A startup culture for women

Imagine: beauty bar, treehouse jungle gyms, yoga mats and mani-pedi stations

A recent gathering at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs brought together a number of women sharing their insights and suggestions on how to close the gender inequality gap, by changing public and private policies. 

One of the main points made by Sue Gardner, former director of Wikimedia, who kicked off the event, was that to get more women into tech - either at startups or at big established firms - the working environment and unconscious bias against women had to change. To underscore this point, she showed one slide that stated that 31% of women surveyed (I'm assuming at tech firms) were mistaken for a cleaner or administrator. She then brought up a slide of Joan Williams, of UC Hastings, who said that “What pushes women out of tech isn’t pipeline issues or personal choice, but bias.”

While I believe there's probably a bit of a pipeline issue (I do believe females from underserved families still need encouragement and open doors to get into STEM programs, hence why I support Techbridge), I also agree that there is a bias problem and it's reflected in the working conditions, particularly those who have children.

As a mother, I know that it’s just too difficult to juggle work and children, much less infants, unless there’s help. But many families aren’t fortunate enough to be able to afford help around the clock. And if you’re working full time or even 80% of the time, that’s what you’d need.   

In an informal survey of 700 women, some 484 left their tech jobs because of motherhood. Part of the reason was because the working environment wasn’t conducive. Most offices don’t have private places for women to pump. And at startups, instituting parental leave policies aren’t exactly priority. 

Indeed, a startup culture doesn’t at all reflect a comfy place for women, who have children, unless those kids are the office pooch - aka company mascots. Come to think of it, when thinking about startup culture, one thinks about ping pong tables, foosball, bean bags, free snacks, drinks, free lunches and pizza and beer nights. Sort of what you’d find at a fraternity house – but cleaner and with mostly better food. It shouldn't come as a surprise.

Today's startup culture is primarily a culture designed and made by single young males.

 
Imagine a place designed for women – and those with children.

There would be the cozy nap room for sleep time for babies and sleep-deprived parents, a jungle gym for infants and toddlers; there might be an area with mats and water fountains for yoga time and a beauty bar to get manicures and pedicures. Imagine mandatory relaxation breaks, with clean robes, slippers, cucumber-filled water and sliced fruit. And there might even be tea and cookies time and free membership to services that provide personal shoppers, and even time for a weekly jewelry party. 

Imagine.

But it’s hard to imagine that today.

So I agree that working conditions need to change, especially if we want to encourage women entering motherhood to still consider working.  

In fact, when we broke off into our small groups to discuss what changes we could drive forward to foster female entrepreneurship, the two changes our group came up with were No. 1 - Transparency – there should be clear milestones and standards laid out explicitly from the start so everyone understands how to get promoted and it’s not a decision made in the dark and importantly No. 2 - Build a culture of diversity right from the start: If we’re to change the workplace to accommodate everyone (pregnant and mothers-of-infants included) then let’s have that culture from the start.

Let’s remember that in order for us to create products consumed by a very culturally diverse America, then we need to have those disparate groups working alongside us.

As my friend and colleague Erin Flynn said: "Men are physical and their physical work space is important - which is why foosball tables and kegs work for them.  I think for women, it is a more holistic picture about perks both inside and outside of the office and work/life balance (especially those with kids)."