The Girl Code
Yet women are being left out of the creation of that blueprint—again. History is repeating itself, only this time the buildings of the future will be named after Zuckerberg, Jobs, and Bezos rather than Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and du Pont. Women represent only 5% of Fortune 1000 CEOs, and they’re underrepresented across the board: They hold 19% of seats in the U.S. Congress (and that’s an all-time high!); they direct just 7% of the top-grossing films, despite accounting for 50% of film school grads (see The Curve: Video’s Super 8); they make up only 6% of the partners at venture capital firms; and, in tech, they hold just 15% of the positions at Facebook (although they do get the distinct privilege of being paid to freeze their eggs). In sectors that sit squarely in the female domain—retail and fashion—women fare even worse: They hold just 2% of CEO positions.
The gender gap isn’t new, but it does stand out more at a time when 60% of master’s degrees are awarded to women. The gender gap in technology is especially pronounced because tech underlies all other sectors. Perhaps this is why respondents say that technology is tied with politics as the top industry that—if gender equality were achieved—would create the biggest positive impact in closing the gap. And the most effective solution for women’s empowerment, according to almost half (47%) of American respondents? Encouraging young girls to engage in STEM—science, technology, engineering, and math.
“Technology is central in moving the needle for women and minorities and other marginalized groups because their voices are amplified. It’s just that simple. It is a way of democratizing and diversifying the voices that are heard.”
—Anna Holmes, Founder, Jezebel; Editor, Fusion’s Digital Voices
With this in mind, we turned to some of the most influential women in Silicon Valley—and beyond—to explore why women are so embarrassingly underrepresented and, more importantly, what the value would be if women were given a seat at the table.
Shiza Shahid, the cofounder of the Malala Fund, told us, “Women entrepreneurs are going to be critical in creating the next great inventions and innovations that lift 3 billion people out of poverty.” Sara Weinheimer, the managing director of the investment firm Golden Seeds, sees women-led businesses impacting her bottom line: “Closing the gender gap leads to companies whose performance is better; they’re more in tune with their markets, they’re more in tune with their users, and they’re more socially aware.”
Danielle Feinberg, the Director of Photography at Pixar Animation Studios and a mentor to the next generation of female computer scientists, reflects that women who code are more likely to create platforms, apps, and products that do good: “The boys are usually shooting things or blowing things up, but the girls are helping to find homes for stray dogs or doing antibullying stuff.” Kimberly Bryant, the founder and executive director of Black Girls Code, contends that “bringing women or people of color into the picture opens it up to a realm of opportunities for us to really have this diverse perspective in solving some of the bigger problems that we as a society have.”
Heck, we’d just be happy if the next all-encompassing HealthKit included a function to track menstruation (think, Apple!). Here’s our conversation with five female boundary breakers and their take on how to crack the code—pun intended—on moving the needle for women in Silicon Valley and beyond.
Half (50%) of 18- to 54-year-olds say that effecting change through digital empowerment will be as relevant as effecting change through voting (50%), with millennials, women, and minority groups even more likely than the general population to feel this way.
The Interview
THE CURVE: We’re here to talk about moving the needle for women and minorities in technology beyond Silicon Valley. But first, let’s talk about the story currently making headlines. What is it about the Ellen Pao v. Kleiner Perkins case that highlighted the gender gap and garnered national attention?
SWISHER: We felt it was a perfect narrative to illustrate statistics. Most people read statistics—39 percent women, going to 18, 6, 4, low numbers. But nobody understands them clearly until they have a narrative and characters. It illustrated all the problems that people have discussing gender in the workplace and the difficulties that companies have dealing with these issues internally.
Kara Swisher, Co-Executive Editor, Re/code; Kimberly Bryant, Founder and Executive Director, Black Girls Code; Danielle Feinberg, Director of Photography, Pixar Animation Studios; Robin Hauser Reynolds, Director-Producer, Code: Debugging the Gender Gap; Tina Lee, Founder and CEO, MotherCoders
THE CURVE: What is it about gender discrimination that makes it so confusing? Why is it so hard to pin down who’s right and who’s wrong?
SWISHER: We wrote a lot about micro-aggressions. The experience that women have in the workplace is very different from men’s. When you complain in a micro-aggression, you seem like a pain in the neck. But collectively, they added up over time.
