{"id":54977,"date":"2017-03-09T10:22:14","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T16:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=54977"},"modified":"2017-03-09T10:22:14","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T16:22:14","slug":"chicago-startup-hub-empowers-women-in-technology-on-international-womens-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/chicago-startup-hub-empowers-women-in-technology-on-international-womens-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago startup hub empowers women in technology on International Women\u2019s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yingcong (June) Fu<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sandi Mays, chief information officer at Zayo Group, dresses up for work, but then finds herself surrounded by men in jeans and t-shirts. <\/p>\n

She is often interrupted by men when she is the lone woman at meetings at the Boulder, Colorado-based communications technology company, and she sometimes gets left out of social events in the male-dominated workplace. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen men go out and play golf, you don\u2019t even necessarily get invited. So you are sitting back at the office, working hard, and they\u2019re playing golf,\u201d Mays said. She spoke on a panel to a packed audience of women in technology at 1871 for International Women\u2019s Day on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

According to data by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, while women accounted for 46.8 percent of the total employees in 2016, only 25.5 percent of computer and math related occupations were held by women.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The tech industry is dominated by men. (Yingcong (June) Fu\/MEDILL)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a hard industry, long hours, and it doesn\u2019t really cater to the feminine. It\u2019s a very masculine industry,\u201d said Jessica Zweig, an entrepreneur who hosted a separate conversation organized by Ms. Tech, a networking organization in Chicago. <\/p>\n

\"\"
Jessica Zweig hosted a conversation organized by Ms. Tech at 1871. (Yingcong (June) Fu\/MEDILL)
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a result, many women tend to leave the industry in the middle of their careers. <\/p>\n

A factsheet by National Center for Women & Information Technology in 2016 showed that the quit rate of women was more than twice that of men in the high tech industry, and approximately half of women left the field after about 12 years. <\/p>\n

Susan Fowler, who wrote a blog about the sexual harassment and unfairness she experienced in the year that she worked as a site reliability engineer at Uber, is a case in point, Zweig said. <\/p>\n

Fowler left Uber for a job at Stripe a month later. \u201cOn my last day at Uber, I calculated the percentage of women who were still in the organization,\u201d Fowler wrote in her blog. \u201cOut of over 150 engineers in the SRE teams, only 3 percent were women.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cIf you feel like you are alone, you are much more likely to choose a place where you are not alone,\u201d Mays said, referring to the central reason women leave tech jobs in male-dominated companies.<\/p>\n

The women who spoke at Wednesday\u2019s events emphasized that the tech industry needs to change to make women and other minorities more welcome. \u201cWhy diversity is important is not just because women are better or men are better, or Hispanics are better. It\u2019s because you are paying people to participate 100 percent,\u201d Mays said.<\/p>\n

The issue is one of fairness as well. Jobs in technology pay more and can be a socio-economic leg up for women and minorities.<\/p>\n

According to BLS data, the median weekly earnings in computer and math occupations was $1,443 in 2016, 73.4 percent higher than the median of total occupations. The median weekly earnings for women was $1,325, 12.7 percent lower than that for men.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be good in STEM, you don\u2019t have to be a man or a woman,\u201d said Anh Kieu, network designer at Zayo Group, who describes herself as “the minority\u201d on her team. She has worked there for nearly a year, and has no plans to leave. <\/p>\n

\u201cI can see a lot of growth in this area, and there\u2019s so much potential. I still feel I can contribute and continue to work here,\u201d Kieu said.<\/p>\n

Photo at top:1871, the Chicago startup hub, organized a series of events for International Women’s Day. (Yingcong (June) Fu\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yingcong (June) Fu Sandi Mays, chief information officer at Zayo Group, dresses up for work, but then finds herself surrounded by men in jeans and t-shirts. 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