Research sheds light on attitudes holding industry back

Almost one in five men in IT explain why fewer females work in the profession by arguing that “women are naturally less well suited to tech roles than men.”

Feel free to check the calendar. No, we have not set the DeLorean for 1985. It is still 2023, yet anyone familiar with the industry over the last 30 years may feel a sense of déjà vu when reading the findings of a report by The Fawcett Society charity and telecoms biz Virgin Media O2.

The survey of nearly 1,500 workers in tech, those who have just left the industry, and women qualified in sciences, technology, or math, also found that a “tech bro” work culture of sexism forced more than 40 percent of women in the sector to think about leaving their role at least once a week.

Additionally, the study found 72 percent of women in tech have experienced at least one form of sexism at work. This includes being paid less than male colleagues (22 percent) and having their skills and abilities questioned (20 percent). Almost a third of women in tech highlighted a gender bias in recruitment, and 14 percent said they were made to feel uncomfortable because of their gender during the application process.

  • June
    33·
    8 months ago

    It turned into nonsense with your eye roll. You brought it here by being overtly and intentionally patronizing.

    Why would I assume people on lemmy haven’t heard the term? I mean, have you seen who’s on here? There’s plenty of reason to be unsure. And I’m wildly confused about how me pointing out how you’re engaging with intersectionality is the problem.

    A lot of people learn and make connections by seeing comment threads they aren’t a part of. Me pointing out that what you did was touching on intersectionality is as much for those readers as any opportunity to make the connection for you that there might have been. People seeing these things in action and real time is a huge addition to making the connections the break past biases and prejudices. It’s moments like that where they read a thread followed by your comment and they see the similarities, but without a direct pointer to intersectionality might keep the same bias against it because, even though they understand it they don’t connect it and continue to shit on the concept as a whole and refuse to engage in conversation at all. Maybe they just send an eye roll emoji when someone brings up the term. But pointing it out directly might make the difference for them to be able to actually engage in the conversation later.

    I came at it with good faith and I’m sorry I said it in a way that didn’t sit right with you, but I had no way of knowing anything that you do or don’t know on the topic. Maybe I should have phrased it differently and rather than saying ‘in case you haven’t heard the term before’ I could have simply said ‘yay for intersectionality’ and it wouldn’t have been offensive to you? Idk. I said it trying to not make any assumptions and clearly that failed.