Essay Sample on Women in Tech Industry

Introduction

The tech industry is one of the most promising sectors, not just in the United States but also for the rest of the world. The industry has realized significant growth for close to a century. The information age has allowed the tech industry to have exponential growth as more people dedicate themselves to pursuing careers in the tech industry. The tech industry has created an image of progressive ideas that challenge old establishments. As a result, when one thinks of the tech industry, he or she imagines a group of people who do not hesitate to explore new grounds and create new ideas. They break old rules including those that prevented various sections of the population from gaining access to specific opportunities. While that may true, the trend of progressive thinking in the tech industry seems to weaken when it comes to women. Despite the recent push to increase the number of women working in the technology industry, the status of the women in the industry is still below what should be.

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The historical context of women in information technology positions is not impressive. The tech industry wrote women out of production from as early as the Second World War. According to Brewer (2017), women played an important role in computing, starting from the Second World War to the 1960s. But as history would have it, they eventually became sidelined as computers gained more importance and prominence in the world. Brewer describes a situation where women operated room-sized electromechanical computers that cracked codes worked out military logistics and made ballistic calculations during second world war (Brewer, 2017). Women formed the largest trained technical workforce during the second world war, and the trend continued to the 1960s. Although their work was critical, they received typist level salaries and almost no promotion whatsoever. That is what made women preferable for the tech industry. Despite the fact they were highly trained, they didn't expect to be provided with any career ladder or demand for higher compensation. Computer operations were highly feminized. It would be unmanly for a male member of society to work in the information technology industry. However, during the 1970s, civil rights movements started calling for fair compensations and opportunities for women and all of a sudden the women workforce lost its appeal. It was expected that a woman's career would be kept short because of marriage and children and therefore could not commit to the company for a long time. Managers began replacing the women with men, paid them better salaries and gave them better job titles. The sidelining of women had some profound effects on the industry and the overall economy. The tech industry in some countries such as Britain lost its edge. By the time, the tech industry started to try and bring in men into the tech industry; they were reluctant because the jobs in information technology had been feminized (Brewer, 2017). The male members of the society preferred to go for alternative career paths, and that caused labor shortages in the industry. Also, there is no arguing that had the trade not sidelined women, then the scope and quality of software and other products in the industry would have been better. The industry missed out on significant talent by sidelining half of the available workforce. The system is not very different today.

Giant companies such as Google have been accused of systematically underpaying their female employees. In May of 2017, the company argued that it would be too much of a financial hustle to provide the salary data requested by the US Department of labor. Tech companies still perceive the underpaying of women as lucrative. The male manifesto that came out in the year 2017 put a Silicon Valley company in trouble when the author criticized the industry's diversity initiatives (Brewer, 2017). According to the author, Silicon Valley was assigning more managerial roles to men at the expense of women, due to what they term as biological differences (Brewer, 2017). It appears the current companies in information technology are still benefiting from the precedence set forth by their predecessors. Had women not been sidelined from the tech industry, then the sector would have been very different from how it looks today. It would appear that women continue to be victims of heteronormative cultural baggage. Employers continue to use the biological makeup and the gender roles created by society as a tool for discriminating against women. These factors have led to the underrepresentation of women in the tech industry.

The underrepresentation of women in the tech industry is backed up by real numbers. According to Garnett (2016), women make up for only 30 percent of the workforce across major tech companies despite accounting for 59% of the total workforce in the United States. That 30 percent consists of those occupying roles such as HR and marketing in tech companies. When one decides to narrow down on those fulfilling tech jobs, the number of women falls below 20 percent. Google has the highest number of women doing tech jobs at 17%. Companies such as Twitter only manage 10 percent. The figures become disproportional when it comes to those occupying managerial roles. But it would be unfair to look at the percentage of the workforce without factoring in the ration of women trained for information technology jobs. The root of the problem stems from the education sector. According to Conwey, Ellingrud, Nowski, & Renee (2018), only 23 percent of high school Advanced placement computer-science takers are women. Additionally, women only account for 19 percent of bachelor's computer and information science degree recipients. The problem, therefore, comes from the lack of women trained in computer science. That means that driving up the number of women workers in IT would require the need to increase their presence in tech-related courses in higher learning institutions.

