Candice TillmanWorldwide, the number of women employed in IT is increasing every year. A 2011 DOU study shows that only 6.8% of women worked in IT. And a 2008 Harvard Business Review study shows that 41% of women leave the IT sphere due to disloyalty on the part of their colleagues.
Ten years later the DOU 2021 showed that the percentage of IT-girls had increased to 22.3%. A study by WonderWoman 2021 showed that 43% of girls have moved into IT from other professions. 73% of women in IT see a future only in this area and want to become a specialist of senior level and above.
On the one hand there is an obvious change of trend and we cannot speak about direct gender discrimination in IT today. On the other hand, the percentage of women working in IT is still small compared to other areas. According to a Stack Overflow survey published in 2020, only 7.7% of women in Russia are employed in software development. If we talk about the global IT industry as a whole, the proportion of female developers is slightly higher, at 15%.
There are cases when during meetings the client addresses all questions to a man. Our analyst sometimes encounters a situation when she has to win over a client before he sees her as a specialist. A project manager says the same problem: they might not pay attention to her words until the same thing is repeated by a male colleague.
In conclusion, I would like to dispel the main outdated stereotype that a female programmer is like a guinea pig. The guinea pig has nothing to do with the sea or pigs, and a girl programmer has nothing to do with programming or girls.
GitHub cited statistics based on gender-neutral profiles. It turns out that code written by girls is accepted 3% more often (in a situation where the gender of the developer is unknown). This can be attributed to statistical error, but in any case it turns out that female and male code are equally good. So programming skill does not depend on gender. The second part of the stereotype, about looks, is also wrong.
Ten years ago we saw informal female programmers. But back then, guys were caricatured IT guys in thick glasses and sweaters, too. “Now IT professionals are the most enviable suitors. They go to the gym and barbershop and are dressed in the latest fashion. Girls in the field are very feminine, well-groomed and look great,” says the founder of #ITGIRLS.
Progressive companies, and there is a majority of such in IT, have overcome inequality and stopped evaluating specialists by gender. HR-director of Extyl points out that we do not have prejudices against gender, age and nationality of applicants. Certain soft and hard skills are important.
Nor should we forget that discrimination can be directed not only outwardly. Misogyny, self-prejudice, surprisingly enough, is often in the minds of women themselves and their inner circle. And this, too, must be combated.
Compare: when the fork for a job is 100-120k, it’s typical for a girl to ask for 100 and a guy to ask for 120. Employers are more likely to agree to these requirements, hence the difference in income. According to an Instagram poll by the founder of the #ITGIRLS school, girls dream of earning 300,000, and guys – 3 million. It’s time to learn to dream more freely and ambitiously.
