‘Does Not Compute’ The Hidden Costs for Black Women Working in the Tech Industry

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‘Does Not Compute’

The Hidden Costs for Black Women Working

in the Tech Industry

Karis Mimms

MA Thesis New Media and Digital Cultures, University of Amsterdam Supervisor: dr. Marc Tuters

Second Reader: dr. Michael Stevenson 28th_{June 2018}

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Abstract

New media tech workers have come to have an iconic status in terms of representing the future of work. However, due to an abundance of reports of massive inequalities in the workforce, a paradox is revealed of an industry and workplace culture that boasts an open, cool and non-hierarchical environment, yet has been proven to have a lack of diverse workers. This thesis probes into the inequalities that black women face in the tech industry, while exposing the factors that contribute to the current disparity in the United States. Although there is a substantial amount of work about gender in tech industry, there is limited current work in academia specifically focusing on how race and gender intersect in the new media tech industry. Thus, this thesis combines concepts found in academic and online news article, that start to unravel the obstacles black women must overcome while working in the tech industry. Alongside, digital research on the social media platform Reddit, that explore more personal accounts from black women in the tech industry. Exposing often hidden inequalities that are only revealed once black women are able to tell their story. Therefore, the importance of studying such a work culture through digital methods, not only highlights complications for workers within an industry that prides itself on ideologies of openness, more importantly it explores the intersection of gender and race, showing how these play a role in unfavourable experience for black women within the American tech industry.

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Keywords: Tech Industry, Black Women, Diversity, Intersectionality, Digital Research.

1. INTRODUCTION

The technology industry in America has a diversity problem, through which companies that produce electronics, computers, software and services that relate to data technology, are comprised of a mainly white-male homogenous workforce. At present, money and initiatives have been put in place by the big names in tech, such as Google, Uber, Twitter, Amazon, to try and help alleviate the extreme lack of racial and gender diversity in the workforce. However, the number of black women working in the tech industry is still extremely low, with a mere 3% of the workforce, showing that being a woman and black in America has two intersecting inequalities of racial and gender hurdles to overcome (Ashcraft et al., 2). In this thesis an exploration of hiring, education, representation, networking racial and gender discrimination, will see how they all play a role in how black women experience working in a male-gendered, white dominated industry. Yet, for those within the tech industry, there is almost a mantra-like motto that uses meritocracy; those with an innovative idea and technical prowess will succeed, to describe how individuals and start-ups have come to be successful and renowned.

However, historically, women, particularly minorities who were racially segregated, were a huge part of American programming, such as the human computers during World War II, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) 1960s ‘Space Race’. Showing that these disparities are not due to black women being historically uninterested or not capable of programming and dealing with technology. Yet now, black women are seen as a minority work in the tech sector, so this paper aims to find out what are the factors that contribute to these disparities? And what inequalities do black women face in the American tech industry today? This is particularly imperative to understand as the technology industry is a business sectors that produces new media consumer goods such as mobile technology, computer programmes, wearable technology, as well as creating innovative commodities that influence individual’s everyday life, therefore having a diverse labour force brings about different personal backgrounds, cultures, knowledge, ideas can only foster positive innovations.

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Accordingly, the following section of the introduction will produce a look at the current climate of black women in America to contextualise the gender and racial atmosphere in America. Followed by a breakdown of what the tech industry consists of, particularly understanding Silicon Valley, a location in American that epitomises the tech industry. Then, a historical look back at the role women played in the early days of ‘computing’ will expand on how women and women of color have previously contributed to programming. While showing how women have slowly been leaving the field and education of computer science. The second section provides a theoretical framework which conceptualises the current phenomenon of such large disparities of black women in the industry. Through a review of academic theorists and online news articles that will be assimilated and employed to create a breakdown of the concepts that will structure the thesis. To date, most academic writing has focused primarily on the inequalities and the disparity of women in the tech industry, however, as many recent online news articles have started to report, black women are at an intersection of race and gender. This literature in this thesis will show that working in the tech industry poses at times problematic workplace environments, a white-male dominated workforce and informal hiring processes that limit the opportunities for black women to enter the industry. Silicon Valley in particular, a location with global influence that highlights pervasive practices of inequality, boasts a meritocratic structure of success, demonstrates how problematic the tech industry can be for black women. Also, issues of education and limited representation of black females in the tech industry, exhibit factors that play an early role in how young black women perceive and hold back from entering the industry.

In section three, an in-depth description of the method employed to contribute my own research on the social media platform Reddit. Which details two months of analysing subreddits that cater to black women in the tech industry, where the online tech communities discuss personal experiences, while also posing my own question to interact and engage with my chosen demographic. this section will also show why digital sociology research on the Reddit is a valuable area to understand black female experiences in the tech industry. Then the fourth section displays the findings and discussion produced through the empirical research, that explore more personal accounts from black women in the tech industry. Where computer science education has been found to be a harder experience for some black female tech workers than their time in industry. Additionally, the discourse on start-up tech companies having been found to be less diverse in their workforce than larger tech

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companies. As well as a large amount of Reddit users in the tech community questioning why there even needs to be a focus on diversity in tech. Showcase the hurdles black women have to overcome to succeed, often hidden inequalities, that are only exposed once black women are able to tell their story, rather than white male tech workers expressing their opinions. Therefore, this paper will conclude by pulling together all of the threads from the section to explore the hurdles black women face while working and entering the tech industry. Where Academic and news articles will obtain a theoretical and professional perspective, that will uncover earlier research into the phenomenon of inequality in the tech industry. While employing digital research on the social media platform Reddit, will engage with black women in the tech industry, thus learning about the hidden costs, if any. In doing so, an understanding of the paradox of an industry and workplace culture that boasts an open, cool and non-hierarchical environment, while mainly hiring a homogenous workforce of white men, is uncovered. While this thesis will also be contributing to a gap in the field, by exploring the intersection of race and gender, where previously most research focuses on gender inequalities, rather than the intersecting issues that women of colour face.

1.1 Contextualising Black Women in America

“The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.”