REYNOLDS: That’s exactly right. We’ve heard a lot about death by 1,000 cuts. It’s not as blatant as somebody slapping someone’s behind. It’s really frustrating and difficult for women in tech especially because little things add up every day.
THE CURVE: Is it just the lack of women in tech? Is there a different behavior in the tech industry that makes this more pronounced?
BRYANT: The tech industry is relatively new. Some of the things in the Pao case have happened in other industries before, but this is the first time that we’ve had this big, high-profile tech case. And so all eyes are on us right now. The issues of gender discrimination in tech are probably very pronounced because there’s such a lack of women and diversity.
THE CURVE: Men make up 94 percent of the partners at these companies, a massive gap. At a time when women are out-graduating men, and female CEOs frequently grace the covers of Forbes and Fortune, why are their numbers so weak?
REYNOLDS: It starts from mind-sets and stereotypes that go all the way back to young kids. We’re steering girls away from computers and video games. Girls just don’t see themselves as computer scientists. There are very few role models. They stop raising their hands in the seventh and eighth grades because they don’t want to be the smart, nerdy girl—they want to be the cute, popular girl. And that’s a cultural problem.
THE CURVE: Some people see this as a pipeline issue. Is there an attrition problem, where talented women and minorities are graduating and then leaving the field? Or is it more systemic?
FEINBERG: There might be talented women, but you’ve got to get people who are willing to hire them. The more women are hired, the more young women are going to go through college seeing people that are doing what they want to do. And you build that support in.
THE CURVE: Is the racial gap as bleak in technology as the gender gap?
BRYANT: It’s probably bleaker, especially at the intersection of racial and gender dynamics with women of color. There is a pipeline issue for underrepresented minorities finding a place in STEM, particularly in the technology industry. And they’re definitely facing systemic biases once they’re able to transcend those hurdles—even with college interviewers—which makes it really difficult for them to find a clear path into the technology roles.
THE CURVE: People say that men in tech are judged on their potential, and women are judged on their achievements. True?
REYNOLDS: Some people are saying that tech is not a meritocracy because if women aren’t given an opportunity, a coding job, they can’t prove themselves. And if they’re being judged on achievement, they don’t have the foundation to continue to move up.
LEE: As a woman, you have to constantly prove yourself. And more so if you’re a woman of color. For the moms that we work with, there’s already the motherhood penalty—it’s automatically assumed you’re going to be less available, less hardworking, and less smart. On the flipside, there’s the fatherhood bonus. Oh, you’re a dad now? We can trust you. You’re going to be more responsible, more hardworking.
“When you have half of the population [men] generating all of the content, apps, movies, and everything, you’re missing out on connecting with the whole population.”
—Danielle Feinberg, Director of Photography, Pixar Animation Studios
THE CURVE: Is it just that mothers need more balance and don’t necessarily want time-intensive careers?
LEE: There was a recent poll asking nonworking moms whether they wanted to work: An overwhelming majority, 75 percent, said yes, if I had a job with a somewhat flexible schedule. That narrative about how women don’t want to work is false. In our country, we are not very supportive of women working outside the home once they have kids. It’s a national economic issue. It speaks to our country’s ability to compete in a technologically driven, globalized world. The rate of women’s participation in the workforce has decreased so we are now behind other developed countries.
THE CURVE: What’s the solution?
SWISHER: National child-care policies. It’s ridiculous that we’re even debating this. And the perception that men cannot be parents is insulting. When Marissa Mayer was made CEO of Yahoo, she was pregnant. I remember being on a show where they said, “What’s going to happen when she has a kid?” And I said, “Well, she has a husband. He can take care of a baby.” The gap between their careers is rather broad. Why wouldn’t she be the breadwinner?
REYNOLDS: As Americans we’re not very accepting of the stay-at-home dad. It takes a very strong man to be the one to say, “Hey, I’m taking care of the kids. I’m Mr. Mom.”
THE CURVE: If we can fix the gender gap in technology, could it impact other industries, such as fashion, politics, and business?
FEINBERG: When you have half of the population generating all of the content, apps, movies, and everything, you’re missing out on connecting with the whole population. Right now, tech is in everything. It’s in our pockets. It’s everywhere. There’s hardly an industry that doesn’t have tech. When you start having broader representation, it’s going to connect with many more people.
REYNOLDS: More diverse teams create more diverse products, which will be used by a greater breadth of society. That’s so important. How many more Snapchats do we really need? We need to reach people that have been typically marginalized by tech and the products that tech creates.
