What it’s like being a woman in tech
We all know women are still largely underrepresented in the technology industry. According to the National Center for Women in Technology, only 26% of computing jobs were held by U.S. women in 2017. While 57% of bachelor’s degree recipients in 2016 were women, women only held 19% of 2016 Computer and Information Sciences bachelor’s degrees.
Why are there so few women in the tech industry and pursuing tech degrees? What does that mean for those women already in the tech industry? And what’s it like being female in a male-dominated field? While I don’t have all the answers to the why and what it means for the future of women in tech, I can share with you my personal experiences as a female in the tech industry.
Being a woman in tech
Now I realize I’m not the most representative “woman in tech.” I don’t have a Computer Science degree, and I don’t write code. I have a degree in Journalism, and I do client communications for an IT company. I may not be your typical woman techie, but I have learned a lot as a woman in technology the past three years working in IT.
I never pictured myself working in a STEM field and purposefully chose not to pursue a STEM education, so it was a happy accident that I ended up in tech after all.
Aren’t you part of the problem for not pursuing STEM?
No one ever told me I couldn’t be a scientist, technologist, engineer or mathematician. In fact, my family is mostly in STEM, so if anything, it was encouraged. I took all the honors STEM classes I could and did just fine. But when it came time to choose a field of study for college, I chose a non-STEM field: journalism. Communications/journalism is actually a highly female-dominated field, in my experience, with the majority of the Missouri School of Journalism students being female during my tenure there. You might then say I’m part of the problem for not pursuing a STEM, male-dominated field for my education. We need to be encouraging more girls to pursue STEM, right? Yes, but as long as that’s what they actually want to do.
Writing has always been my passion, so it’s ridiculous to think that I should have ignored my interests and forced myself to get a degree in a STEM subject just for the sake of STEM. I’m sure I would have been plenty successful with a STEM degree, but my passion was (and still is) the written word. Girls and women should feel free to pursue STEM if that’s what they are interested in, but it’s okay to pursue other fields if your interests lie elsewhere.
That doesn’t mean you are “part of the problem” or “failing women” by not pursuing STEM. Your education, career and future are your choices and yours alone.
My journey to the tech industry
How did I end up in the tech industry with my journalism degree? It was mostly an accident, as are most things in life that actually turn out okay. My last semester of my senior year of college, I applied to tons of copy editing and journalism jobs, with no luck. My graduation date was looming closer, and I was panicking just a bit (okay, a whole lot).
Luck would have it that I heard about some openings at an IT company that my uncle worked at. I applied and got the job, just a few short weeks before graduation. I was going to be a proposal analyst in the Financial Services sector. Heck if I knew what proposals were much less anything about the Financial Services industry, but I figured I would give it a go. Who was I to be choosy when I got offered a solid job before graduation? I know not all of my peers were so lucky. So I showed up to work two weeks after graduating college, not knowing what to expect entering an unfamiliar and male-dominated IT industry.
My first impression of the male-dominated IT industry
Thinking back to when I first started at CGI, I do remember noticing a visible gender disparity. In particular, the orientation/training group I was a part of was overwhelmingly male. The group was about 25% female, which is comparable to the statistic at the beginning of this article where only 26% of computing jobs are held by women. I was acutely aware that I was one of only a few girls in the group. While this may have been a striking and notable observation at the time, that was the first and only time I ever thought about gender disparity working at CGI.
Do you get treated differently because you’re a woman?
Other than that first day of training, I’ve never noticed a gender gap at CGI. I’m sure there are statistically more men than women working at CGI, but I don’t notice it because it doesn’t make a difference or affect my work in any way. We’re all just people working together toward the same goals, so divisions and categorizations of male vs. female are completely unnecessary and irrelevant.
Plus I’ve never been treated any differently because I’m a woman. I’ve never received anything less than respect from all my CGI colleagues – both male and female. I understand that some women have had different and less fortunate experiences than I have working in the tech industry or other STEM fields. I have been extremely lucky to have had such a positive experience with all my male colleagues.
Is it hard to rise to leadership as a female in a male-dominated industry?
