Read:15 | Diversity & Inclusion
Article: Silicon Valley Gender Gap Results
Resource: Review the Data
Article: Why Diversity Matters
The Gender Gap (notes from Silicon Valley Gender Gap Results)
- 70% of employees at top tech companies in Silicon Valley are male
- In 1984, 37% CS graduates were female but by 2016 it was only 18%
- Though growth is high in tech right now, females won’t have same opportunity for job placement due to citing poor enrollment in CS programs and graduation rates in tech of women
- A primary suspect for this is in the 1980’s computing was marketed for gaming and things like the Apple personal computer were marketed specifically to boys which gave rise to the male computing culture
- When the video game industry tried to rebuild their market they targeted mostly boys, making computing and easier jump for males
Quote from article: “It’s no coincidence that the console touted to have saved the industry was called a “Game Boy.”
- There is also an “experience” gap that shows up when testing into AP CS classes. 40% of males pass into this skipping intro classes but no women passed and surprisingly women felt that couldn’t keep up so women were opting out of computer related courses early
- So far data shows a third of women in tech qill quic within the first year due to lack of female role models and never feeling included
Why Divsierty Matters
- “Diversity efforts are most successful when they’re driven by a commitment from company leaders” - article
- Then it requires leaders to udnerstand why diversity matters to them
- It’s said diverse teams are smarter because different people bring different ways of seeing a problem which can create better ways of solving it
- Research is slowly finding that companies perform better with strong female representation
- Sadly, companies are missing out on this because of the natural biases and life experiences that result in todays referral networks
- Divsierty does a better job at serving a user base because when employees better represent their users (or a wide range of user types) then the products become more effective for those groups
In a nutshell: Walker & Company CEO Tristan Walker recently observed: “If more black people were building features or striking partnerships at Twitter, perhaps they’d have a great idea for more effectively engaging black users.”