I had multiple opportunities to go into management and was selected for leadership training and mentoring at several different companies. I eventually left tech, not because of a hostile work environment but because my role for years had been gravitating more towards working with the business, and I reached a point where it made sense to transition. But I wouldn’t hesitate to go back into IT. Maybe it’s harder for young women these days. I would hope not.
since when does ‘anecdotes’ = ‘droves’?
If the author wanted to support the title, she’d provide the data to go with… as in turnover by gender. Instead, she makes a case based on anecdotes. I’d guess few college profs would consider that an ‘A’ paper.
Good point @bluebayou. As a former journalist, I just want to point out the writer doesn’t write the headlines, it’s a headline writer/editor person and it’s after the article is submitted. And they often write nowadays to get the click-throughs. I will say, living here in Silicon Valley, I do think women in general have it harder moving up the ladder. It’s something I somewhat worry about with my daughters should they end up working in dot com. Of course, they can always transition out.
Correct, but the headline approver is usually senior and should know better. But then, that’s the thing with most journalists – they lack critical thinking skills. (probably why journalism is disappearing.)
No doubt. But that is also true in places like Hollywood and many other industries.
But the correct topic is the dearth of women recruited into tech firms in SV in the first place. The “little stuff” as they call it in the article, would cease to exist if more women were in the biz. (Moreover, they can’t move up if they don’t exist in numbers.)
btw: even the referenced Harvard study is way off point. STEM includes a lot more than tech. STEM includes biology, for example, a field in which men also leave in “droves” since there aren’t many jobs beyond starting bottle washers. And since Bio has a lot more female majors that the physical sciences/engineering, including it in the “50” turnover for article impact, is using skewed data to strengthen the author’s point. But if you have to use skewed data… (rant #2: beyond poor critical thinking skills, journalists tend to have zero understanding of statistics.)
Other than that…
I have heard from young women that the tech industry is difficult for them. One of them provided this to me:
tbf: few well-paid industries are family friendly – that includes guys as well as gals…
Or the motivation to have a click-bait headline outweighs any sense of “quality” journalism?
Reminds me of life for women physicians in my generation/era.
There are jerks in every industry, and some of them are women.
@bluebayou, the point of online headlines is click-through. They deliberately choose highly emotive words which are very often misleading. Women leaving tech in droves will get more click-throughs (= more advertising revenue) than, say, Not a lot of women in tech or Women unhappy in tech, etc.
^^I say B.S. The L.A. Time likes to think of itself as a world-class newspaper with world class journalists. It is not a blogger, or at least it should not be a blogger with a pov. The so-called article was published in the Times’s Business Section, not the Rolling Stone.
And purposely choosing “misleading” words should be acceptable in journalism? Seriously?
Which is one (big?) reason why journalism is dying.
You could say that the “death” of journalism dates back to the invention of the Happy Idiot News Team.
There are plenty of brilliant and thoughtful journalists.
Well, remember this quote from Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella? Absolute nonsense. Probably sent hordes of women who are dependent on their salaries to help support a family running for the door: