Where Are They
This conversation is somewhat different from minorities in tech discussion primarily because women actually do make up 50% of people and also slightly over 50% of college graduates. So as opposed to the whole "there are not enough" story you might read elsewhere, this is pretty cut and dry.
As a tall only-mildly-obese cis hetero (straight) upper-middle/lower-upper class white hyper-passing middle-aged man, I believe I am in striking distance of being the most privileged of all Americans. In case "hyper-passing" is new to you, it means that I can fit in almost anywhere caucasian. I can sit down with Italians, they think I might be Italian. Greeks, French, English, Spanish, Turkish, Argentinian, Venezuelan, various Eastern European nations, a few former Soviet ones, and I'm just naming the ones I've actually heard from folks. Jews and Arabs too tend to give me the benefit of the doubt (unless they are from the Middle East, then they know for sure which I am and which I am not). It has meant the world of difference in my life compared to someone who is decidedly in or out of a group.
I share that only to illustrate that women in tech started out as something obvious, expected, common - Margaret Hamilton, Grace Hopper, Kathleen Booth, Lynn Conway, Elizabeth Feinler, and Hedy Lamarr just to name a few. But in the 80s, a "bro" culture emerged. The kind of attitude that would foster the likes of Travis Kalanick and Adam Neumann to exist and create toxic cultures at their companies. The kind of attitude that make women, rightfully so, avoid the industry altogether. The exact opposite of what I described above. Instead of blending in with everyone, women are often singled out for being, by the self-fulfilling prophecy of the bro culture, unique and rare in the business of technology.
What To Do
I will bring over some thoughts I posted in an AWS forum about the topic as things men (and women) can do to solve this problem, in my opinion, in no particular order:
- Get women interested in STEM early - middle school at the latest, some girls like robots and electronics and programming too, not just the boys (in the 80s this was the beginning of the end - when discussing tech, pushing tech, and teaching tech became a decidedly "male" thing)
- Keep women interested and safe in STEM research - that means eliminating the bro culture and bad attitudes that young men pick up from the older men in their social circles
- Close the pay gap - women still make $0.85 for every dollar men make, and while it’s maybe a little better in tech, there is definitely still a gap
- Enable women to have the confidence (and data) to go for the jobs they deserve at the compensation they deserve - women categorically self-reject themselves and devalue themselves after a lifetime of constant reinforcement that they are somehow lesser than their male counterparts
- Focus on underrepresented/minority/low-income women - these women have a much harder time elevating themselves - using tech to enable and empower them will pay dividends as they help their communities and thus, everyone