Adriana Gascoigne* says men need to do more to support women and help them rise to leadership in the tech industry.
Image: Peshkov
Back in 2006, I was recruited to spearhead marketing at an online video start-up.
The company was truly cutting edge — but not when it came to gender relations.
The harassment kicked off as soon as I received my company-issued laptop, and the inappropriate emails started pouring in.
- You smell good.
- I love what you’re wearing. Your ass looks great in that.
- What are you doing tonight?
Things went downhill from there.
I needed a support system, but there wasn’t any obvious way to find other women like me working in Silicon Valley.
So, I did what any entrepreneur does when she stumbles upon a problem with no solution: I set out to create one.
Girls in Tech had humble origins as a one-time networking event, but from that very first night, it was clear that we were on to something.
Women in tech needed to connect.
Today, we are a global community with more than 100,000 members in 32 countries.
But maddeningly, little has changed when it comes to working conditions for women in tech, as we’ve seen in the last couple of years.
What happens at the likes of Uber and Zenefits doesn’t happen everywhere, but it is way too common.
Men hire who they know.
They hire people they have relationships with already.
They hire people their buddies recommend and trust.
By the way, who doesn’t do this?
Women certainly do.
This is something we all do, and we can’t knock men for it, but there’s a cycle in progress.
It’s tough for women to hop on the merry-go-round once it’s in motion.
I know a lot of people — men and women — in positions of power who tell me all the time, “I want to hire more women. But where are they?”
There is an undeniable talent pipeline challenge.
Women are fighting for jobs at the leadership level, but there just aren’t enough women with the skills to truly compete for the open positions.
Tech roles are and will always be in high demand.
Everyone is looking for reliable engineers, talented UX folks, rock-star product managers.
But there aren’t enough women who are willing and able to fill them right now.
A few changes will help to fix this issue, developments that are already under way.
One, we need more women in leadership positions.
Women at the top can pull in other women and help to lift them up.
We also need men to lift women up.
We need men at the top to step up and take on a new challenge.
If they don’t know talent that fits their bill, I challenge them — why don’t you?
Why haven’t you stepped beyond your comfort zone and expanded your network?
To these men, I want to say, look for women.
Make it your mission.
Post your job in places you wouldn’t otherwise post it.
Let your network know that you’re in the business of supporting people from all backgrounds at your organisation.
And don’t discount your internal talent.
It’s critical that you build your own internal talent pipeline and send that elevator back down.
You may look around your organisation and dismiss the people you have available to you.
But give those beneath you the respect of having the conversation first.
You might be surprised by what you learn about your team’s experience or who comes forward to express passion about moving into tech once you lay out the welcome mat.
And yes, we need to rebuild the population of women who are eligible to take on these positions.
Some people don’t want to hear this, but there’s an obvious population difference.
It needs to be fixed.
Somewhere in the 1980s, women started dropping out of STEM programs.
Somewhere along the line, they were told they did not belong there.
They came to a lecture hall and found themselves the only female.
They were doubted; they were pulled aside and told they may feel more comfortable in art classes; they were assumed to need extra help studying for that course; they were whistled at.
They were spoken down to; they weren’t called upon; they had their thighs grabbed underneath the tables; they didn’t have support at home; their parents persuaded them to study humanities instead; they were told they were too pretty.
These women were overlooked, dismissed.
They were told they should focus on meeting a man and getting married; they were told they’d make a great teacher or a wonderful cook.
They opened their high school and university textbooks to pages filled with men in lab coats.
They had men come to guest lecture the class.
Their future became blurred, and over time they struggled to see themselves in it.
They lost sight of what they wanted and who they thought they were.
I know this.
Because I’ve spoken to enough women — women who persevered through this — to know.
These stories are real.
These things happened, and they still happen.
But they need to stop.
We need more women in tech.
* Adriana Gascoigne is the founder of Girls in Tech and author of Tech Boss Lady: How to Start-Up, Disrupt, & Thrive as a Female Founder.
This article first appeared at parade.com.
