Transcript​

Welcome to the celebrate brave podcast. 

I’m Nicole Trick Steinbach, your host, and the international bravery coach. On a mission to redefine brave. How we identify it, live it, and most importantly, celebrate it. Because when you build your brave, you change your world and that changes the world. Talk about something to celebrate. Let’s go.

Hello brave people. I’m going to rant today. Warning I’m ranting today.

Topic: Women in tech and the bullshit we deal with.Inspiration: 1,000,000,002 articles, interviews in English and Spanish and German. Those are the only three languages I can read. I’m sure that there’s 13 billion data points, articles, interviews, podcasts, conversations in many other languages about how 2020, global pandemic and the broken infrastructure of the tech culture has impacted women all over the world.

Y’all it’s rant time. Some basics; in just one year women across the globe have estimated to have lost over 800 billion. That’s with a B y’all. 800 billion in direct reported income. I want you to take a step back and I want you to think about people who are day laborers. People who are paid in cash. People who survive on tips, people who work in the direct economy rather than the taxed economy. There’s a lot of information out there about what that might be. It’s estimated that it is four times larger than the taxed economy. Just for women. In one year around the world, we lost in direct taxed economy; $800 billion in income. For the direct economy they’re estimating that it’s four times that. Wonder why I’m ranting?. 

In over 98 countries over 64 million jobs were reported lost. Now that’s 5% of jobs around the world and I want to stress again, this is for the taxed reported economy, but here’s the thing. 5% may sound small until you’re part of that 5%, but also men, it was less than 4% globally. And this is across all industries. And this is the result and there’s tons of data out there. This is the result of a broken society infrastructure that divides people based on gender, RATHER, rather than our strengths. Because men are also losing out in this situation okay. Not directly in money and in jobs, but they’re losing out in a connection and living into their strengths. And being celebrated for that. And women are as well. And it impacts us even more because why did so many women lose their jobs? Well, they’re considered less important by our societies? Number one, again, the data’s all out there. And number two, because where does the caregiving and the quote-unquote soft skills.

They’re not soft guys. People. They’re not soft. They’re interpersonal they’re caregiving. And these are the most important things that we have in the world. Is tech great?. Yeah, tech is fantastic. Are cars great? Yeah, a hundred percent. Engineering bring it on! give me some science. Gimme some amazing building on RNA research. That’s from a Hungarian woman who lost everything started this in the eighties was never taken seriously. And now her research is going to save millions and millions and millions of lives. . Math!. Yes. We need some math. Help me make sense of the world? Yes. Okay. It’s important. However, You don’t feel loved, appreciated, safe, connected. Does that matter? When you’re in a diaper either early in life or end of life and you have a great computer, does that really matter? So the work that has been assigned to us as women is more important, and yet we do not value it. In fact, until today in most parts of the world, we don’t even track the value to the economy of typically female work of caregiving. Think about how massive, how massive the exchange could be. If we were tracking the value of that work.

If we were appreciating it and we were encouraging anybody who felt pulled to that to do it, my goodness. And this isn’t even my rant. This is not even my rant.

Because here’s my rant or actually closer to my rant. Trust radius. Just put out a very focused report. Now, trust radius, they do these pretty focused surveys and it’s part online as part conversation, they have structured questions and then through data mining and follow up, they actually make additional insights. And so this is a small group of people it’s only 450, very, very, very small, however, If you go and, you look at catalyst, you go in, you look at Anita B. You go, and you look at the tech professional organizations. They’re going to have older research with way more data points that let’s say it, correlates with what we have here with this fast, small, global survey of 450 tech professionals. 

Now over 60% of these 450 identified as women. And I want to stress that women, everybody who identifies as a woman, here we go. Some key aspects. We all know we were severely impacted. I just covered the global numbers. It’s just the same for tech. Secondly women, we still carry more of what they call household. What I call societal needs. We still carry more of that pressure. Number three, the impact of remote work isn’t experienced by all women the same. I would say it’s probably true for men as well. Number four, this is not surprising Bro-culture, bro-culture. We deal with that every damn day. Number five we’re wildly outnumbered. Number six, we’re paid less. We have to prove our worth. Number seven. We face way more barriers to promotion. Way more. Number eight, gender equality, not equity y’all. Equality is perceived to not have changed. And then where my rant comes in; five things companies should do to support women in tech. 