THE CURVE: With all the talk about how racial and gender diversity create better turnaround on investments, why can’t we get there?
REYNOLDS: Because girls and people of color don’t see themselves in tech. They don’t feel like they’re accepted because there are very few role models. Danielle is doing amazing things at Pixar. And Kimberly’s girls are making such a difference. The more that we have incredible role models speaking up in public, the more a 12-year-old girl or person of color is going to say, “Wow, I can be that!” You cannot be what you cannot see.
Danielle Feinberg at work.
THE CURVE: Let’s jump forward to 2050. What’s the dynamic? Are men and women 50-50?
SWISHER: No, probably not. Gender, especially, is the slowest change ever. Look at the reaction to Indiana’s religious-freedom law from the tech industry. Everyone was tripping over themselves to say publicly that discrimination is wrong. But we could not get the same people to talk on the record about Ellen Pao. Why? Because when it becomes a woman’s issue, it gets super-uncomfortable. We called it the discrimination double standard.
THE CURVE: In 2050, will women still be having the conversation about leaning in?
SWISHER: If we don’t get a national child-care policy, we’ll be in the same place. It starts and finishes right there.
BRYANT: Gloria Steinem said that it’s actually going to take us a while for women to receive pay equity. If we look back to when the suffrage movement first started, it took about 100 years for us to get the right to vote. With gender issues around pay in tech and other industries, we’re probably only a quarter or half of the way there.
From the office of Robin Hauser Reynolds.
THE CURVE: Let’s talk about having it all. Are we redefining that debate? What does “it all” look like for women going forward?
BRYANT: You can have it all but not at the same time. It’s a progression. If we look at it as a continuum, you do what your focus is at the time, and then you move on.
SWISHER: I don’t know a woman who isn’t exhausted.
FEINBERG: When I talk to girls, that’s one of the first things that they ask. And it’s so disappointing because they are discounting careers they feel are a little bit more difficult because they want to have kids—and they’re, like, 13! They should be thinking about finding the things they love and getting out there and doing them, rather than wondering, Can I have it all?
“Wasn’t it the president of Barnard College who said that if you look like Jennifer Aniston, work like Sheryl Sandberg, keep your house like Martha Stewart, and parent like Donna Reed? There’s a reason why there are four women on that team! You can’t do it all. That’s craziness!”
—Tina Lee, Founder and CEO, MotherCoders
THE CURVE: People are talking about the biggest baby bust ever because young women are looking at Gen Xers and boomers who tried to have it all—and they just look tired.
REYNOLDS: Sometimes women are pretty harsh with women, too. If somebody doesn’t show up for the kindergarten jamboree because she had a board meeting or if her kid happens to be at the park with a nanny, the other moms look at her differently. It’s really important that women continue to support women—especially in tech, but really across the board.
SWISHER: And men get left out of the discussion. It’s problematic for them, too.
LEE: For the most part, being a parent is part of the human experience and women are going to continue to choose it. And they’re not doing it by themselves usually. There are partners involved. So this is a societal problem that we have to start working on. It’s not a woman’s issue—it’s a national economic issue.
THE CURVE: You are all role models in women’s empowerment. Who are some of the other standouts moving the needle for women and minorities?
SWISHER: Sheryl Sandberg.
REYNOLDS: Megan Smith. She was recently at Google X and now she’s the chief technology officer of the United States of America—the first woman ever in that position. She’s an important role model that tech and the world needs. And she’s a wonderful mother and person, really intelligent and humble.
BRYANT: Ursula Burns, the chairwoman and CEO of Xerox, is one of the very few women of color who started out as an engineer and worked her way up through the ranks to lead one of the major U.S. companies. In politics, perhaps because I’m in California—Kamala Harris. She’s a superstar. And we probably haven’t seen all she’s going to accomplish.
FEINBERG: Reshma Saujani, who founded Girls Who Code, which in three years has exploded. She’s influencing all of these girls and getting them interested in tech.
REYNOLDS: And she has a one-month-old baby.
BRYANT: It’s so encouraging that we can look at the girls in our Black Girls Code program as role models. Even though they may not have the spotlight currently, they absolutely are the next generation of leaders in technology. And then we will finally be able to do the big things using technology as a tool—and really save the world. That’s where the future lies.
From the office of Tina Lee.
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