You can only fix a problem once you acknowledge it. Unfortunately in the case of the gender gap in tech, that’s still an issue. While a majority of women recognize the inequality in the tech industry, a majority of men think equal opportunity already exists.
Melissa Loble, VP of platform and partnerships at Instructure, talks about the gap — both in the industry and in perceptions — and discusses how we might combat it, as well as some encouraging news for the future.
entrepreneur.com – Much has been said and written about the gender gap in tech, including the disparity in pay between men and women. We’ve all seen the statistics. According to salary data from Glassdoor and the U.S. Census Bureau, women in tech fields earn roughly 75–80 percent of that earned by their male counterparts in tech positions. The biggest disparities occur among coders (more on that later). This isn’t just a moral problem. It’s an issue of missed opportunity for the tech economy. It’s time we get beyond acknowledging the problem and get started on figuring out why it exists so we can fix it.
The first step in fixing the wage gap is acknowledging the perception gap. According to a study by Bridge, the corporate training arm of my company, men don’t see the equal pay problem as much as women do. In fact, the majority of men think women have equal opportunity, but less than half of women agree. This finding seems to support the opinion of Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at Glassdoor. “My view is that in heavily male dominated fields, the people who are making the decisions about pay and promotion are disproportionately men, and that can play a role in why we’re seeing gaps in male and female pay,” Chamberlain told the L.A. Times.
