Women in Tech, By the Numbers:
Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Population Survey, 2011; Dow Jones VentureSource, 2011.
Percent of U.S. technology jobs held by women25
Percent of women executives at U.S. venture-backed startups7
Percent of U.S. professional occupations held by women
57
Percent of U.S. software developers who are women19
Women Correlate with Success.
Analysis of more than 20,000 venture-backed companies
showed that successful startups have twice as many women in senior
positions as unsuccessful companies.
Dow Jones VentureSource, 2011.
Women Help You Grow.Tech companies with women have been shown to use 40 percent less capital and be more likely to survive the transition from startup to established company.
Cindy Padnos, Illuminate Ventures: "High Performance Entrepreneurs: Women in High-Tech," 2010.
Women Improve ROI.Tech companies with the highest representation of women in their management teams have a 34% higher return on investment than those with few or no women.
Catalyst. (2004). The bottom line: Connecting corporate performance and gender diversity.
Women Improve Innovation.The presence of women in a group is more likely to increase the collective intelligence (problem-solving ability, creativity) of the group than the presence of individuals with higher intelligence.
“Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups,” Science October 2010, Woolley, Chabris, Pentland, Hashmi and Malone.
Women Enhance Teams.
Scott Page, The difference: How the power of diversity creates better groups, firms, schools, and societies, Princeton University Press, 2009.
Groups with greater diversity solve complex problems better and faster than homogenous groups.
Women Are 50% of the Population.
"We simply cannot afford to alienate large chunks of the workforce. It is a
widely understood truth that the single biggest challenge is attracting the right people … to literally handicap yourself
by 50 percent is insanity.” - Dan Shapiro, Google
The Selection (and Self-selection) Problem.
Lack of encouragement and confidence Lack of mentors and professional development Lack of good supervisory relationships Lack of clear paths to promotion Lack of support for competing life responsibilities
Unconscious bias
What Is Unconscious Bias?
We all have shortcuts, “schemas” that help us
make sense of the world. But our shortcuts
sometimes make us misinterpret things.
That’s unconscious bias.
Example: White male engineering students
score lower when told in advance that Asians
typically score higher on math tests
Source: Aronson, et al., 1999; Steele & Aronson, 1998
Unconscious Bias Is Stereotype Threat.
Unconscious Bias Is Micro-inequities.
» Slights: “You’re the receptionist, right?”
» Exclusion: “Oops, I forgot to cc her on the email about stock options.”
» Recognition: “No, I’m pretty sure it was Tom’s idea, not Jane’s, to use a link algorithm.”
» Isolation: “Dude, let’s grab a beer!”
JohnDoe Jane
Doe
Unconscious Bias in Performance Appraisal.
Moss-Racusin, Dovidio, Brescoll, Graham, and Handelsman: "Science faculty’s subtle gender biases favor male students," Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2012. 109: 16474-16479.
Identical resumes. Gendered names.
Reviewers (of both genders) strongly favor Howard in skills, hireability, and salary.
“Blind” orchestra auditions, with musicians behind a curtain, increased the number of female musicians hired by 25% to 46% percent.
Goldin & Rouse (2000) The American Economic Review, 90(4), 715-741.
Unconscious Bias in Hiring.
Change Your Status Quo. Select for Diversity.
Screen out bias. Provide encouragement and reinforcement. Provide mentors and professional development. Build good supervisors. Define clear paths to promotion. Support competing life responsibilities.
1) Invite diversity. Use diverse networks, not just your status quo networks, to recruit.
2) Include a woman, and a pile sort, in your job interviews.
3) Remove biased language from job descriptions.
4) Audit your physical space for gender-neutral vibes.
5) If you’re a man, be a male advocate.
5 Things You Can Do Now.
2) Include a Woman, and a Pile Sort, in Job Interviews.
Pile sort: www.ncwit.org/interviewstrategies
3) Remove Biased Language from Job Descriptions.
“Startups and Job Advertisements,” Aaron Kay, PhD: http://ww2.ncwit.org/pdf/A.Kay_JobPostings_EAmtg12.pdf; http://vimeo.com/46501265
CONFIDENT OBJECTIVE DECISIVE ANALYTICAL AUTONOMOUS DOMINANT
4) Audit Your Physical Space for Gender-neutral Vibes.
(Cheryan, S., Plaut, V., Davies, P., & Steele, C. (2009). Ambient belonging: How stereotypical cues impact gender participation in computer science. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(6), 1045-1060; http://www.ncwit.org/physicalspaceuw
5) If You’re a Man, Be a Male Advocate.
http://www.ncwit.org/resources/read-online-maleadvocate
NCWIT is the National Center for Women & Information Technology
Our coalition includes more than 250 universities, corporations, and non-profits.
We Can Help.
Supervisory Program-in-a-Box Series
Top 5 Reasons You Should Work at a Startup
Top Ten Ways to Be a Male Advocate for Technical Women
Top 10 Ways Managers Can Increase the Visibility of Technical Women
We’ve Got Free, Researched Tools.