Women Engineers On the Rampant Sexism of Silicon Valley

So in terms of challenges in the tech industry

I think it's what's known as

death by a thousand paper cuts.

There was one thing or the other

and it always ended up with people wondering

why I was a woman.

Why I was young.

And why I was doing my own thing.

People sort of

assume that I am not technical.

It can feel like you are fighting against

this believability factor.

It hurts.

And it sort of puts this doubt in your own mind

saying, should I really not be here?

(gentle music)

If I walk into a room and I say that I'm an engineer

and if I don't look the way that a person is expecting

me to look, then I kind of have to prove to them

that, no no, I am an engineer.

And I know what I'm talking about.

That's just the assumption, the default is that

women of color can't be technical,

aren't technical.

And as a result we get treated like we aren't technical.

And I begin to question myself and I know that

that is absolutely unacceptable.

And it is completely untrue.

Being in an environments where it's mostly men,

where it's mostly white people, there is a toll

because I can't be my whole self.

There is always.

There's always a little bit of needing to filter.

There's always a little bit of a gap between like

what I'm actually like

and what I can be like.

And it's calculus that I do every day.

It's exhausting, it's exhausting.

So there's no denying the fact that

there is gender disparity.

I will try and qualify that

with my own experience.

(gentle music)

I really hate this one.

When people ask me what I do

even if the implicit context is that

everyone there is an engineer

they would always say, like, What do you do?

There's this funny thing that happens when

someone goes through that mental shift

of realizing that you actually are an engineer.

And then they kind of try to make up for it.

Oh, good for you,

that's so great.

Wow, I'm so surprised you're an engineer.

Which is such a backhanded compliment because it means

what does that even mean?

The main thing was, not having

many of my male counterparts treat me the same way.

You know there are other male friends with me

or my husband, and they get asked the same question

and they don't receive the same reaction.

It just makes me feel other.

It makes me feel like I don't belong.

There are training and there are biases

don't prepare them to encounter

the black woman engineer.

There are these tiny (mumbling)

that happen when people know that

you're a person of color.

They want to know your origin.

They want to know your

they want to know a bunch of things about you

that don't really matter when it comes to your work.

It's very tough to explain to someone

what you experience if it's not their experience

because it demands a sense of imagination.

Imagine you were nothing, like how you are right now.

(gentle music)

I've recently had a conversation with a gentleman

who asked me, Why should I care?

Why should I want to change it?

What's in it for me?

It's this interesting set of norms

that are used to sort of enforce who does well

and who doesn't do well in the tech industry.

And as a result, a lot of people end up being hurt.

Especially women, people of color,

people who have different sexual orientations.

There should be no one group who gets to say,

What's in it for me?

for an industry that is

changing the world right now.

The investment you make in diversity

and inclusion is in fact an investment.

Everybody talks about diversity and getting

getting people in the door.

You know, we measure those numbers.

We don't really talk much about the inclusion part.

What are you doing to make sure that everybody

is included and feels safe and supported

and valued in your organization?

It's going to end up in your

work atmosphere being better.

It's going to end up in helping your teams.

It's going to end up in your products being better.

What I really am hoping for is that

we, as an industry

don't participate in, or perpetuate

the systemic injustices that we see in society today.

We can't really build an app for everybody

around the world

if everybody is in the room, right?

(gentle music)

Then there's this other side of the tech culture

in let's say a company like Yelp that

is working so hard to make sure that

we change the definition of what tech culture means.

I think of openness and collaboration.

I think of

building things

and making sure that we

help the community and help the world.

You need lots of different programmers

who have different backgrounds

and different ideas to come together and

we can make really great products.

Without females, so many of the great work

which has been done would not be possible.

Females can really change the world.

In not just engineering, but in all other aspects.

And, no one should ever forget that.

I love my job.

I love making stuff.

I just want

the industry to look more like me.

And I think it will.

It just will take time.

We are the so-called smartest people in the world

that's what they keep telling us.

This is the problem, we can solve it.

It is important.

If you need to be convinced of that

please feel free to come find me, and I'll tell you

all the reasons why.

(gentle music)