(Malcolm X, 19621₎ When the 2018 Marvel Studios film Black Panther hit cinemas across the world to critical acclaim, it smashed box office records globally and was second-highest grossing opening weekend in the United States of all time (Mendelson). The film was comprised of an African-American ensemble, which broke barriers in terms of representation for black actors and actresses. However, a key character in the film came in the form of ‘Shuri’ - played by Letitia Wright - the protagonists 16-year-old sister. Shuri is not only the princess of the fictional African nation, Wakanda, but also the highly intelligent and innovative technology designer 1 Quote by Malcolm X from his Los Angeles May 22nd speech in 1962. Video available:

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for the country (Mullen). This positive role model is ground-breaking, not only in a film full of strong women of colour, but also as her character-focus is purely on her technological talent and quick wit. The momentous character breaks down the typical ‘white-nerdy-male’ stereotype that many technically savvy characters are represented through. Yet, currently in the United States, black women are amongst the smallest demographic to have a job within the technology industry (Ashcraft et al.). In a report created by the non-profit organisation

National Center for Women & Information Technology, they found that in 2015, women

occupied 57% of all jobs, yet only 25% held were in the computing profession (Ashcraft et

al.). These statistics are even lower for back women who held a mere 3% of these jobs

(Ashcraft et al.). What is problematic about these statistics is that the ideas and products that are created by the technology industry have a huge influence on future innovations and thus society, which is why research into why there is such a disparity within the field is imperative to understand.

Additionally, with its positive contribution to representation, Black Panther broke ground with its depiction of an African American girl whose technology skills could assist a whole country. However, this Hollywood blockbuster should not be a signifier for how progressive American society is. Rather, amongst a time of empowering media and a shifting political climate in the United States, there has also been an increase of consciousness and scrutiny into other aspects of life in America for people of colour. Take the activism of Black Lives

Matter2_{, a social movement that began as a 2013 hashtag on Twitter, after the acquittal of}

George Zimmerman who shot to death Trayvon Martin, an African-American teen. They regularly protest police brutality against black individuals and racial inequality in America, highlighting the racial injustices that still persist, even though the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964. To further showcase America’s critical discourse on the current inequity that the country faces, one could look at the ‘Women’s March’. This demonstration occurred in January 2017, following the inauguration of the Republican President Donald Trump, where women across the globe took to the streets to demonstrate a whole host of grievances. These ranged from protests of the gender pay gap, abortion rights and sexual harassment, amongst others. Similarly, news media has been prolific as a platform for voicing the opinions and stories of diverse female voices. For example, the Financial Times Weekend Magazine dedicated their entire December issue - which traditionally summarises and represents the 2 Black Lives matter was created by Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi. For more on the backstory of how the social movement came to be see: https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/herstory/ .

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happenings of the year - to “highlight women’s voices” (FT Weekend Magazine, 4). In the magazine, an article by Ellen Pao showcased a prominent issue within the news on the gender disparity and racial inequality in the workplace, she explained that 2017 had “highlighted the obstacles that women, people of colour, women of colour and others experience every day in the workplace” (FT Weekend Magazine, 19).

Likewise, within the tech industry this has also been emphasized, with 2017 being termed a “watershed year” at Silicon Valley for women, due to a number of issues, but a lack of diversity in the tech industry has been a large problem (Wong). Although a marginal increase has been found in released data, the lack of black women in the tech companies located there has been staggering (Pao). Currently in Silicon Valley, Uber and Twitter have fifteen percent of women in tech-related jobs, Airbnb last reported employing women in 26 percent of its tech roles, Lyft eighteen percent, and Google reported 19 percent (Vara). With this in mind, the object of this research is to uncover what inequalities women in the tech industry face, and what factors contribute to the current disparities. In doing so, the phenomenon found recently through a vast amount of reports and news articles on the discrimination women experience in the tech industry, intersected with the inequality black women face in the workplace or even getting the job in the first place will be detected.

1.2 Defining the Tech Industry at Present

To grasp the inequalities that black women may face in the tech industry, a clear definition of what the term ‘tech industry’ refers to within this thesis is vital. When using the term, it is in reference to a section of the vast and ever growing new media sector, in what Batt et al. sees as a combination of components of “computing technology, telecommunications, and content to create products and services which can be used interactively by consumers and business users”, a definition created by the New York New Media Association (13). Similarly, Indergaard understands new media firms as developing “commercial applications out of a potent mix of technology and culture” (xi). Both of these understandings see the use of computing knowhow, creative production and innovative ideas to be key in understanding the practices of workers found in new media firms (Pratt & Jeffcut). However, it must be emphasized that working in the new media industry contains a variety of complex skills to keep up with ever-changing technology and needs of society. Part of this is the education field of computer science, an area that constantly arises in academic writing about the tech

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industry and its historical context. For Jane Margolis, the link between computer science and understanding the industry is due to the fact that the former “drives innovation - from science to arts” (68). In 2003, The Association of Computing Machinery defined computer science as “the study of computers and algorithmic processes, including their principles, their hardware and software designs, their applications, and their impact on society” which reflects the definitions above of the skills needed to work within new media firms (Margolis et al. 2011). The field of new media tech workers has been explored from a variety of focuses, from the workers own experiences, the workplace environment, and the city in which the formation of creative work is situated (Gill 2002; Florida 2003; Ross 2004; Deuze 2007; Marwick 2013). For instance, both written over a decade ago, Andrew Ross’ work in The Humane Workplace

and Its Hidden Costs and Rosalind Gill’s research in Cool, Creative Egalitarian?, look at the

paradox of an industry and workplace culture that boasts an open, cool and non-hierarchical environment, yet are limited in their take on how race would play a role for the workers. Gill’s (2002) research exploring gender in project-based new media work in Europe found that her research produced participants who were “overwhelmingly white”, she suggests there is a need for further investigation of racial practices and exclusion at work, which is where this research can contribute to an extent. While Mark Deuze has argued that the industry of media - how it is managed, who is employed and the culture that is created - can be seen as ‘role models’ for the ever-globalizing economy. In summary, the ones making media content and infrastructures have immense influence in the product they are creating, which in turn has a role in contributing to the way that society is formed and understood, due to technologies influence on society.

Interestingly, some academics have displayed the new media workplace as a liberating environment, with a lack of hierarchical management, flexible hours and offices that feel more like social gathering (Ross 2004; Turner 2009). Yet, Deuze has signified that a notable part of the industries workforce are formed of “underpaid, insecure, low status, short-term jobs with little or no benefits or opportunities for promotion” (19). Similarly, Gill also writes of the precarious nature of new media work, particularly the obscured line between work and life of working at New Media companies. Therefore, although being employed in a line of work of culture creators may have its perks, the reality of such a career has been explored by David Hesmondhalgh, who found that “most creative workers exist in a vast reservoir of underused and under-resourced talent, picking up work here and there” (32). Thus, the

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importance of examining this industry is due to those working in the industry also exert influence on to societies that consume the products and the “iconic status” that the workers and workplace hold as the positive representation of ideal companies to work for (Gill, 2002).

