The 17%

Google recently released data on the demographics of their staff in an effort to be more transparent and to be held accountable for their diversity. They certainly have a long way to go to achieve equality, but it's good that they're trying. One of the numbers caught my attention immediately. When I saw it, I was struck with that weird mixture of disappointment and lack of surprise that is becoming all too familiar.

Google's tech force is made up of 17% women. Why did that number catch my eye? It was brought up in an NPR program that got a lot of attention about a year ago. The transcript can be found here. The take away is that that number - 17% - is an unsettlingly common number. It is, by and large, the number of professional women currently working in traditionally male-dominated fields.

17% of Hollywood film directors are women. 17% of US Senators are women. 17% of engineers, surgeons, professors, etc are women. Do a bit of digging, and you'll see this number everywhere.

More interestingly, 17% of people in crowd scenes in movies or television shows are women.

Recent psychological studies have found that most men perceive this as equality. When a group's ratio is 83 men to 17 women, the men are likely to say that there are as many women present as men. When women speak 17% of the time, men are likely to say that the women talked just as much as the men. And a worrying fact: when women speak 30% of the time, men start to complain that they were dominating the conversation. We have been conditioned to view 17% as good enough, to view anything approaching true equality as greed.

I should acknowledge that this is better than it was a generation ago. We have made great strides since my mom and my aunt were the only women in their respective offices. But I'm one of only five women in my office. We each get our own private stall in the bathroom, a perk I would gladly trade in to have some more female faces around me.

It actually feels like it's gotten worse the farther I've gone in my career. My college class was 25% female. Not great, but a good sight better than the 17% (or less) I deal with now. In fact, six years after I graduated, my alma mater achieved a 50-50 student body, and even graduated three more female engineers than male engineers. But they aren't making it into the workplace. At least not yet.

There are a number of reasons for this. Partly it's that they aren't being hired. Not through overt sexism, but because of a more insidious variant. A resume with a male name is likely to be seen as representing a more qualified individual than a resume with a female name, even if the two resumes are identical. A man being interviewed seems like a better fit for a company than his female counterpart, for some undefinable reason. Let's call it "culture".

There's also evidence that women aren't applying for as many jobs as men because of one of the sneakier aspects of sexism that I've only recently become aware of. Apparently women are likely to apply to a job only if they feel that they meet 100% of the requirements in the job description, whereas men will take a chance if they meet 60% of the requirements. This speaks to issues with self-esteem, confidence, and even arrogance. Of course, many companies are satisfied with that 60%, and they hire one of the men who applied as opposed to one of the women who didn't.

Then there are the cultural elements, something President Klawe identified and worked really hard to overcome at Harvey Mudd. Even if you're qualified to go to a school or take a job, many women will be put off by a student body or staff that is overwhelmingly male. Even if there's a lot of support for women, and a genuine effort to provide opportunities. My company is great about this, and I feel wholly supported there. It doesn't change the fact that when I interviewed I met with four men, and the only woman I saw the entire day was the head of HR. That leaves a distinct impression, and if there's an option to go somewhere more egalitarian, even if it's less prestigious or offers less money, the environment might make that trade off worth it.

Finally, there's the drop off effect. Women dropping out of college or PhD programs because the constant sexism becomes too grating. Women leaving careers in technical fields because they're sick of all the extra work that goes into being one of only a few women. Being constantly surrounded by men is exhausting. You're always on guard for them to make a sexist joke, wondering how to respond to one when it happens. Is it better to be a meek pushover or a feminist killjoy? Better to network and be on good terms with your coworkers or focus on your work and seek promotion based solely on your own merit? And what happens when you see man after unqualified man promoted ahead of you for a slew of reasons that are difficult to untangle and articulate?

Half of the things that happen to me in office barely even register as strange or uncalled-for. Until I share a story with my female friends and see the look of horror on their faces.

What's to be done? In college, we made a concerted effort to unite the women living in our dorm. And in our time there we saw a huge shift in the culture of our dorm, one that resulted in more women willingly moving into our dorm. But these were people I lived with, people I saw every day. An effort like that at my day job, where I really am supposed to be working instead of socializing, feels daunting. As does specifically recruiting more women, which by the way is not in my job description.

At the same time doing nothing feels cowardly. Like I'm betraying my gender, my future children. Watching that number stagnate is disheartening, though I can always hope that things will get better. But how long will that take? Will my (hypothetical) daughter be struggling with these same issues thirty years from now? Will we have merely jumped from 17% to 30%? Or will we be able, in that time, to actually create a diverse corporate world that reflects the realities of the world we spend the rest of our lives in?

There aren't any easy answers. It's hard to know where to start. At the moment I'm so exhausted (by this, by the recent Isla Vista shooting, by the prospect of another summer dominated by male action heroes) that I hardly want to do anything. But the pendulum will swing, I'll befriend the new woman on my team at work, and things will get easier again. They say it's best to attack these things from a place of strength. Until I get there I'll just rant on my blog.