Why Aren't There More Women Developers?

But First ....

Jennifer Wadella

@likeOMGitsFEDAY

JavaScript Developer
Community Organizer
Diversity Advocate

Programs I've launched

Goal of this talk:

To explain contributing factors to the lack of women in technology roles.

To empower you to improve diversity in technology workplaces & communities.

History of women in programming.
What happened?
The dark side of tech culture
Current programs helping solve the diversity problem.
How to improve your workplace.
How to attract female candidates.
Importance of mentoring.
How to be an ally.
Resources to learn more.

History of Women in Programming

Ada Lovelace
Grace Hopper
Erna Schnieder Hoover

Ada Lovelace

“The more I study, the more insatiable do I feel my genius for it to be.”

Grace Hopper

“The most dangerous phrase in the language is, "We've always done it this way.”

You hear Grace Hopper's name mentioned a lot for a reason. The woman was a badass.

Grace Hopper was a Vassar College graduate with a BA in mathematics and physics, and upon entering the Navy became the 3rd person to program the Mark 1 computer. Working with computers, Grace theorized more people(read: non-mathmeticians) would be able to use them if they were able to be interacted with an a more humanized, readable way. She created what may be considered the first compiler: FLOW-MATIC, intended to complete tasks like billing and payroll based on english commands. She continued to advocate for human readable programming languages and was paramount in creating validation tools and internation standards for programming languages.

It was hard picking a quote from her, she was a serious badass and said a lot of things that are 100% relevant today

Erna Schnieder Hoover

“I designed the executive program for handling situations when there are too many calls, to keep it operating efficiently without hanging up on itself. Basically it was designed to keep the machine from throwing up its hands and going berserk.”

You may not have heard of Erna Schnieder Hoover, but you may as well call her the mother of telecommunications. Erna was a mathmetician, who when working at Bell Labs, invented the stored program control system, which was one of the first software patents ever recieved.

In the 1950's, when you went to make a phone call, an operator would ask you what number you could like to call, and manually connect you using a switchboard and array of cords, plugs, and switches. Large numbers of incomming calls would overload the switchboards being manually answered by phone operators.

Erna's invention was a computer system that monitored incoming call rates and automatically adjusted call's acceptance rate, largely eliminating overloading problems. This was the first of many computer programs Erna created to improve and maintain the quality of telecom services Bell provided.

Interesting note, Erna's husband, Charles Wilson Hoover, Jr., was extremely supportive of her career, though that was the opposite of desired wife behavior in the 1950's.

And many more ...

Kathleen Booth - ARC assembly in 1950
Kateryna Yushchenko - Address in 1955
Jean Sammet - FORMAC in 1962
Cynthia Solomon - co-created Logo in 1967
Barbara Liskov - CLU in 1974
Adele Goldberg - co-created Smalltalk in 1980
Sophie Wilson - BBC BASIC in 1981

What Happened?

Computers for homes were produced ... and only marketed to boys

RadioShack 1980's Ad

Today: society continues to send the wrong message

Even some of the good engagement attempts are disasterous

Mattel has since pulled this book from shelves.

Fortunately, you can rewrite this book via Feminist Hacker Barbie

tl;dr: girls are being told the exact OPPOSITE from boys when it comes to exploring STEM.

The Trouble With Bright Girls

“Bright girls believe that their abilities are innate and unchangeable, while bright boys believe that they can develop ability through effort and practice.”

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-science-success/201101/the-trouble-bright-girls

One of the best articles I've ever read is called "The Trouble with Bright Girls". The article discusses the research of psychologist Carol Dweck, who investigated how bright 5th grade boys and girls handled difficult and confusing new material. The results were troubling - the higher the girl's IQ, the more quickly she gave up, where as boys were energized by the challenge and would increase their efforts.

Bright girls believe that their abilities are innate and unchangeable, while bright boys believe that they can develop ability through effort and practice.

The likely cause is the way they have been spoken to as children. Girls mature more quickly, are more discipline, and feedback praises them for being good, well-behaved, pretty, intelligent. Boys, who are often more rambunctious are encouraged to "try harder", instead of being praised for already attained skills.

This feedback loop is dangerous, because girls believe their attributes they are praised for are innate, therefor unable to change. Boys, on the otherhand learn to simply work harder.

This article BLEW MY MIND. I was a bright girl. I was praised for my intelligence. I breezed through AP level courses, and wasn't challenged until I got to college. I began flunking econ, was constantly bawling on the phone to my mother about my own incompetence, unable to understand why I wasn't smart enough.

Technology is a very intelligent field, filled with very intelligent people. Except most of those people are men, and as a women who's been praised for intelligence instead of the ability to improve, it's easy to fall prey to the idea that we're not smart enough to be there.

Dark side of Tech Culture Being Revealed

2.19.17 Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber
6.30.17 Women in Tech Speak Frankly on Culture of Harassment
7.01.17 Sorry I'm a Creep
8.05.17 Google Manifesto
9.23.17 Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far
9.29.17 These Women Entrepreneurs Created A Fake Male Cofounder To Dodge Startup Sexism

Current Issues:

Kate Heddleston - How our engineering environments are killing diversity (and how we can fix it).

Current programs tackling the diversity imbalance in tech.