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ver the past few years there has seen an increase of mainstream news articles questioning the diversity of the new media workforce, so much so that there is little dispute to the statement that Silicon Valley is largely white and male in demographic. Although tech firms, such as Google, Uber and Twitter, are currently trying to find ways to make their workplaces more diverse and inclusive, one could argue that these efforts have been limited. In the summer of 2014 these three companies and a whole host more, released the demographics of their workforce to the public. Surowiecki (2014) states these reports “confirmed what everyone already knew: tech is a man’s world.” Also for a new media tech industry that “idealizes openness, transparency, and creativity”, it is particularly interesting to see the abundance of reports that have recently come to light, of massive inequalities in the workforce, sexual harassment claims that highlight an environment contradicting their ethos (Marwick 2013, 110). For example, at a TechCrunch ‘Disrupt’ conference in 2013, two tech workers went on stage to describe an app called Titstare, that allows the user to “stare at tits” (Gray). Not surprisingly, there is also problem of retention for female workers within the tech industry due to feeling unwelcome in the workforce, yet notably there have been reports of a fall in women in computer science degrees over the past three decades, where this has not been the case for other scientific fields.

However, not only is there a gendered problem and a need for gender inclusivity in the tech industry, there is also a racial problem, with clear disparities in the workforce. This is clear when one looks at Google’s demographic data of their workforce in America, the smallest number came in the form of “black people in leadership and technical roles in the US were at or below 2 percent”, an industry wide pattern seen within Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and Yahoo’s numbers (Katz). Since then a small increase has been found in the annual diversity reports, such as an increase of three percent in Apples “percentage of women in technical roles” from twenty to twenty-three, while their overall percentage of black employees increased from a mere seven to 9 percent, yet Google saw no change in its percentage of black employees (Katz). Of course, changes in a workforce do not just magically change overnight, it has been argued that “diversifying Silicon Valley’s workforce

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is a complex issue” (Wong). This thesis hopes to dig into an important demographic of black woman in the tech industry and the hurdles in place due to two intersecting impediments from society and the industry they are within. Thus, exploring the factors that make black women in the tech industry a disparity.

1.3 Silicon Valley as the Epitome of the Tech Industry

To understand the tech industry that is being referred to in this research, and to put a ‘face’ to the environment that many workers in the industry deal with, a short description and understanding of Silicon Valley is beneficial. Although it could be argued that the proliferation of communicative technology in the “digital age” allow for place to be a non-issue in regard to business and innovative production, Indergaard has argued that the flow of information, creativity and mobilisation of workers in Silicon Valley is that that area is a clustered “urban place” (Indergaard 11). By this Indergaard is referring to a metropolitan location that is built up and specialised for a certain business. It could be said that Silicon Valley for tech workers is what Hollywood is for actors. Those in tech want to be living and working in the location that has been described in academic literature as a powerhouse of the computer industry, possessing the elite creative workers who operate and create software and design for across the globe (Indergaard 12). Correspondingly, Florida and Gates believe that “people in technology business are drawn to places known for diversity of thought and open mindedness” (1). Which is exemplified by how Silicon Valley is the ‘birthplace’ to many of the big names in tech; take Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jack Dorsey of Twitter, Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn, Larry Page of Google, and Elon Musk of Tesla. All of these men founded their tech companies there.

Additionally, Richard Florida names Silicon Valley as a “fast-growing region” within San Francisco (Florida 14), and in his work with Gates, Florida also found it to be one of America’s “high-technology centres” and to be dominant in the world (Florida & Gates 2). This is backed up by statistics according to The United States Census Bureau, that San Francisco is not only the cultural, but also the commercial, and financial center of Northern California. Home to companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, Silicon Valley is part of the local urban cluster of “new media activity” in America, like many other

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clusters; Silicon Alley in New York, Telecom Corridor in Texas and the Silicon Slopes of Salt Lake City to name a few (Pratt, 425). Yet, what makes San Francisco distinctive, particularly on its influence on its consumers, is Marwick’s claim that it is “the centre of the social media world” in combination with its liberal community where start-up companies have been known to become ubiquitously used products and platforms (4). Since the 1960s, Silicon Valley has boasted these technological innovation that has seen it home to the leaders of the tech scene, yet Marwick argues these celebrated entrepreneurs and workforce from the past fifty years have predominantly been “young, white, rich men” (18).

However, Ross (2004) and Marwick (2013) believe Silicon Valley to be a region famous for its ethos of “openness”, which has been found by both academics as a significant value of tech workers principles in Silicon Valley. As explained in the introduction, this is somewhat of a contradiction if the demographics statistics of inequity and news stories of sexual harassment and gender discrimination are of any indication to the reality of working within the tech industry. Even though research by Florida and Gates (2003) found Silicon Valley to be a diverse setting, where “nearly a quarter of the population is foreign born; and almost one-third of the Valley’s high-tech scientists and engineers hail from foreign countries (5). There is a clear disparity of women and black women in a workforce that is primarily white, Asian and male, an issue when, as Vara (2015) states, can “influence entrepreneur perspectives on the kinds of products that are needed”

Although Silicon Valley does not represent the whole of the tech industry, it does allow for a specific place to be attributed to vast “dynamic sector” of the new media sector (Batt 4). Yet, it is important to note that Silicon Valley will be used a great deal throughout the thesis, as it is seen as the epitome of working in the tech industry. As it is the home to successful tech start-ups, innovative entrepreneurs and important technology companies such as the aforementioned “big 4 of technology”; Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google (Ritholtz). However, it should be noted that although Silicon Valley is seen as the centre and the most represented in the news and in academic writing, it is important to make clear that this thesis hopes to look more generally at the tech industry in America. Nonetheless, Silicon Valley could be seen as the “global centre” of the tech industry, with the issues prevalent there being a clear indication of the problems that exist throughout the industry (Rohde). Showing how the whole tech industry functions and excludes certain demographics. Which also means that

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this thesis will be taking a Western perspective when it comes to issues and challenges faced by the workers. This is due to the abundance of resources and secondary literature from academics who have observed and participated within these workplaces, means a rich knowledge has been accumulated of tech workers. It could be argued that research into a new tech industry hub, away from the American and Western formation of such work cultures in Silicon Valley, would bring about new understanding of a sector of work that produces products that shape society. However, this research hopes to explore an understudied group of workers to understand the hidden costs of working in the tech industry for black women.

1.4 The Age of the ‘Computer Girls’

“I changed what I could, and what I couldn’t, I endured.”

