Women in Tech... are you to blame?

Maybe we are the ones that should take the blame

Back in September, I wrote a guest blog post on the Women in Tech UK site entitled Be Responsible For Your Career. In it, I wrote about Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s graduation speech and how she highlights that women are a lot to blame for the gender disparities in the technology field. I wanted to follow up with today’s blog post pointing out another article written about Sheryl Sandberg in the New Yorker entitled A Woman’s Place.

This article points out Sheryl’s background, timeline and her viewpoints on women in the work force in general. She echos sentiments from her speech that women are also at blame, but she brings up another interesting point that I think is useful for discussion here. That is, that there is an inherent belief that still exists in society today that women are the ones that take care of the home. And because of that, they hesitate to speak up, excel, prioritize their careers, basically leave their families once they have started creating families. On the other end of the spectrum is the idea that women being in charge of the home simply has nothing to do with the fact that our numbers are low, but instead it is because we don’t have 
the opportunities that men do. 

To be honest, especially in the world of technology, I think that this is a healthy mix of the two points of view, and that it ultimately depends on the individual women. However, I do agree that we are more apt to “blame” our environment instead of look at ourselves as part of the problem. 

So, women in tech and future women in tech... what do you think? Who is correct on this one? Is the female representation in technology due to not having opportunity, or are we simply not stepping up because of societal beliefs? And, what do you think is the solution to having more women in our field? Can’t wait to hear what you think!