That brings up the question of what could be responsible for the low uptake rate of tech-related courses among women. The answer can be found in the historical context of women in the tech industry. In the 1970s women were beginning to get equal access to education and employment opportunities. However, it was the male members of the society that were encouraged to study engineering and other science subjects (Black, 2019). It was a common sight to see the only computer in classrooms being monopolized by the boys. So when the computer and software industry took off in the 1980s, it was the boys who were best positioned to take up jobs in the industry because they had been studying math and science. Furthermore, the marketing narrative told the story of a device geared towards meeting the needs of men such as gaming, as computers began to be sold to individual homesteads. It appears that women bought into that narrative of geek male coder, and started taking less interest in computer science and other tech fields. Women say they are discouraged from pursuing careers in the tech industry because of the laddish bro-gamer culture imported from college campuses (Black, 2019). Even today, boys are still more likely to choose science and math subjects compared to women. A Standford study done in 2007 revealed that women are less likely to enter a field that they feel outnumbered or that they don't belong. Unfortunately, the trend doesn't seem to be getting better. The number of women taking computer science courses has been steadily dropping since the 1980s when it was at its peak. In 1984, the number of women receiving computer science degrees stood at 34 percent. The figure has since declined to slightly under 20 percent. That means that if the trend continues, women are less likely to continue being involved in the tech industry.

However, the disparity doesn't stop in the learning. Garnett (2016) indicates that of the 19 percent of women who receive computer and information science degrees, an astonishing 40 percent of them either don't enter the field at all or quit soon after joining it. It would appear that there is not enough motivation for women to take up careers in the tech industry. Among these reasons is the pay gap. About 63 percent of the time, women in the tech industry are offered a lower starting salary than that of their male counterparts (Carter, 2017). On average, they receive 4 percent less pay than their male counterparts to accomplish the same roles. The numbers may differ by as much as 50 percent in some companies. A report by the website Hired indicated that the main reason for the earning differences between men and women in Information Technology is the use of previous pay as a determinant of current salary (Carter, 2017). There tends to be an unconscious bias in the tech industry that places women at a disadvantage. When candidates are interviewing for a new job position, the employer tends to use the previous salary as a measure of current pay for the employee. Therefore, the payment differentials continue from their prior job regardless of whether the candidates held a tech-related position or not. If employers had chosen to use the market rate for the individual's skills and experience as a determinant of salary, then the compensation would have been fair because everybody would be getting rewarded based on their qualifications.

The number of women occupying managerial roles is low because there are few women-owned companies. For example, women-owned companies in New York can only secure 17 percent of the venture funding (Garnett, 2016). In Silicon Valley, the numbers drop to as low s 10 percent. Despite the push for more funding for female tech entrepreneurs, nine out every 10 dollars of startup money goes to tech companies that are run by men. Once again, one cannot solely base their argument on that number because he or she has to consider the portion of startups run by men compared to that of women. As expected, women have lesser participation when it comes to tech startups. That reflects an issue of confidence. There seems to be a confidence crisis in the tech industry where not only employers but investors as well have less faith in women. The venture capitalist doesn't think women can produce the same result as the men in the tech industry. When the issue is analyzed at an individual level, the confidence crisis resembles the suspicion that women receive a few years into their careers. In the early stages of employment, the employers are unsure of the capabilities of their new female employees, but their confidence level grows as they spend more time with them. It doesn't help for the future career prospects when one has to start from a lower ground than the rest. Women in tech industry explain feeling like they are more likely to be the head of their companies compared to the person sitting next to them during the early years of their career. However, after five years that confidence level has dropped down to sixty percent Chadha, 2016). The confidence level has been eroded by continually being ignored for a promotion, and continuously being left out of lunch invitations when all the male engineers are being invited. Additionally, there is hesitation among women in the workplace to make decisions. Women feel like they have more to prove and would, therefore, overthink or hesitate when it comes to decision making. All these add up to influence women's experiences in the workplace. But the blame does not entirely rest on their male counterparts. According to Chadha (2016), the confidence crisis that women face is part...