Heard a similar story from a family friend.
He started off as math major but got scared off by the clearly superior math intuition of his college friend and decided to become a physician instead.
He is now a department chair at one of the nation’s top medical schools.
But his eyes still light up when he talks about math.
This should not be happening. How can she do her job properly while caring for her children at the same time? Nobody wins in this instance - not the employer, not the kids, and not this women.
I can see now that math is fun. I have a Facebook friend who is a middle school math team coach and he frequently posts sticky problems his team worked on. I do them and come up with the answers however slowly and inelegantly. So often the answers are not what I intuited or predicted, and continue to leave me sort of stumped and confused-feeling (although the answer is correct.) I mentioned that feeling on one of the posts, and the other coaches and “math people” who also completed the problem say that that feeling can be normal. Who knew.
Apple? I’d wager that you cannot find a team at Apple that does not include women.
I came here to speak about childcare and see the discussion has coincidentally veered to that.
If it were up to me, I’d incorporate PK4 at all public schools and PK3 at schools with many free/reduced lunch kids. All companies with 25+ employees would offer free (for people making less than 50k) or subsidized care (for everyone else) with hours matching the company’s hours, full time for babies through PK3 and matching school hours for PK4-6th grade, starting with places that have mostly female workers (including schools&hospitals). Daycare workers could be hired with an AA and should be paid better than minimum wage.
Having a solution helping mothers of young children having a career or holding on to a job would make a huge difference in young women’s lives (and in birth rates) - they worry about having to find a place, if they’re going to be able to pay for it, what they’ll do if the child is sick… and sometimes simply can’t find anywhere. Mandatory PK4 and daycares would allow more women to rejoin the workforce and keep as many people productive as possible without work being a financial&personal sacrifice or even an impossibility.
So if there was ONE area I’d prioritize for young women it’s childcare.
This was in 2014 - at that point there were likely no women on the Health app development team. They took a beating on this and introduced a revised version a year later that included this feature.
Today I bet there are probably women on most Apple teams.
This was demonstrated during the pandemic when droves of women left the workforce when their childcare facilities closed. Not sure if they all came back (haven’t seen numbers on this).
I know a number of women who choose their employer solely based on having on site child care.
I also think it’s why many young women are saying they will forgo motherhood.
I get the point you’re trying to make but submit that lack of women on the design team may not be why a specific feature was not initially released. In 2014, women comprised 30% of the Apple workforce. In 2022 it was 35%. (Inclusion & Diversity - Apple).
The cost of childcare is often a factor in whether, and how many, children a woman will have.
But even once the childcare years are over, workplaces having increased flexibility really helps. Allowing parents to come in early and leave early (or late) so they can do school pickups. Allowing people to jet out in the middle of the day for an hour or so to take their kid to a doctor’s appointment. Letting people work from home when their kid is sick or the school is on vacation. Doing this allows parents to stay in the workforce, and I mean both men and women (but it has the biggest impact on women because that’s still where the majority of caregiving duties go).
Would love to know if there were any female app developers on that 2014 team.
So many good thoughts in this thread, and so much more that could be said.
Here’s an anecdote: A young family friend is applying to college next year. Her parents are both professors. She’s smart and artistic and a diligent student and has a quiet strength, but could use more confidence. But she won’t tolerate any shenanigans from boys. I’ve been talking with their family a lot about the college search.
She started out thinking architecture or environmental science. We talked about those majors/careers and possible schools. I asked about favorite subjects: math and physics. So I asked “why not engineering?” While they were initially a bit apprehensive, we ended up talking a lot about it.
I think it was the engineering gender imbalance and culture that had prevented them from considering it sooner. Plus fears that, despite her top grades, her somewhat lower standardized test scores meant that engineering isn’t a good fit. They spent time researching it. I am so pleased to say that she’s planning on applying to engineering programs! And all the schools on her list have good alternate majors should she change her mind.
I honestly think she wouldn’t have gone in the engineering direction (despite her fondness for math and physics!) if I hadn’t pressed those conversations. I’d attribute that largely to culture, especially since her parents don’t follow or enforce traditional gender roles at home or work.
Apple’s product design methodology includes many disciplines from the earliest stages of any product. I would wager that there were many women involved in that team.
So many little things contribute.
My D (engineer) just changed jobs. One of the offers she was considering did not include short term disability. The firm didn’t offer it. She told them why that was a problem for her , as it’s what covers time off for a new baby, and they recognized it as a gap in their offerings and added it for all their employees. Another did not have a trash can in the bathroom. Small thing, but it matters. She had trouble finding any firm with a critical mass of women on staff. Hard to find mentors. She gets involved with women in engineering organizations to find that outside of her own company. She does not feel directly unsupported by the male staff where she has worked, it’s just isolating.
D has trouble finding safety equipment for her job to fit her,as a petite woman. Has had to order from Canada in the past.
D has friends, both engineers, who had a baby recently. Dad is very helpful and supportive. Mom went back to work recently, but has since decided to quit her high paying job and stay home with the baby. Daycare is expensive, even when you make good money, and the numbers just didn’t make sense for them.
It’s a lot of little things, and that’s without even addressing the early education stuff that’s very real.
My other D was in a 6th grade math group with two boys. Teacher thoughtlessly moved them up and not my D. The boys gloated. The teacher realized her mistake and fixed it, but damage was done. My D handled that by working ahead and it all worked out fine (she’s working on an Econ PhD-that’s a male dominated profession and can be misogynistic as well).
We encouraged them to do what they were interested in for their careers, but both daughters can see that they’ve created difficult choices for themselves in the future with regards to motherhood and future careers.
Perhaps it should not be happening, but it actually does happen for various reasons, because it may be the least bad of various available choices for the parent / employee.
Perhaps she can do her job properly and acceptably enough (obviously, it depends on the type of job), even though she may be able to do the job better with lesser or no child care burden.
My point in saying this should not be happening is just to highlight what a big problem childcare is for women that is causing these situations to happen.
I would like to end this part of the discussion. My point was Apple released a major app that was not female friendly. They took a big hit for it (in the press) and had to fix it fairly quickly. I mentioned this example to support the point made earlier that having a diverse group of people on a team will produce results that meet the needs of a diverse population.
D left her last employer because of changes made by new leadership after a merger … they eliminated the three month maternity leave policy. D wasn’t planning to have another child, but she viewed that change as a harbinger of other changes that would not be family friendly. As it turns out, she was correct. She moved to a small company that is owned and operated by people she has worked with in the past. She knows them well and is very comfortable in the knowledge that while they all work hard, family comes first. She remarked on Sunday that she has no interest in working for a company if she doesn’t know everyone involved - for her, being certain that her needs are supported is extremely important.
Think of the product development teams that made “flesh toned” bandages, pantyhose, acne coverup, etc.
Or shampoo claiming it was for curly hair (but too harsh for ethnic hair…it was designed for blonds with slight waves).
Or automobiles with seatbelts only tested on men. Medical devices with zero clinical trials on anyone who is not 5’8" and 170 lbs.
Your point about Apple is spot on…
And I will end this part as well by saying that not every product shortcoming is because of a lack of diversity. Especially with companies like Apple that have diverse development teams.