(Dorothy Vaughan, 19943₎ Before a more in-depth comprehension of the current phenomena, into the lack of diversity in the tech industry is to take place, a historical understanding of the tech industry is important in displaying how the gender and racial disparity is not a historical commonplace. The idea that computer science has always been a male-dominated field is a common belief that has been refuted by academics and by accounts from those who were working within the field in the past (Misa; Crump et al.; Ensmenger; Hicks). Over the past few years there have been an abundance of news articles entitled with questions enquiring into the lack of female presence in the tech workforce. For instance, The Guardian’s ‘How can we encourage more women

into tech? - what the experts say’ or TechCrunch’s ‘An Action Plan For Getting More Women In Tech’ (William; Lomas). However, historically women were the key demographic

of programmers, take for instance early female programmers of the 1940s and the three decades that followed (Guynn). If we take a look back even further, Augusta Ada Lovelace from the nineteenth century, was an English Mathematician who is recognised as “the first computer programmer” (Morais). So perhaps the question being asked by news media should be ‘How do you get women back into computing?’.

3 cited in Golemba, Vaughn was an African-American human computer at NASA, portrayed by Octavia Spencer in the 2016 American biographical film, Hidden Figures.

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Figure 1. America's Human Computers: (top left) Gladys West, (top right) Katherine Johnson and Mary Jackson, (bottom left) Dorothy Vaughan, Lessie Hunter, and Vivian Adair, (bottom right) Annie Easley4_{. Source in Footnotes.}

With this in mind, a greater understanding of the history of women in technology and computing is vital. In a podcast series called BackStory, an episode named ‘Binary Coeds’ has historians detail the story of the early computer programmers, which consisted mainly of women5_{. One of the historians, Margaret O’Mara, explains that the term ‘computer’ was used} to refer to a person doing math. For projects such as the early American space programmes and when the electronic computer was invented, it was up to women to programme these machines in 1940s America. For example, during World War II, the ENIAC6_{project - run by} the U.S. Army - saw six women programme the first electronic computer. African-American women in particular, played a prominent role as ‘Human Computers’, in figure 1, seven women who were data processors for projects run by NASA, U.S. Army and the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. Yet when the device went public, these women were never publicly acknowledged (Ensmenger). The project was top secret, which might indicate why their stories are only emerging now (HamiltonSeen). However, by the late 1960s into the

4 Images from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-43812053 , https://www.basedonatruestorypodcast.com/33-hidden-figures/ , http://ijpr.org/post/hidden-human-computers-nasa#stream/0 ,

http://turtleroad.org/2016/08/21/teaching-the-universe-hidden-human-computers-the-black-women-of-nasa/

5 For the full podcast episode see: https://www.backstoryradio.org/shows/women-work/

6ENIAC stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, which was amongst one of the first electronic digital computers.

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early 70s computer programming was publicly perceived to be a “growth industry for women”, particularly when 30% of the programmers were women (Backstory).

Additionally, the popularity of computer science stemmed from not only the job being represented by many women in the field of computer work. It was also a job that was flexible with the mothers - who at the time largely had the responsibility of looking after their children - as aspects of programming work was available to be done at home. Yet despite the prominent role women played in the early days of programming, come the 1980’s, women began to leave at the field at a rapid pace: “not merely did women stop entering computing in large numbers, but the proportion of women studying computing actually began falling — and it has continued to fall, steadily, all the way through to the present” (Misa, 5). O’Mara links the fall of women participating to MIT and Stanford Universities founding “legendary” computer science programs that were more suited to men, where students would stay up all night, lacked hygiene and stayed by a computer screens with limited social interaction (Backstory). Ensmenger (2012) related it too coding jobs becoming better paid, thus attracting more men particularly when the large male dominated companies began to take over. Which is clearly seen in Thomas Misa’s research, that found when all other fields of science were steadily growing, from 1984 to 2006, women who were majoring in computer science went from 37% to 20%.

Finally, As seen in the previous section the standard account of Silicon Valley, the tech industry and values their workers to abide, is of “openness, transparency, and creativity” (Marwick 2013, 76). Such narratives are also seen in those of the twentieth century American computing, such as Steven Levy’s Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. Yet feminist scholars have critiqued such work and its depiction of the tech world, as a history of white men. Specifically, Allison Parrish who presented a talk critiquing Levy’s book of the ‘heroes’ of the computer world in America 50s, 60s and 70s. The book, like the majority of discourse on computing and the tech industry, revolves around the white male’s adventure in hacking and creating, to produce and improve digital object. However, the representation of women in Levy’s history, women, who have made immense contribution to computing - such as Margaret Hamilton who developed “the software for the Apollo program”- are hardly mentioned in the book (Parrish). Women in Levy’s book appear as the male’s romantic interest, take for instance the opening pages which immediately gives you a who’s-who of the ‘computer revolution’. Only two women are named: “Roberta Williams, Ken Williams' timid

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wife” (xvi) and “Margot Tommervik, With her husband Al”, both named alongside their husbands in their description (xv).

Correspondingly, another critique of Levy’s work is Zwicky et al., who appreciates the stories of hackers and the roles they played in participating in what has helped revolutionise the world. However, she states “this is a book about monogamous straight white guys” (56). Zwicky was part of the “community” that Levy writes about and finds it to have “chosen tiny part of computing history”, even though Levy’s title suggest this to be the epitome and the leaders of the even the title, ‘computer revolution’ (56). Similarly, O’Reilly Media term the book to be a classic, showing it to be reputable source (O’Reilly). Yet the feminist critique of one book show how important it is to reveal the less represented stories of minorities and women’s whose contribution are often concealed. Therefore, with a modern perspective, women largely contributed to programming, particularly black female participation. This thesis research aims to be a record of black women and their own plights and addition to the technology industry, to achieve a better understanding and to problematise the white male domination of the tech industry in the United States.

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2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

Black women in the tech industry and the reoccurring concepts found.

Now that the introduction has touched upon contextualising gender and racial tensions in modern America, defined the tech industry and presented how it is functioning at present. While also shining a light on Silicon Valley as the epitome of the tech industry, where the celebration of innovation of breaking barriers, is contrasted by a lack of diversity that is deeply rooted in their location. Finally, the introduction explored the historical context of women’s role in computer science and programming, known as the human computers, and how this shows that the tech industry has not always been a male dominated field.