I’ve found that there are actually more opportunities for women to rise to leadership positions in male-dominated industries. Of course, I am only speaking from my own experiences, but all of my managers at CGI have been female. I’ve had the opportunity to watch, listen and learn from the best and soak in all their female leadership advice over the years. There is one particular female leader at CGI who has inspired me, Pam Smith. When I first started at CGI, she was the Credit Program lead, and she would join my proposal calls on occasion when things were going south and whip everyone into shape, making sure to guide the proposal to success with the right price, win themes and strategy.
When a position opened up for VP of our entire group, she was the clear choice. In order to get to know the other programs, Pam started weekly #heretothere messages where she would give free-of-charge leadership advice. I took her words to heart and tried to learn as much as I could from her vast expertise and experience. I have a long way to go in order to get to “Pam level,” but her advice really has made a difference in my thinking about where I spend my time and how to delegate in order to advance my career. I admire all the accomplishments she’s made over her career, and I hope to one day be a strong female leader like her. While Pam is enjoying her much-deserved retirement now, I think I will always owe a little piece of my strength and inspiration to her.
Is there anything bad about being a woman in tech?
The only complaint I would have, if you could even call it that, is that there are a lot of women in support/administrative roles at CGI, which is not a unique problem to the tech field. For example, my group falls into the support/administrative category, and my team is entirely female. If women or anyone wants to stay in these types of roles, that is absolutely fine. But if you do want to move up or do something else, all you have to do is speak up. Of course, this is easier said than done, and all the stars have to align just perfectly for you to be able to find another role and backfill, but you will never be given the opportunity to move up if you don’t speak up. That’s what I’m in the process of doing right now. I want my team to add more value, so I’m trying to redefine what we do and move away from the administrative type of work. It’s still a work-in-progress, but I’m able to put my plans into action because I spoke up.
You’ll never know what you are capable of and what you can accomplish if you don’t put yourself out there and speak up.
Final thoughts on being a woman in the tech industry
Being a woman in tech is pretty awesome. Yes, it would be great if there were more women in tech and other STEM fields, but that doesn’t mean the tech industry is currently toxic or unwelcoming to women. In all my experiences, I’ve been met with so much respect and positivity from my male colleagues that it’s hard for me to imagine anything else. The CGI culture in particular is one of complete acceptance and encouragement of all women. We even have a Women’s Forum that promotes the advancement of women’s careers at CGI. I’ve never felt anything but encouragement to succeed in my time at CGI, and I think that’s a wonderful thing that CGI has been able to do for me.
So what do we do from here?
So because I’ve had such a positive experience as a woman in tech, does that mean there is no work to be done to improve diversity in STEM fields? No, of course not. I understand that my experiences are unique to me and do not represent the entire tech industry. But I do think there are lots of women in tech who have positive experiences, and we should do more to celebrate them.
Here are a few things I think we should do as a society/industry:
Continue encouraging girls/women to pursue STEM if they are interested in it. However, don’t force girls/women to pursue STEM if their interests lie elsewhere. It would be great to get higher rates of women in tech, but aiming for 50% representation is arbitrary and not necessarily reflective of interests/skill sets.
Contribute to a culture of making women feel welcome in the tech industry. We can do that by treating our female colleagues just like everyone else. There’s no need to single women out and create unnecessary divisions of male vs. female. Let’s focus on encouraging women to succeed because we want them to be successful, just like everyone else in the company.
Celebrate the successes of women in tech and companies who are allies. We can highlight examples of successful women in tech and also talk about all of us women who have had positive experiences in tech. Let’s talk about our positive experiences rather than focusing on the negative ones. That’s where real change and inspiration comes from – celebrating and promoting the positive rather than dwelling on the negative.
What is it like to be a woman a tech? In my experience, it’s no different than being a man in tech. We’re all just people working toward the same goals, and I’ve had nothing but positive experiences working at CGI. I never expected to end up as a woman in tech, but I’m really grateful that I did. I may not have a degree in Computer Science or be able to code, but I’ve been welcomed into CGI and the tech industry with open arms nonetheless. This may not be how I ever expected my life to turn out, but I feel right at home and exactly where I am supposed to be.
