College is full of novel and exciting learning experiences. One of the more daunting ones is the career fair where students get to interact and network with employers and learn about internship and job opportunities. I went to my first engineering career fair during the fall semester of my freshman year and was slightly intimated as I had never attended anything like this before.
I made sure to be fully prepared - I wore my best pair of freshly ironed business formals, prepared my resume and headed to the career fair.
When I got there, I was taken aback. There was something missing. It was the number of female engineering students; I could only spot a few in a sea of male engineering students. This was disheartening and made me feel like an outsider - like I didn’t belong.
That was when I comprehended the full reality of the unequal representation of women in technology.
This wasn’t always the case. A lot of the pioneers of computing were women and it was a field dominated by women. However, the number of women in tech has only fallen since then. This is extremely worrying as this is only the case with computer science - the number of women in other STEM fields has risen.
The main reason behind this decline was the rise in popularity of personal computers. These computers were mainly marketed to boys and as most boys grew up with computers. When they got to college, they had more experience working with computers.
Consequently, women fell behind and became outsiders and not much has changed since then.
There is no scientific study that proves that women are in any way inferior to men or don’t have the skills required for programming. By shutting out almost half of the population, we are wasting massive amounts of human potential and missing out on creativity, ideas and a different perspective.
When Apple came out with its health app, it was missing a major feature: a period tracker. While it was probably not their intention to shut out half of their users, this oversight indicates how grave the problem is.
This obviously needs to be changed and to do so, we need to understand the root cause. It has been shown that girls tend to be most enthusiastic about computer science during middle school which means that during high school, their confidence dips and something pushes them away from pursuing computer science in college.
One way we can maintain or generate interest is through showing them all the amazing things that can be created through programming and be encouraging them to create their own projects which will increase their confidence.
Students should also be mentored by female college students so that they can relate and picture themselves as computer scientists and programmers. It is a butterfly effect.
More women in tech will encourage more girls to pursue their interest in tech leading to greater equality in the future.
The infamous Google and Uber incidents have shown us that even Silicon Valley is not immune.
The workforces of the largest tech companies comprise of less than 25% women. At the corporate level, the major reasons for the gender gap are the existence of a wage gap and hostile work environments which are a result of sexism and rampant sexual harassment.
To bridge this gap, companies need to implement women-friendly policies like providing a good amount of maternity and paternity leaves as well as have daycare facilities. It is shocking that even now, many companies don't offer a single day of maternity leave. There also needs to a strict enforcement of sexual harassment policies and companies should periodically conduct diversity workshops to make sure the workplace is a safe and inclusive environment.
It is high time we break down these barriers as having more women in tech is important - not only because women are underrepresented but also because it is good for innovation and hence, better for business.