57% of women feel burnt out at work, according to this limited report, again, larger reports are out there and they point to the same. Even before the pandemic. Twice as many women in tech have lost their jobs than men in tech. 42% of women say they took on most of the household work during the pandemic. This is in comparison with only 11% of men. When we look at cross-industry reports, those numbers are very low for women taking on most of the household work and very high for men who reported that they did. So here’s the thing when 72% of women in tech in this report say that bro-culture remains pervasive. Bro-culture is misogyny. Bro-culture is sexual harassment, not being taken seriously, dismissing, disregarding, ignoring the contributions of women, promoting those that are alike, rather than those who are inclusive, those who are bringing value, prioritizing an experience that is their own. Straight white male primarily versus humbly, including everyone. And that’s just a start y’all when 72% of women say, Hey, this is still pervasive in our industry. And women are still wildly outnumbered. 78% feel that they have to work even harder to show their value. I think that number is low.

And over 60% of women say that there is no clear path forward. And I will say by my lived experience this year, I have had more conversations with more women in tech who’ve been told that after a stellar 2020, they’re not getting a promotion. And then they see someone who looks, sounds and acts like the executive of that company. Again, straight white male get promoted. 60% with no clear path forward seems really low. And y’all, this is for women inclusive. We know that our sisters who are black and brown and our trans sisters, you know, it’s way harder for them. We also know that we white women, we got, we got to pull our stuff together. Cause here’s our rant. 

When all of that data is real, again, small report, but there are much larger reports out there. The data’s older, it doesn’t reflect the pandemic. It gets out there. When the five things are; offer equal maternity and paternity leave because you know, every woman wants to be a parent. Conduct, unconscious bias training. Proof is out there, training doesn’t lead to sustained change. It’s a nice beginning. Number three, offer flexible scheduling and location because you know, the social needs housework, quote-unquote, that falls on us so we need the flexibility, right? Number four, provide mentoring opportunities because being told how to do it better like a bro is exactly what we need. And number five, promote more women in leadership. Okay. I’m not going to rant about that one because yeah. More women, more women of color, more black women, more brown women, more indigenous women from wherever we are in the world. More trans women. Yes!. Okay. I’m not going to rant about that one.

When the answer is help women become more inside of a system that’s broken by assuming we all want to be parents, assuming that we just need to be told they’re mentoring how to be more like a bro. Assuming that only we need flexible scheduling and location. Although I guess the report really doesn’t say that, but the language around it definitely does when we are presented with, Hey, these are the five things guess what we’re doing? We’re strengthening the acceptance of a broken infrastructure, a broken society, a broken set of assumptions. What’s actually needed? What’s that actually needed. Let’s talk about gravity. So we talked about a glass ceiling. I’m not always super excited about this metaphor, but let’s go with it because what do we actually need?

Okay. Glass ceiling. So in the glass ceiling metaphor. Women are below it. We are below it. The ceiling is made of glass. We can look through it, but we can’t get through it because it’s made of glass and above it, we can see in our industry, the vast majority are straight white men. Bros. Mentoring, leave, unconscious training, flexibility, promote like force a few more women through that ceiling. That’s great. It is so hard to work against gravity. Guess who could work with gravity? That’s right. The people above the ceiling. That is correct. So if we’re over here with the shine theory and we’re working together and we’re lifting each other up and we’re with our chisels of excellence, our chisels of results, and we are poking against that glass ceiling. Gravity is not on our side. Guess who could just remove the whole damn thing.? The people in power. So what should tech companies do to support women in tech? Create a new success criteria for the people in power. Create new processes that demand recruiting from different universities. Stop going to the same five, primarily white male universities. Enough! 

