Hello, readers! We hope you’ve been enjoying our posts so far because we’re back with another one!
Today, we are addressing the top challenges that women in the field of technology are facing. People don’t talk about them enough, so, why not throw some light on them?
Let’s take a look at a few basic challenges first.
Double duty with WFH
Not that women didn’t have double-duty before COVID-19, but now the situation is a lot different. Unending calls and deadlines to meet combined with household chores have made working from home nothing short of a nightmare.
Especially for working mothers and single mothers, it is definitely a nightmare.
Maintaining a work-life balance
What’s more challenging than doing double-duty is maintaining a work-life balance.
Just imagine, if a team dinner and a family dinner are planned on the same day. Or if women need to work on the weekends to meet their deadlines and, at the same time, are expected to spend quality time with family. How do they make a choice?
To pull off a balance between professional and personal lives without falling apart is a faraway dream for some. It’s tough, and it takes a lot of energy and sacrifice. But women are expected to do it without a frown.
Marital challenges
When women get married, a whole new journey begins for them… with an entirely new set of challenges.
Some say, “You must take care of your family instead of going to work.”
When women have children, they say, “How will you take care of the child if you go to work?”
And some claim to be modern and progressive, yet say, “We ALLOW the women of our house to go to work.”
While battling these regressive mindsets, women silently go through immense mental pressure. But why do we think they are obliged to do so? That’s something to think about.
Other emotional challenges
Most mothers in the tech field have a hard time deciding who will take care of their kids while they are at work. Some are lucky to have supportive spouses, parents, or parents-in-law. But the others are forced to leave their kids at a daycare or with house-help. It is stressful for women because they are not sure if their kids are getting proper attention and care.
Also, sometimes women hold themselves back from grabbing great career opportunities because of unfavorable family circumstances. Isn’t that unfortunate?
If you are thinking things cannot get any worse, then you do not know about the profound challenges awaiting women in the tech industry. So, what are they?
Gender disparity
As much as we’d like to deny it, gender disparity or gender bias is seen almost in all fields of work. In technology, it is one of the significant hurdles for women.
Also, unequal salaries based on gender is another fault in the tech industry. According to a TimesJobs survey in 2020, 52% of women say that they get paid 30% less than their male colleagues[1]. Surprised?
Job roles
Although this can be a sub-point of gender disparity, we would like to address it as a separate issue.
Did you know there are only 8% women programmers whereas men dominate at 91.5%[2]?
Here’s a little experiment – If you are a woman and a developer, try telling this to people and watch how they react. Try it! It’ll be fun. 😀
Women are also not considered good managers. While the irony is they manage multiple responsibilities in day-to-day life and do it well.
One of our previous posts talked about the harsh stereotyping that women have to go through. You can give it a read here.
Career breaks
Quite unfair as we find it, some interviewers interrogate women who have taken career breaks. But isn’t it simple as pie to understand that women have more responsibilities than men? Women are expected to take career breaks when they get married. Women need to take career breaks when they give birth. There can be various other reasons.
We must understand that career breaks certainly do not affect the caliber of a woman. We just need to trust them.
Inflexible work hours
As women see their personal and professional lives competing for their time, they expect employers to offer flexible working hours. But the tech industry instead attaches a stigma around women who demand this flexibility. Also, women have to face a difference in attitude when it comes to claiming the desired benefits.
Fun fact – more men than women are entitled to flexible work hours by employers[3].
These challenges give rise to a lack of confidence in women. According to some reports, males in the field of computer science with zero to one year of experience are as confident as females in the same field with 8 years of experience. Unfortunately, some women also succumb to imposter syndrome[4], which makes the gender gap worse[5].
Now, the question is, what do we do to ease work for women?
Well, it’s no rocket science. Only having some patience and understanding until women pull themselves together will help a great deal.
And how do we fill the gaps of gender, job roles, and confidence?
By giving women equal opportunities.
When we start looking at women and men as equal beings with equal capabilities, we can make the world a better place for women. There’s a study by Reboot Representation and McKinsey[6] that shows how tech companies can easily decrease the gender gap with just a few steps. It might take some time to change, but it’s not impossible.
All said and done, the women of today have risen above the challenges thrown at them. The women of today do not even fear facing these challenges. But it must be a fair game for them, shouldn’t it?
Let’s end this post with a big shout-out to all the working women out there! You’re doing a great job! Don’t let people tell you otherwise.
Readers, we hope you found this post enlightening. Stick around for more in the coming days. Until then, bye-bye! 🙂
Reference Links:
[3] https://www.masonfrank.com/inflexible-working/
[4] https://time.com/5312483/how-to-deal-with-impostor-syndrome/
[5] https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-imposter-syndrome-makes-the-tech-gender-gap-even-worse/