This next chapter reveals the recurring concepts that have been discovered within a vast body of academic literature and multiple online news articles on gender and racial problems. Which will help to uncover what inequalities black women in the tech industry face, and the factors that contribute to the large disparities in the workforce. The concepts that will be explored show that working in the tech industry poses at times problematic workplace environments, a white-male dominated workforce and informal hiring processes that limit the opportunities for black women to enter the industry. Silicon Valley in particular, a location with global influence that highlights pervasive practices of inequality, boasts a meritocratic structure of success, will demonstrate just how problematic the tech industry can be for black women. Thereafter, issues of education and limited representation of black females in the tech industry, will be exhibited as factors that play an early role in how young black women perceive and hold back from entering the industry. The importance of studying such a work culture not only highlight complications for workers within an industry that prides itself on ideologies of openness, more importantly it explores the intersection of gender and race. Therefore, showing how these play a role in unfavourable experience for black women within the tech industry.

Through academic literature and online news articles a clear number of concepts have come to light. The next six sections will explore: (1) the gendered environment of the tech industry that shows research into woman feeling isolated and highly outnumbered in the workplace. (2) Alongside this, the issues then faced by female workers whose identity is racially intersected by being a black woman, understanding the obstacles that these women face. (3)

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Once these two integral elements are explored in-depth, a review of academic literature on Silicon Valley’s claim of a meritocratic system is critiqued. (4) Then an exploration into how the informal practice of networking - that are prevalent in the tech industry- specifically Silicon Valley, are delved into. This includes (5) representation and how this has affected influencing women to enter the field of computer science and tech jobs, (6) as well as education. Thereafter, a deeper understanding of how the phenomenon of limited black women in the tech industry has occurred and sustained will be made.

2.1 The Male Gendered Environment of the Tech Industry

To fully understand the inequalities that black women face, a theoretical look at how gender7 plays a role in the diversity disparities within the tech industry will be undertaken. Firstly, with an increase of women working across America and better opportunities for women to have access to jobs, Thompson et al. state that the last fifteen years have seen a “fundamental rearrangement of civil society, exemplified by a substantial influx of women into leadership positions” (xiv). However, the inhospitable environment of the tech industry for women to work in, which has been extensively described in online news media, can be partly put down to the imbalanced gender ratio within the workplace (Guynn; Mock; Stillman; Wong; Isaac; Fowler). For example, Sheelah Kolhatkar claims in The New Yorker that only a quarter of employees in Silicon Valley are women, a thought-provoking disparity in an environment that claims to be “realm of visionary futurists and tireless innovators who are making the world better” (Kolhatkar). This is not just an issue found in San Francisco Bay Area, in 2015 women occupied 57% of all jobs in the United States, yet like Silicon Valley, only 25% held computing-profession jobs, and even fewer were found in software development or in leadership roles within technology (Ashcraft et al., 2). An interesting trend found by the

National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) showed that since a peak in

1991, women holding computing occupations has been in decline, particularly a large number of women left the high-tech industry field: “the quit rate is more than twice as high for women (41 percent) than it is for men (17 percent)” (Ashcraft et al., 7, 9). When the NCWIT 7 It is important to mention the male-female binary terminology that is used in this section and throughout the thesis. From the academic research that have been explored, all theorists refer to women and men as two distinct gender groups, marginalising those who do not identify as either of these genders as well as not considering transgender individuals. However, due to reliance on statistic and academic work from secondary sources these limitations will not be explored but should be kept in mind.

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researchers questioned female interviewees on why the left their jobs, evidence suggested that “workplace experiences” of a male dominated workforce played a significant role, rather than the traditional belief of parenting and prioritising family over work (Ashcraft et al.,11). A similar report found that a “supportive infrastructure” in the workplace is lacking and leads to woman leaving (Barker et al. 6).

Similar to the NCWIT research on woman experiencing a male dominated workplace,

Coralesce ltd; a British research report, argued that “androcentric working environments”

were prevalent in the tech industry, which in turn affected women wanting to work in such a setting due to feeling isolated (Jones and Conroy, 12). Androcentric is a term they use based on Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 1911 introduction of the word, which describe the “societal fixation on masculinity whereby all things originate”. By using androcentrism, masculinity is seen as the standard and everything outside of it is seen as the other (Jones and Conroy, 13). Therefore, a different kind of bias is revealed, one that favours masculinity over femininity, rather than men over women. One example comes in the form of work attire, women often feel like that have to dress in a less ‘feminine’ manner in order to fit in with the masculine ‘slouchy’ jean-wearing environment, where it is supposed that the tech workers care less about what they are wearing and put their energy into innovating. This is found in an interview with senior front-end develop Angelique Weger, who when interviewed about the clothing choices she makes while being a woman in tech, notes that “working in tech and having a fairly ‘fem’ aesthetic can be a majorly double-edged sword” (Carpenter). Where some women have found themselves having to balance between fitting in with the ‘guys’ by dressing similarly to them or wanting to have the option of wearing traditionally feminine clothes without the possibility of being belittled or receiving “unwelcome attention” (Carpenter).

Another side of the male gendered environment found in the tech industry comes in the form of technology being associated with masculinity. In 1995, Grint and Gill explored “the widely held conviction that technologies are masculine”, in their book titled The

Gender-Technology Relation, that provides an overview on the links between gender and technology

(2). Amongst the perspectives they explore; eco-feminism, liberal feminism, and the final and most relevant to this papers view, which sees technology as masculine culture. In this third perspective, where this paper situates itself, they see it as a cultural association in Western societies, from smaller actions like sexist humour on women’s “technical incompetence”, to

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historical construction of masculinity and its link to tech technology (Grint and Gill, 3). In the latter, “technical competence”, has been regarded to play an important role in the gender identity of men (Grint and Gill, 8) Similarly, Wajcman (1991) and Cockburn (1985) also saw technology treated as a coded masculine culture. In chapter 6 of her book, Wajcman emphasises the prevalent notion of technology linked to masculinity found since the industrial revolution, yet in her work she puts forward a more complex understanding of this relationship with representations of women as “technologically ignorant and incapable” (137). Although Wajcman’s work is specifically about technology as an object, it can perhaps be applied to the new media workplace of high tech workers, innovating, programming and the solving of human problems with the entrepreneurial ideas that the media tech industry does. To bring a more contemporary idea of Wajcman’s line of though, she discusses hackers and their use of the computer to gain control and have power where they lack in the real social setting. Here Wajcman states: “In our culture, to be in command of the very latest technology signifies being involved in directing the future and so it is a highly valued and mythologized activity” (144). To be part of this process then, is also about power and this power is often associated with the “hegemonic masculinity” (145). Twenty years later Wajcman expands on gender and technology as a more fluid relationship, yet still finds that “entering technical domains […] requires women to sacrifice major aspects of their feminine identity”, as was spoken by Weger in the previous paragraph (Wajcman 2010, 145).

