By Huan Xun Chan
Though there are more women joining the technology field, gender disparity in the industry is still evident in the statistics. According to the National Center for Women & Information Technology, women made up only 26 percent of the computing workforce in 2017.
When men are sitting together and talking about their interests in gaming, sports and high-end technology, IBM Hybrid Cloud Senior Offering Manager Juanita Dion-Chiang said it is actually very hard for women to feel included.
“Women never say no but that doesn’t mean they fit in,” Dion-Chiang said.
Coming from a computer and software engineering background, Dion-Chiang has worked in program management at IBM for six years.
“Women in the technology industry are constantly being reminded that they are women through different ways such as body gestures and opportunities,” she said.
According to Catalyst, a nonprofit organization focused on promoting inclusive workplaces for women, work experiences such as isolation, hostile male-dominated work environments and ineffective executive feedback, negatively impact women who work in science, engineering and technology industries and eventually leave their jobs.
In the United States, about one-third of women in the aforementioned industries intend to leave their careers within a year, according to Catalyst.
“We as women have three responsibilities – ourselves, our husbands and our children – which are incredibly heavy and pressured,” Dion-Chiang said.
In fall 2017, female students made up 23 percent engineering and computer science majors at San Jose State University, according to SJSU Office of Institutional Effectiveness & Analytics.
“Definitely, female students are as capable and confident as most students are, but they are just less represented,”
Darpan Goyal, Director of Student Engagement & Co-Founder of SJ Hacks said.
SJ Hacks, a student organization dedicated to organizing Hackathons, collaborated with IBM to organize “Women in Tech” workshop. This was held not only to bring technology experts to campus, but also to bring female students together in an environment which allows them to share their achievements and frustrations with other peers.
The workshop attracted female students and San Jose female residents. Eighty percent of the participants were women, according to SJ Hacks.
“Events like this will help females feel that they are being recognized and seen as one of the important parts of the technology culture in Silicon Valley. We must keep motivating them and ensure that they know they are as capable as males,” Goyal said.
Computer engineering graduate student Rishika Machina showed her passion for data science at the workshop.
“It’s very challenging, you have to work for it and you have to prove yourself,” Machina said. “At the end of the day, when you complete a code or program, you will feel happy and you’ll discover that you really are capable of doing anything.”
Machina added that the challenge posed to women is how to sustain a job in this field. “When I am doing projects, I see that females are assigned less important and productive parts compared to males,” she said.
As a woman in the engineering industry, Dion-Chiang said she hopes to reverse an unfair situation.
“We are being promoted based on our performances whereas men are promoted based on their potential. I would like to bring that to a reverse,” Dion-Chiang said. “I want women to show the world that we have potential, and for men to show us their support.”
She added that women should not be judged by how they dress up and how they do their makeup. It is more important for people to pay attention to a woman’s intelligence and the ways they share information.