For a lot of positions, you need experience. You don’t need a university degree. Stop. When you do interviewing, panel it, make sure you’re asking similar questions and you’re comparing apples and apples remove names from the resume. These are just some concepts, but the need! Wow. I’m getting real fired up. The need is to address the system. Not the individual woman, the system. And if you’re going to address anybody individually, address the guys above the glass ceiling. Demote them when they dismiss people, hold them accountable for their bias, make them behave differently during promotions and hiring by setting up systems that empower them and hold them accountable to behave differently.

When I was in a hiring position, I noticed after the first round that everyone was like me, 60% is good enough let’s go. Inspiration move, action bias, extroverted talkative, sometimes charismatic. Think about a team of just me’s. That makes no sense. We need the people who are way more detail-oriented. We need the people who are introverted. We need the people who aren’t action biased. They’re the exact opposite. So what did I do it? Well, first I complained. I moaned and complained. Let’s be real. Number two. I did some research. I asked some questions, I had uncomfortable conversations, and I finally found someone who had from the outside, at least an incredibly diverse team and incredible team made of all these very different skills, personalities, backgrounds, et cetera. And they were killing it. And I managed to get a slot with the executive. And I asked him, and this was a straight white end of middle age guy. And I said to him, Hey, I’m in my first hiring position. I keep getting these shortlists. I keep wanting to hire the person that’s like me. I know that that’s not what my team needs. Do you have any advice, perspective, insight, et cetera? He said to me, it all starts with your shortlist. Never accept a shortlist from HR recruiting. That you feel is wonky. Never accept a shortlist and you see they’re all from these American Ivy leads or from Oxford or whatever. There are amazing universities in Australia and South Africa and Sydney in Japan, et cetera. They’re just not coming into my head right now. 

Don’t accept the shortlist. Don’t even reach out to those people. Don’t say, yes. Tell HR, I need this, this, this, and this. Do not send me the same stuff, make them work. Now for all y’all HR recruiters I know you work and I know you’re fulfilling the client needs. I know that there’s too few of you and I know that you’re under pressure and here’s the deal you’re going to work for me. And you’re going to be a part of shifting the system when the expectations to you change. And if I have to drive that as the hiring manager or the system needs to drive it for you whatevs, but it has to change.

That is what women in tech need. That is what everyone in tech needs. Tech needs to remove these broken systems that continue to lead to the same damn results. The results that exclude people. The results that keep creating products and software that don’t help. They hurt us. You know, someone was recently talking about, oh, climate change, we need to, we’re all about climate change. Do you know what they’re doing? They’re tracking the output of how much you negatively impact the climate. It’s about water. Is that important? Sure. Is there with a quick Google search, 15 other products that do very similar things? Yes. AppleWatch originally went out with all these health functions. No period tracking. You want to know about my health? Guess what question I get asked the first thing or the second thing? Every single time I go to the doctor. When was your last menstruation? Why? Because it tells you a lot about my health. So you’re going to have a health tracker and health watch, and it’s not going to include menstruation and guess how many there are of them, hundreds. Why? Because the systems of tech, they don’t need extra leaves. Although I’ll tell you, man, maternity and paternity leave should be fricking mandatory, but that’s not going to change the system. We don’t need unconscious bias training. We need accountability for hiring, promoting, listening, investing, designing, implement all of it for tech, all of it.!

So. Trust radius this is not a rant against you. I’m very grateful for the work that you do. I hope that you continue to do it. I doubt you’re listening, but I do want to offer this into the world. And when the question is flawed, when we are under so much stress. That we can’t envision a new world. We can only envision incremental change that will support the pain, reduce the pain of right now, the answers will be flawed as well. The question is how do we establish a tech industry that elevates everyone. And the answer has to include, we change the people in power. Because the people in power can remove that ceiling at every single moment. I want to hear from you guys. I want to hear from you ladies, how can we together reimagine, revolutionize. The industry that we’re in, that we love so much, and that has so much potential. I want to hear from you. Let’s shine together

Bye. 

Thank you for listening to this episode of the celebrate brave podcast.

If you’re ready to build your brave, to live a life you love, and create a career that matters to you. Reach out! Together we can spend time one-on-one to explore how I can help you. And until then share this episode with people in your life. People who can join our movement. To redefine brave how we identify it, experience it, and celebrate it.