Subsequently, the link between technology and masculinity has shown why the field of technology is often coded as a man’s domain, exposing the hurdles women have to overcome to get past these historical and culturally entrenched ideas. In addition, more recently a barrier for women entering the industry has been credited to the male-college-like atmosphere and attitudes of men in tech roles, that alienate female workers. This understanding can be seen in the term ‘brogrammers’ that is often attributed to male workers who work in programming and engineering (Medina and Gomez; Hu; Guynn; Wiener). In the Los Angeles Times, one article stated that many “blame” the gender gap found in the tech industry on the so-called brogrammer culture, a term that combines the word ‘bro’ and occupation of being a ‘programmer’, that has become a “tongue-in-cheek name for engineers” (Guynn) Correspondingly, one writer for the Financial Times found that when she first moved to San Francisco “many of them resembled each other”, mainly white men under the age of thirty-five (Hook). Although the brogrammer can be just seen as an amusing term to stereotype the tech workforce, it actually points to a lack of diversity in the workforce, which is not just

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detrimental to women not wanting to enter the industry or actually leaving, it also impacts ideas and its exports, especially when the American tech industry is a “economic driver and influence on society” (Hu). Additionally, Wajcman argues that it is not women who should have to overcome and conform to masculine environments, rather workplaces and workers need to be “reshaped to accommodate women” otherwise the “engrained” masculine culture -like brogrammers - will continue to prevail in the industry causing women to continue to leave or even reject careers in the tech industry (Wajcman 2010 145). Therefore, bringing more women into the process of creating technology and innovative products, Wajcman argues that:

“[it] is not only an equal opportunity issue but is also crucially about how the world we live in is shaped, and for whom. We live in a technological culture, a society that is constituted by science and technology, and so the politics of technology is integral to the renegotiation of gender power relations.” (151).

This end note emphasizes that the lack of women has the potential to have massive impact in how society is shaped, similar to Florida (2003), who believes that technology, talent and tolerance are the main factors to “generate innovation and stimulate economic development” (10).

Similarly, in an article by Nicholas Fleur’s article ‘Many Women Leave Engineering, Blame

The Work Culture’, she explores Nadya Fouad’s 2011 psychology research into why so many

women quit engineering. Although engineering is not the full scope of jobs in the tech industry, just as the NCWIT explored, she discovered that the female workers left their jobs due to the work culture found within all engineering fields of work: “Women faced the same issues in the fields of aerospace, biotech and computer software” (Fleur). Fouad is quoted in the article stating, “It's not women who need to change — it's the work environment that does”. However, this outlook is contested by Sheryl Sandberg, who previously worked at Google and is now the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, whose Lean In top-seller book and subsequent success after, has seen her become an exemplar for successful women at Silicon Valley by the media. Although Sandberg’s ideology does see the barriers of discrimination in the workplace, rather Sandberg argues that women create barriers for themselves with societal gender roles, where women often do not strive for the top positions or demand better jobs and pay. However, she has been critiqued for not understanding the struggles of those women coming from working class and other minority background, and the barriers they must face (Dowd). Sandberg’s ideology constructs an idea that all women are

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coming to a level-playing field, where meritocracy will allow anyone to flourish, whereas throughout these next sections on the intersection of race, informal networking, education and representation, it will begin to become clear that this is not the case.

Lastly, the gendered environment, of not only the workplace, but also the association of masculinity and technology, have brought forward important factors that contribute to the disproportion of black women in the tech industry. The importance of a change in the gendered environment that does benefit women can be emphasized by Jane Margolis (2003), who states that “gender and other forms of diversity in computing affect the potential for design that better serves a heterogeneous society as computing becomes increasingly pervasive” (6). Thus, through diversifying an industry that produces “influential” products, there is research that has shown that businesses thrive when they are comprised of a “diverse information technology workforce”, increasing creativity and innovation of ideas and thus products (Sobel-Fitts; Misa, 27). However, in academic and online news articles there has been a large focus on women, yet they have appeared to ignore the intersecting factors that affect women of colour in the tech industry. Therefore, next an exploration of an often generalised and so-called “other form of diversity”, comes in the shape of black women, looking into the complex intersection of gender and race (Margolis, 6).

2.2 The Intersection of Gender and Race

The inequalities that black women face in the tech industry are caused by two intersecting factors of race and gender. Now that the gender disparities found by academics has been explored, a look into how race contributes and intersects with gender-specific factors will be examined. Firstly, intersectionality has been referred to as the overlapping of social categorisation, that highlight men and women to not be homogeneous groups, rather intersecting dimensions of identity that include race, sexual orientation, age, class and physical abilities (Ashcraft et al., 3). In terms of gender intersectionality, for this research the term is used to describe that “structural oppression based on gender identity” is not separate but instead converges with race (Costanza-Schock, 167). Thus, intersectionality calls for us to challenge and scrutinize having a “marginalized status” while also being part of a gender-discriminated group (Purdie-Vaughns and Eibach, 389). Amongst academic writing that

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looks into the lack of women in the tech industry, the focus is often meticulously focused on singular gender issues. On the one hand, Brentin Mock (2017) believes that within the tech industry racial inequalities are more severe than issues of gender. On the other hand, one could argue that these disparities should not be measured against each other in a who-has-the-worst-problems scale. Rather, an understanding that there is an intersection of both race and gender that constitutes black women the “unicorns” of the tech industry in vital. As they have to face a number of intersecting inequalities of being racial and gender minorities, it reveals the problems they face without putting black women in competition with other races (Gaudiano and Hunt).

Similar to other women of colour, Reynolds-Dobbs et al. argue that black women face a “unique dual status” of gender and racial inequalities (129). They claim that white women may have a “glass ceiling” barrier in their advancement at work, however, black women must overcome and break through a “concrete ceiling” (129). This is referring to the difficulty in breaking through such a barrier - concrete being a harder material to smash through - which in turn deters their growth in their professional jobs. However, it should be noted that although women of colour encounter comparable obstacles in the workplace, they are not a homogenous group, rather they have specific barriers. This can be seen in a report by

Catalyst, a leading organization who work towards the progress of women in business, who

surveyed African-American women in corporate management. Although this report does not exactly look at the tech industry, their research found that within all ‘women of colour’ demographics, black women are “most subject to negative racial stereotyping”, which has also been found in the tech industry (Bell; Catalyst; Gaudiano and Hunt; Mendoza and Washington). This finding can be linked to the United States historical legacy of slavery, where black humans were subject to legal racial segregation. For example, the segregation of black and white Americans during the Jim Crow laws8_{that continued until 1965, as well as} African-American status in society being subordinate to “white and other immigrant groups” (Catalyst, 6). In regard to historical employment elements that hinder African-Americans, in over four decades since the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed, although there has been an increase in “workforce participation and incomes” for black women, the level has remained low (Cocchiara et al., 273).

