I recently attended the LoneStar PHP conference in Texas.
Right now you may be thinking, “PHP, what’s that?” I’m an application
developer, and PHP is the language that I use to program web applications at
work. That’s not what I’m here to share with you. I would like to highlight and
recap a single relevant talk from this conference, “Programming Diversity”
which was presented by Ashe Dryden.
She spoke about a common topic these days: “In the US, women
earn 80.9% of what men do” for the same exact job positions. I was thankful though, because she showed recognition not just for how highly straight
white male the STEM (Science, Technology, Education, Math) industries are, but
also how very few LGBT members are in this community.
My college was likely out of the norm, as I went to a
private “art” school – but our student body had a very high population of LGBT
members, so when I finally made it into the industry I had some confusion when
I found myself in an office, pretty much alone in my sexuality. Beyond being
one of the only females, I was pretty sure I was the only non-straight person
there. I remember the first few months of having a girlfriend dancing around
the gender terms, unsure if I should be letting everyone at work know I was
dating a woman. It all worked out in the end, but it can be stressful when
you’re surrounded by straight people in a confined office space to let
something like that out for everyone to know. It can be hard to judge what
their reaction will be.
I'd like to advocate for more people from this community to hop on the same career path as me. Technology is booming right now, and in the tough economic climate we live in is sustaining and even growing in areas.
First Ashe addressed why there is a lack of diversity in
these career paths, then addressed how we, the tech community can go about
making our workplaces more diverse. Each of these reasons was mostly focused on
the lack of females, and people of color, but I feel these reasons are the same
for LGBT persons.
Role Models
Think of all the famous people in Technology right now. Bill
Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg – all straight, white males. Can you imagine
a world in which some of our big companies, Microsoft, Google, Apple, Facebook
are all run by a confident and open LGBT person? I don’t personally believe
that this demographic is necessarily dissuading LGBT members from these
careers, but it certainly would be helpful to have someone to relate to up on
the top of the corporate ladder.
Harassment
A lot of harassment in the workplace can be very subtle. I
recall my first subtle experience of harassment in the office after only a few
weeks at a job hearing nearly everyone in the office (all males) swear at some
point during the work day and the first time I swore out loud everyone made a
huge deal out of it. “Wow Jorie, I didn’t expect that out of you” one person said. I don’t think this
was because I’m a bubbly sunshine person, because I’m absolutely not. I’m
pretty cynical, and generally fairly grumpy person, so what I actually expected
was “I can’t believe you worked here three whole weeks without swearing about
something” but the reaction was much different. My second experience was when I
felt uncomfortable about a coworker’s attire being a little too revealing in
her chest area. It was pretty clearly violating our dress code so I complained
to HR. When I confessed to a coworker that it was me who reported her, their
response was “Why would you complain
about something like that, you like
boobs!?” A lot of this sort of harassment is tossed off as ignorance; these
people don’t mean to be rude, right? It just comes naturally! That doesn’t mean
we should just accept it or brush it off. Accepting this sort of harassment
just furthers the acceptance of the behavior. It also doesn’t mean you have to
be rude confronting them about it, as Ashe says a great way to respond to this
is “that’s not cool L”
and tell them why what they said was inappropriate to your gender or sexuality.
Impostor syndrome
Ashe tells us that people with this problem have trouble
internalizing their accomplishments, “this is especially pronounced when
negative stereotypes exist about a group a person belongs to”.
During the talk, Ashe told us that more diverse teams create
a higher sales revenue, and show a higher profit compared to competitors, so
naturally the next question for employers in STEM industries would be: “How do
I add diversity to my team?” Ashe’s answer is complicated. Unfortunately there
is no one solution to make our workplaces more diverse. Here are three helpful
steps she’s offered up:
1. Advocate for change
If you’re an LGBT person in a STEM career, or any other
workplace that has a very homogenous population, let your company know about
it! Tell them you feel the lack of diversity on your team and it is in the
interest of both the company and the team to be more diverse. Diverse teams are
more creative, and increase profits.
2. Volunteer
There are several LGBT groups forming around tech. Go to local colleges and technical schools who have LGBT clubs and
promote your industry as a career path. If you become an ambassador for one of
these groups, you can help form a bridge
to those who would like to make the leap into your industry but feel
uncomfortable with the geek stereotypes, or feel like they might not fit in as
an LGBT person.
If you don’t have the time, but have some extra money, find an organization that supports LGBT diversity in the workplace and commit money to it yearly. Some technical schools where most of the diversity exists don’t have the same resources as Ivy League schools, so do your research before investing and put your money where it is needed most!
If you're curious, you can view the slides from Ashe’s talk here, all of her
statistics are sourced at the bottom of each slide.
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