Silicon Valley is not feminist, it neglects women's power in tech; unequal wages and low or no credit are constant.
Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
The world of computing and technology has had women since its inception, many of them pioneers in the field, however, to date remain hidden figures in the archives of what is now one of the most important industries and with the highest number of profits worldwide.
Discrimination, unequal wages and little or no credit for women are the constant in the sector that embraces Silicon Valley.
According to Statista, if you want to work in a fair environment in the tech industry, it's best to move to Kansas City, which, while it doesn't have a great reputation in the sector, at least has the smallest gender pay gap nationally, with women being paid two percent more than men in the industry.
But if a woman's dream is to reach the "mecca" of the U.S. industry, it should be taken into consideration that the cities within Silicon Valley have a considerably larger gap between men and women, placing them even below the country's average, as they earn 16 percent less than men in the area.
Digging deeper into the numbers, the picture is worse. Women represent only 35 percent of the staff hired and almost never occupy technical positions, let alone management positions, because according to an analysis by the auditing firm Ernst & Young, 99 percent of venture capital resources are used to finance projects that have at least one male entrepreneur.
While the percentage of women employed across all job sectors in the U.S. has increased 47 percent, the five largest technology companies on the planet - Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft - only have a workforce of about 34.4 percent women, according to Builtin.
Notably, African-American and Hispanic women, who majored in computer science or engineering, are less likely to be hired for a technology position than their white counterparts.
Women in Technology Figures
- 26 percent of computer-related jobs are held by women.
- Only 3.0 percent of computer-related jobs are held by African American women, 6.0 percent by Asian women, and 2.0 percent by Hispanic women.
- 50 percent of women reported experiencing gender discrimination at work.
- 43 percent of Americans believe women create a safer and more respectful work environment than men. Only 5 percent of Americans believe men create a safer workspace.
- 48 percent of women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) jobs report discrimination in the recruiting and hiring process.
Positively, women's earnings are outpacing men's when it comes to high-skilled jobs.
Currently, women are still severely underrepresented in software engineering at only 14 percent of the total workforce, while in computer-related jobs it is only 25 percent.
In the last 20 years, hiring of female software engineers has only increased by 2.0 percent, so we need to recognize the women who have been helping make our lives so much easier through technology for years.
The established women of Silicon Valley
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO
When one mentions the company Facebook, the first thing that comes to mind is Mark Zuckerberg, however, number two is a woman. Sheryl Kara Sandberg is the current chief operating officer of the social network. She is an American economist, author and CEO, as well as the founder of Leanin.org.
In June 2012, she was elected to the executive committee, becoming the first woman to serve on this committee at Facebook. According to Forbes, Sanberg is the most powerful woman in the tech world.
Previously, Sheryl was vice president of online sales and operations at Google.
Her foundation is dedicated to female empowerment, and bears the same name as the book and bestseller she published in 2013.
Susan Wojcicki, YouTube CEO
The world's leading streaming platform has a woman's signature. In 1998, in her fourth month of pregnancy, this woman rented her garage in Palo Alto, California, to some students who were developing a novel project. They were Larry Page and Sergey Brin. The "invention" was Google.
After years of good suggestions, the Santa Clara County native is now the CEO of the video platform, where she has implemented pro-worker measures such as remote work and 22 weeks of paid maternity leave.
In her thousands of talks and speeches she has made very clear the importance of family. The priorities of the historian, publicist and economist are her five children and her husband, so she has made it clear that she does not answer calls or work emails after six in the evening.