@LaunchCoderGirl

CoderGirl is a LaunchCode Education program that is designed to engage and educate women in the technology community in St. Louis. It is a year-long tech training program consisting of two 6-month cycles: a learning cycle and a project cycle.

@sheplusplus

SHE++ is a social enterprise that empowers women to make their mark on the technology industry. We believe that when women are equally represented in technology development, we accelerate innovation for those who need it most.

@girldevelopit

Girl Develop It is a nonprofit organization that exists to provide affordable and judgment-free opportunities for women interested in learning web and software development. Through in-person classes and community support, Girl Develop It helps women of diverse backgrounds achieve their technology goals and build confidence in their careers and their every day lives.

@girlswhocode

Girls Who Code programs work to inspire, educate, and equip girls with the computing skills to pursue 21st century opportunities.

@blackgirlscode

Black Girls Code's vision is to increase the number of women of color in the digital space by empowering girls of color ages 7 to 17 to become innovators in STEM fields, leaders in their communities, and builders of their own futures through exposure to computer science and technology.

@Hackbright

Hackbright Academy is the leading software engineering school for women founded in San Francisco in 2012. The academy graduates more female engineers than Stanford and UC Berkeley each year.

@pyladies

Pyladies is an international mentorship group with a focus on helping more women become active participants and leaders in the Python open-source community. Our mission is to promote, educate and advance a diverse Python community through outreach, education, conferences, events and social gatherings.

@ncwit

National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) is a non-profit community of more than 600 universities, companies, non-profits, and government organizations nationwide working to increase women’s participation in computing and technology. NCWIT equips change leaders with resources for taking action in recruiting, retaining, and advancing women from K–12 and higher education through industry and entrepreneurial careers.

@anitaborg_org

The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing is the World's Largest Gathering of Women Technologists. It is produced by the Anita Borg Institute and presented in partnership with ACM.

How to improve your workplace.

https://hbr.org/2013/09/women-rising-the-unseen-barriers

Have women in leadership roles

http://www.slideshare.net/mboyt/women-drive-growth-infographic-33512498

Develop a mentorship program

http://chronus.com/how-to-start-a-mentoring-program

Create a diversity support group

Watch your 'wage gap'

http://www.aauw.org/2015/04/14/women-shortchanged-in-stem/

Place Importance on Pair Programming

Have a (Good) Process for Code Reviews

Revise Your HR Policy

Include what to do in case of harassment
Define workplace bullying
Review maternity/paternity/adoption leave
Rethink your "unlimited time off"
Look into flex time
Include community service time for employees

Most HR policies define what harassment is, but may not have great advice about what to do in case of harassment. Make sure yours is current, and your team is equipt to handle ANY situation.

Bullying is left out of most HR policies, because bullying may not look like harassment, but the effects can be just as, if not moreso detrimental. Research has shown that workplace not only affects the victims, but those witnessing it have reported loss of productivity, up to 60%.

A starting definition: "Workplace bullying refers to repeated, unreasonable actions of individuals (or a group) directed towards an employee (or a group of employees), which are intended to intimidate, degrade, humiliate, or undermine; or which create a risk to the health or safety of the employee(s)."

It's no lie that US employers SUCK at maternity leave. They suck worse at paternity leave. C-sections. adoption. Jacob's story.

Unlimited time off. Great in theory, bad in practice.

Flex time is a variable work schedule. We know the typical developer flex time, it's usually in high gear around midnight. But that doesn't work for all of us.

VML community service day

DO NOT minimize complaints/concerns of women

Almost all of us have a Susan Fowler story

Omaha Code School - Safe & Inclusive events.

Geek Feminism Timeline of Incident

How to attract female candidates.

I WANT to hire female developers. Where are they?

Silicon Valley, Season 2, Ep 4 "The Lady"

How to attract female candidates: take 2

Revamp your job descriptions.
Your employees are your best ambassadors.
Look at what Etsy did.
Sponsor meetups and groups that support women in tech.
Don't postition her to be the 'token female'

Importance of Mentoring

Helps to integrate women(anyone) into company
Helps retain women.
Provides opportunity for growth for all parties involved
Help in all areas: career development, company, industry, profession, work/life integration ...

Types of Mentoring

Formal - via structured program
Informal(Organic)
Peer
Situational
Supervisory

How to Encourage Mentoring

Develop relationship of trust.
Define roles & responsibilities.
Establish goals for relationship

How to be an Ally

Listen.
Understand internalized sexism & racism.
Help change the narrative.
Stop making excuses for poor behavior.
Report Incidents.
Don't be a "cool girl".

Just listen

Dear tech dudes, stop being so dumb about women

Understand internalized sexism & racism

Internalized sexism is taking in and believing the stereotypes and misinformation that our sexist culture tells us about being female and what it means to be a woman, resulting in e.g. “What do I know…” , “Who am I to speak…” - Janet Thomas (BREAKFREE): THEORY AND THOUGHTS.

Help Change the Narrative

#BlackWomenAtWork

Stop making excuses for poor behavior

This thread by Trey Hunner 😍

Report Incidents.

The Missing Stair

"Oh yeah, I almost forgot to tell you, there's a missing step on the unlit staircase with no railings. But it's okay because we all just remember to jump over it."
Some people are like that missing stair.