8 From the 19th Century the United States enforced laws of racial segregation of black Americans in mainly the Southern States of the United States. This included public transport, public bathrooms, education and much more. Yet the Northern States also had segregation, these were more general acceptances rather than legislations.

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At current, women-in-management researcher, Ella Louis Bell (1990) refers to a type of “new black woman” as career driven, who has the potential to work and flourish in America, now that the worry regarding safety of their family and community bonds have changed with a more racially accepting society (459). This is no way a means to say that equality and conditions of protection in America have fully improved, rather it brings up a potential reason for the step forward some African-American women have taken. However, once these women are within the workplace they are faced by what Gilkes (1982) calls the workplace “web”. A metaphor to display the difficult predicament of black female professionals: “caught in a possible conflicting web of expectations which are far more complex than those of simply being a professional, being a woman, or being black” (290). By being a black woman in Western culture, a degrading legacy of slavery is intersected with historical and current gender oppression see above. Bell (1990) and research by Carter-Sowell and Zimmerman (2015) believe this to have led to black women feeling pressured to present themselves and conform to “dominant cultural values” while giving up their cultural roots (Carter-Sowell and Zimmerman, 404). Alongside this, as shown in the section on the male gendered environment of tech, conforming to Western ideals is intersected with complying to the masculine workplace.

However, to bring the understanding of race into context with the tech industry, data from NCWIT 2015 report show that the number of black women in computing occupations was as small as 3% (Ashcraft et al. 2). These statistics, alongside the data shown in section 2.1 of low female representation, suggest that the technology coming from the United States, and used globally, is being created by a proportionately homogenous group of white men. Marwick (2013) also found that what is celebrated at Silicon Valley is often reflected in the producers of such product:

“The techniques that are required to achieve status in the tech scene do not celebrate, for instance, outspoken women, discussion of race in technology, or openly gay entrepreneurs. To get the kind and amount of attention that is so valued in the tech industry, it is best to fit a limited set of social norms” (18).

Yet, as society is becoming more and more diverse, having more “underrepresented voices” within the tech workforce can then help to address a larger amount of social issues and inequalities in America (Ashcraft et al., 65). For Erica Baker however, this does not just stop at improving gender inequalities in tech, she wants the intersection of race to be included

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when diversity initiatives and actions are put in place. Baker posted on Medium9_an interesting insight, into being a black female and how the intersection of her race meant that while being at a Diversity at Google summit in 2014, she was aware of the lack of intersectionality the ‘International Women’s Day’ event incorporated. A telling quote from Baker highlights this awareness:

“Were I a white woman in tech, I probably would have been delighted at everything…but I’m a black woman in tech, so things didn’t feel quite so good to me. The intro to the summit itself was telling. It was titled “Opening Remarks and Diversity At Google,” yet there was no mention of any other forms of diversity besides ‘women.’” (Ericajoy).

Baker’s article and quote above show the hidden, and often unsatisfying sides of the tech industry, where due to the intersecting aspects of being a woman and black can leave one feeling left out. Although a push for diversity is being found among a majority of tech companies, especially the big names like Google10_{and Facebook}11_{who employ teams of} diversity strategists. These diversity efforts still need to move away from categorising women in tech as applying to all women, considering racial issues that intersect being just a female. Finally, there is not just a problem of seeing black women in the tech industry, but also in retaining these women. This is shown in an article for Forbes, where Gaudiano and Hunt use data from Ascend Foundation Research, to highlight that the year 2007 saw a 13 percent drop in African-American female professionals in the tech industry. What stands out even more is that they were the only “racial group” amongst men and women to have a decrease in representation in “the general tech workforce”. To show an example of the intersections of race, gender and how the workplace environment can be unwelcoming, it is useful to use the work of researcher Kieran Snyder, who interviewed over 700 women who had left the tech industry. Just under 200 of them had “cited discomfort working in environments that felt overtly or implicitly discriminatory as a primary factor in their decision to leave tech” (Snyder). From these account Snyder identified that many “mentioned discrimination related to their age, race, or sexuality in addition to gender and motherhood”, for example Dinah, a front-end developer who left the tech industry explained:

9 Medium is an online publishing platform that allows anyone - amateurs, professionals and celebrities- to publish a blog post. Found at:https://medium.com/

10https://www.wired.com/2015/06/google-diversity-nancy-lee/

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“Literally 28 of the 30 people in our company were white, straight men under 35. I was the only woman. I was one of only two gay people. I was the only person of color other than one guy from Japan. My coworkers called me Halle Berry. As in, ‘Oh look, Halle Berry broke the website today.’ I’m pretty sure for some of them I’m the only actual black person they’ve ever spoken to. Everyone was the same, and no one was like me. How could I stay in that situation?” (Snyder).

Here, gender and race intersect as complicated “dual-subordinate identities”, which Rosette and Livingston believe that black women hold in the workplace, leading to being critiqued more so than their white female or black male counterparts (1163). This example and the intersecting problems of race and gender that black women in the tech industry deal with, show multiple converging issues that can contribute to the inequalities black women face and potentially show why a lack of this demographic within the industry prevails.

2.3 The Myth of Meritocracy

A comprehensive understanding of intersecting aspects of being black and a woman in the tech industry has been produced. However, this next section looks into meritocracy; being hired and succeeding according to merit. Which this paper believes, to have been so entrenched with succeeding in the tech world, that it could be argued it is used to dismiss gender and racial inequities that black women are faced with, rather than acknowledging the discriminations that have been displayed in the previous sections.

A critical academic to envisaging how the tech industry particularly Silicon Valley -function and the unspoken rules, that only those who work there know, is American ethnologist Alice Marwick (2013). Her work will be extensively used in the next two sections as she spent four years partaking in participation observation within the tech scene of San Francisco Bay Area. From 2006 to 2010 she mixed amongst programmers, entrepreneurs, internet celebrities, bloggers, venture capitalists and online marketing professionals in Silicon Valley. This ethnographic research allowed Marwick to create Status Update, an in-depth book that showcases not only how the influential workers build their status and influence users of the global technologies that they create. More importantly, her observations showed the invisible distinction, hierarchies and the “power dynamics” that exist in the high-tech culture, even though many of those from within the tech scene deny these claims (74). One of

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her key argument was that to be successful in the tech industry, those from within the tech scene declare themselves to be working in a “meritocracy environment”. This term implies that those who have prospered have deserved their wealth, and those that do not accomplish success do not (Marwick, 246).

