(Where are the) Women in STEAM fields?

I was raised with a single mom for most of my life, and as far as I can remember I never thought about the genders, or race of people whom were around me. I spent the last 6 years in the industry not thinking about the people who surrounded me. During this time I did not work with any women. This fact never bothered me as I never stopped to think about it.

At the beginning of last year I moved to a different team,  where many of my bosses, and peers are women. When I first moved, it was business as usual. Get things done, make features. Improve our customer's experience on the site. I didn't see my colleagues as men or women, I saw us as a team of people trying to build the best software, and customer experience possible. One day I was talking to my mom, and she was asking me about my new team. I told her that I really liked my boss, and she said "Oh, I didn't think there were any women in IT" 

At that moment it dawned on me, that I had spent a large portion of my life in the industry not working with any women. As a person I am very disconnected from most social aspects of common life. I thought Magic Johnson was a medical cream, I didn't know who Tom Brady was until last week. When someone brings up celebrities in conversation I have no clue who they are. 

I recently read this report from the department of commerce which outlined the gap in gender for STEAM fields.

I knew there was a gender gap, but I didn't realize how bad it was. I was convincing myself that we were better.

I knew one of the first programmers was a woman, and I knew the first compiler was written by a woman. I couldn't believe there was such a gap.

I have spent the last few years giving people luck when they try to fill a software engineering position. Not that interviewing candidates is hard, but that its hard to find good candidates. Finding good people is difficult even for entry level positions. We need more people in the software space, and its clear there is a huge pool of women that could do these jobs.

We as an industry have failed to capture the hearts and minds of women to be in STEAM fields

After this huge realization, I started to notice some disturbing trends in the industry. I've attended many conferences. Often, free swag is a huge part of conferences, and the last time I went to a conference I wanted to get some of my colleagues swag. One of my favorite colleagues is a very small petite woman. I was on a mission to try to get her some shirts, and stickers. When I got to the conference I saw many large companies with shirts that were only male, or unisex. I had a hard time finding mens small shirts, let alone womens sizes! I got her some shirts hoping they would work, they didn't. I couldn't believe these billion dollar companies couldn't bother bringing a few women's sizes. Some of these companies have wallets deeper than governments.

I felt at that moment I got a glimpse into why this gender gap exists. We didn't provide a space for women to participate in

In the past, saw women at conferences not being taken as seriously. I have heard stories of companies, using women to sell tech products. There are many well documented cases of misogyny in our industry. I don't think i'm too far off the mark to assume the things that hit the news happen more than we realize.

In my mind the missing women's shirts were a symbol of a forgotten group in the industry.

I am not a woman. I couldn't tell you exactly why we cannot capture more women in the tech field. Some people believe it could be rooted in childhood. I just know that if we stay professional, be fair, and provide a real space for women to participate, we can start to overcome this gap.