Obstacles facing women of color in tech are steep, and surmountable

The uphill climb for minorities in the technology industry has been well-documented. The same goes for the challenges and underrepresentation that women in technology face.

For women of color, the environment can be doubly challenging. The headlines suggest that my black female peers in technology and I will not only encounter gender stereotyping, but also the cultural biases that too often pervade work environments that are historically, primarily white.

Women represent 26% of computing professionals and only 12% of professional engineers, according to the American Association of University Women (AAUW). Worse, the nonprofit Girls Who Code notes that in middle school, 74% of girls express interest in science, technology, engineering and math, but by the time they get to college, just 0.4% choose to major in computer science.

For women of color, the numbers are lower still. Women of black, Hispanic, and Native American descent made up 18% of the college-aged population in 2013 yet earned only 6% of computing and 3% of engineering degrees that year, according to the AAUW report.

Silicon Valley gender gap is widening

While every woman’s career trajectory is unique, there are three challenges contributing to the severe underrepresentation of ethnic minority women in tech today. The good news? There are steps we can be taking to fix this for our daughters and our society.

STEM IS A PURSUIT FOR EVERYONE

As children, our gender identities are typically conveyed through the prism of stereotypes. This is especially true in the classroom, where a teacher might ask a girl whether she wants to be a nurse when she grows up, while unthinkingly asking a boy about becoming a doctor or a firefighter.

A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that “unconscious gender bias” among teachers guided how students felt about their potential academic success and participation. This was particularly problematic for female students in science and math. The research found that, though girls would often outperform male students in STEM subjects at an early age, they were still less likely to pick advanced courses in high school. Why? The teachers showed gender bias in scoring tests, underestimating girls and overestimating boys.

Racial stereotyping also occurs in the classroom. A 2015 study by published by the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research of more than 16,000 teachers, for instance, found that White teachers were less likely to believe that a Black student would someday receive a college degree. And other studies finds that White male students, to many teachers, appear to be more “naturally gifted” in the areas of science and math, compared to non-White or female students.

Institutional gender bias at these early stages of education can deter girls from STEM fields before they even enter the marketplace. The White House took a significant step in the right direction last year with a $240 million investment in STEM that highlighted the achievements of students from underrepresented backgrounds, including women and girls. We need more such investments in nontraditional programs that work to counter gender biases, like Black Girls Code and other groups.

PAY ATTENTION TO DETAILS

Whether it’s a man-cave-like work environment or simple logistics, like the lack of a female-only bathroom, women in tech often get the message that they just don’t belong. For women of color, the message is more blunt: 83% of tech workers in Silicon Valley are men and 93% of those workers are white, according to research by Mother Jones, so it doesn’t take a complex algorithm to conclude that women of color stand out.

Companies — including those I connect with every day — are actively working to alleviate the pressure to cater to historically male paradigms. Simply paying attention to details in the workplace can go a long way toward showing women of color that they, too, belong. At PayPal’s Boston office, for example, execs kept the male-favored beer keg and Ping Pong table, but also built private rooms where nursing mothers can pump. And that’s not to say women don’t enjoy Ping Pong, too.

In my experience, young women and girls start to opt out of tech-career opportunities when they look ahead and don’t see people who look like them. As Sheryl Sandberg famously said, “There aren’t more women in tech because there aren’t more women in tech.”

To address this, tech execs need to be intentional about creating visibility for women, people of color, and all minorities, for that matter. The answer doesn’t lie in symbolic gestures. It is in focusing on who represents the company internally and externally (i.e. at career fairs, media opportunities, or any public speaking events). I have seen Slack and Square do a particularly great job at this. Both Erica Baker and Gloria Kimbwala are incredibly visible and prominent leaders on their teams.

Fostering diversity does not stop with driving these deliberate, actionable changes to a company’s processes. There is also a certain degree of natural acclimation and culture building that occurs as a workplace becomes more representative.

Getting the world comfortable with our hair, names, and accents happens as we start to be among the people inside these offices. This process takes time.

NETWORKS

A McKinsey study showed  informal networks based on shared experiences, interests and knowledge play a crucial role in how we advance in our careers. That often leaves minority women out of the male-dominated “old boy networks” of influence that serve to accelerate one’s career.

It’s not only the informal networks: Silicon Valley is fueled by venture capital, and recent studies show a paucity of both women and ethnic minorities making decisions at venture capital firms. Less than one-third of firms have even a single women involved in investment decisions, according to a survey by Page Mill Publishing, and too many have none at all. This is a problem for minority women entrepreneurs, as it’s been proven that investors tend to fund entrepreneurs who look like themselves. It unfortunately makes sense that VC dollars make their way into the hands of less than one percent of minority or women-led startups.

But it’s not all bad news. Whether I’m speaking to recruiters, human resources heads, or C-suite execs, I hear nearly identical refrains from people at leading tech companies. They really do understand the value that a diversity of people and perspectives can bring to a workforce. And equally important, they understand that they need help expanding their traditional pipelines to find and market to underrepresented talent.

We are starting to see investment in changing the situation as well as signs of progress. Last year Intel launched its $125 million Diversity Fund to invest in startups run by women and underrepresented minorities. Google is backing a nonprofit dedicated to creating networking opportunities for women in tech, in addition to its own Women Techmakers community. The networks that are so critical to progress are growing, albeit slowly.

As the national conversation continues, we should remember that the problems I’ve laid out are longstanding and deserving of similarly long-term solutions. For minority women, the drive for equal representation is ongoing. But there are positive developments, and the path to change is more realistic than it has ever been.

Tani Brown is head of partnerships for Jopwell, a recruitment and hiring platform for building a more diverse workforce. She is a graduate of Princeton University who previously worked at Google in New York City and taught English as a Fulbright scholar in Vietnam. She wrote this column as a guest contributor to USA TODAY.