On March 8th, International Women’s Day, I attended Marit Collective’s third annual Change the Ratio Waterloo Region event, with the theme “From Talk to Walk.
The evening’s presentations (you’ll find a link to the event’s first half here, and the second half, here) could easily have rehashed the same old talking points – all of them true – about a lack of girls and women getting interested in STEM, sticking with STEM education, holding prominent leadership roles, and staying in the tech industry
But what was important was that the Change the Ratio speakers approached the issues through additional lenses.
When we talk about women/girls in tech or in STEM, the default is still white girls and white women. Even more broadly: white, cisgendered, able-bodied, presenting femme, etc.
There was a slide in Professor Shohini Ghose’s presentation that illustrated rates of girls and women in STEM education, and the gains in recent years and decades have been almost exclusively among white girls and women. The numbers for girls and women of colour (broken down into Black, Asian, and Hispanic on the slide) remain dismally low.
Of course, if there are few well-established white women in STEM education and working in senior roles in tech, then there are few potential role models and mentors. We also can’t assume that just because a woman fits the profile that she’s suitable for, or wants to do, that work.
It also means that, given the numbers we’ve long known, there are even fewer such women of colour in those roles than there are white women.
So if you are a young person of colour getting your STEM education or embarking on a tech career, finding others who share cultural, career, or life experience is pretty much like hunting unicorns.
This is an issue that’s going to take generations to fix. You don’t become a professor or a CEO overnight, nor do you pack the STEM educational pipeline with bright, ambitious girls in the space of a single school year.
Those young women of colour who find themselves isolated now? If they’re still in tech years down the road, they’re going to be those rare unicorns.
And that’s a best case scenario, one that assumes we push hard and dedicate all the resources we need into inclusive plans, projects, and goals.
This is the real world, though, so it’s never a best-case scenario. No movement focused on undoing oppressive and discriminatory systems and institutions has all the resources it needs. Not everyone involved in the work will universally agree on what needs to be done, how, and by whom.
And it is hard. So when we see modest gains in some area, it’s very tempting to feel optimistic, put out a press release, and declare success. Even if that success is only single-digit improvements in representation among one group of women and girls who quite likely had greater privilege to begin with.
As much as we all need to be aware of what we do (or can) represent, “lift as you climb” isn’t quite that simple. It’s naive and harmful to ignore that we don’t all look the same (which still matters in the world, last I checked). We don’t all have the same experiences, needs, or goals.
To perpetuate the idea that a mentor is a mentor, and just being a woman in STEM is enough to make you a “match” for anyone who wants to get to where you are, hurts our present and our future.
It reminds me a bit of another workplace “matching” scenario, namely, when you work in an office, especially when you start a new job, and coworkers find out that you’re single, or gay, or insert-demographic-here. The next thing out of their mouths is that so-and-so (who also works there) is also single, or gay, or what have you, and you two should totally meet and go out.
Like, merely the fact that you share a data point means that clearly you have plenty in common and will be attracted to each other and live happily ever after and said coworker will get the smug satisfaction of having set you up. My response to this has always been, “Just like zoo animals.” It tends to shut that down pretty quickly.
In the same way that Dave in Accounting and I are not zoo animals, Samantha or Nikita (two of the speakers at Change the Ratio) or any other young women of colour working in tech and I are not zoo animals. I’m a woman, I’ve worked in tech a long time. I may or may not be useful to them. Even if I could be useful, they may not want me to be. They deserve to have the option and the choice. (That said, if a young person approaches you, be open to it.)
Like most people, though, I can be an ally (definitely a work in progress). And why don’t we hear more about allies in tech circles?
This involves knowing when to use your voice and influence and knowing when to get out of the way. Avoiding dumping energy into echo chambers. Shining the spotlight where it doesn’t usually reach. Calling out harmful language and actions in our workplaces. Addressing diversity head on in operations, hiring, training, and promotion. The list goes on.
Also: educating myself. Which is to say, not asking others to do the emotional labour for me when it has been done over and over by many very tired people, and there are plenty of places to find what I need to learn (even when it’s uncomfortable to do so).
You can do these things, too. Even if you don’t look like me. (Hi, men! TK, from the Sexual Assault Support Centre’s Male Allies program, did a great talk at Change the Ratio, and speaks to lots of different groups about male allyship, just FYI.)
That’s the tech world we all deserve. Where there’s so many amazing, diverse people with brains and ambition and connections and experience to meet, learn from, and work with that for everyone it’s more like Choose Your Own Adventure than Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?
M-Theory is an opinion column by Melanie Baker. Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Communitech. Melle can be reached @melle or me@melle.ca.