What is problematic about these perceptions is what Marwick calls “myths”, whereby the illusions of succeeding due to wealth, have given rise to a “continued male dominance in the tech industry”. Thus, the demographic of tech workforces that are predominantly white middle-aged men, is reinforced as being acceptable due to their accomplishments, and not because they are in a hegemonic position in society (247). Joseph Ansanelli, a partner of the leading venture capital Greylock firm based in Silicon Valley, which funds entrepreneurs, states that the San Francisco Bay Area “values meritocracy more than any place else” and that “Silicon Valley has this way of finding greatness and supporting it” (McBride). This was also seen in a 2011 documentary entitled Black in America: The New Promised Land: Silicon

Valley, where Michael Arrington, the founder of TechCrunch, stated: "It doesn't matter what

your education is, it doesn't matter who your parents are here. You can become very successful based purely on your brain size and how you use it" (O’Brien). These reiterated claims made by the tech industry that: “the smartest, most skilled [...]and the best ideas rise to the top”, which just happens to mainly be white men (Hu). All talent and skill aside, apart from the inequalities black women face, the ‘myth of meritocracy’ devalues allegations of sexism, racism and gender bias within the industry, thus silencing black women and those questioning the lack of diversity in the tech workplace.

To give an example, tech companies like Uber are keen advocators of meritocracy and “the idea that the best and brightest will rise to the top based on their efforts” line was keenly pushed (Isaac). Their meritocratic ethos also included that workers needed to give their all, even if that comes at the cost of “stepping on toes to get there” (Isaac). This apparently can be a successful work ethos, as Uber is a company that has been valued at almost Seventy billion dollars and operates in over Seventy countries (Isaac). However, Uber has also drawn mass criticism for its workplace environment that foster a negative setting for women to work within. This was made public knowledge after Susan Fowler, a former Uber engineer, went public with her in-depth account of sexism and harassment in the workplace (Fowler). Fowler's lengthy and detailed piece of writing from her troubling experience is seen most clearly in this quote:

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“When I joined Uber, the organization I was part of was over 25% women. By the time I was trying to transfer to another eng[ineer] organization, this number had dropped down to less than 6%. Women were transferring out of the organization, and those who couldn't transfer were quitting or preparing to quit. There were two major reasons for this: there was the organizational chaos, and there was also the sexism within the organization. When I asked our director at an org[anisation] all-hands about what was being done about the dwindling numbers of women in the org compared to the rest of the company, his reply was, in a nutshell, that the women of Uber just needed to step up and be better engineers.” (Fowler)

Not only did Fowler’s post influenced institutional change in the way in which Uber and other Silicon Valley companies deal with sexual harassment claims. It also exposed the inner working of a Silicon Valley start-up that preaches an ethos of meritocracy, while ignoring the real and obvious gender problems that hinder females in the tech industry

However, this is not just a problem at Uber, in 2016 Stanford University researchers started a survey inspired by Ellen Pao’s gender discrimination lawsuit against her employer Kleiner

Perkins Caufield & Byers12_{. The survey asked over 200 women in San Francisco Bay Area’s}

tech industry about workplace issues, 60% stated that they had “reported unwanted sexual advances” (Dickey). These reports and figures show that the workplace is not just a meritocratic arena, rather problems like sexual harassment create hurdles that women have to overcome. Correspondingly, Arianna Huffington, former co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, calls for tech companies to reject

“the cult of the top performer, which tolerates otherwise unacceptable behaviour, and instead focusing on building a culture that functions as the company’s immune system: surfacing cases of abuse and identifying toxic elements as fast as possible, and then quickly rejecting them” (Kolhatkar).

As shown previously, black women have two intersecting identities that potentially prevent them from a fair chance of entering the meritocracy of the tech industry. Therefore, meritocracy may exist in an industry where interesting and innovating and interesting designs are inevitable, however it does not account for the whole functioning of the tech industry, to some extent, tech companies have a responsibility to acknowledge the inequalities that exist for those who are not white men.

12For more information on the trial, which Pao lost, see her article describing the events from her perspective:

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On the one hand, it should be acknowledged that there are obvious truths to the concept of meritocracy, specifically at Silicon Valley but also applied across the tech industry, where what you do plays a significant role in the success of the workers. It has also been found that tech companies have a “lower barrier entry” in the tech industry compared to others, which allows for those with different backgrounds; socially, culturally and ethnically, to have the opportunity to succeed (Marwick, 253). On the other hand, Marwick found that when interviewing those within the San Francisco tech scene, the question of who you know is often downplayed by the male workers. This is seen in a tech worker interview where she states: “I think the myth of meritocracy is that everything starts out fair to begin with, and that everyone sort of has a level playing field, and that’s not true. There are people who have advantages” (Marwick, 253). Marwick found that these advantages take the shape of the hiring from elite American colleges like Stanford University, where the founders of Google, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, PayPal, WhatsApp, YouTube and Yahoo all attended. Understandably, Senior Product Manager at Google, Daniel Raffel notes that “someone who doesn't have a specific track record, [...], or who has worked at places that they’ve never heard of” will have a hard time getting a foot in the door, however he also says the struggle is same for someone “who has a name that’s foreign-sounding” (Marwick, 255). Therefore, the notion that anybody who has “drive, ambition and a good idea can make it” in Silicon Valley, has been celebrated and reiterated, the issue of discrimination in this environment is often turned on its head to be that women aren't qualified enough, or the classic ‘pipeline’ answer, where it is argued that there is not a big enough pool to hire from (Guynn).

Also, Marwick (2013) extensively explored that getting a foot in the door of a tech company is a typical problem for anyone, and that as explained, those within the industry believe that there is an ethos of hard work equals rising to the top. Yet there is research into inherent bias that means even getting passed the interview stage poses an issue for black women. A classic study by Bertrand and Mullainathan (2003), showed there to be racial discrimination in the labour market, where they responded to job offers using a stereotypically “African American sounding name or a very White sounding name” for the same resume. They found that the White-sounding names had a much higher call back rate for interviews. Similarly, Surowiecki (2014) affirms that although tech companies may self-regard themselves as meritocracies, these “unconscious biases”, that are key to the way businesses hire workers, persists. He refers to Moss-Racusin et al. report, that found Science faculty’s in American colleges show