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Technology>Discouraging
North America | United States | Society

Why women in tech are being Photoshopped in instead of hired

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An image of a tech event in which two women CEOs were poorly Photoshopped into a group of 15 men reignited a discussion last week about tech companies’ ongoing failures to meaningfully diversify their workforces. Companies like Google and Facebook have overturned industries, changed the way we live, and are shaping the future. Yet somehow they haven’t been able to hire a workforce that even remotely represents their customers. Across the tech industry, the share of black and Latinx people in tech and leadership roles is often well below 5 percent, while women typically make up about a f
Middle East | Saudi Arabia | Technology

Saudi app criticized for feature to control women’s travel

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The Saudi government app Absher is mostly a way for people to pay traffic fines and complete other administrative tasks electronically. But one feature isn’t sitting well with civil-rights advocates: the ability for men to grant or deny a woman permission to travel. Regardless of their age, women in Saudi Arabia must have the consentof a male relative to obtain a passport, travel or marry. In the past, a travel permit was a paper document issued by the Interior Ministry and signed by a male relative. The Absher app replaces the need for a paper document.
North America | United States | Crimes

Meet Brianna Wu: She’s risking everything to make gaming safe for women

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Brianna Wu is a female video game developer who has received more than 44 death threats in the last five months. Why? For daring to lead one of the largest professional game-development teams of women in the field, and for speaking out on women in tech issues like Gamergate. Last weekend, when a man in a skull mask posted a video on YouTube about how he planned to kill her, Wu had her last straw. (Gamergate supporters have already released her home address and sent her threats that caused her to flee her home.) She wrote an article for Bustle earlier this week declaring “I’m doing eve
North America | United States | Science

Report: Disturbing drop in women in computing field

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Almost all of the women on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list — including those not at tech firms — had majored in STEM studies. PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, for instance, had a triple-major bachelor’s degree in physics, chemistry, and math. Mary Barra, chief executive of GM, was an electrical engineering major. A new American Association of University Women review of more than 380 studies from academic journals, corporations, and government sources shows a big employment gap in computing and engineering. In some fields, the gap is actually widening over the years — not shrinking.
North America | United States | Science

A new study suggests people have a hard time believing black and Latina women are scientists

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Nearly half of black and Latina women scientists say they've been mistaken for administrative or custodial staff in the workplace, a recent study finds. Forty-eight percent of black women and 47 percent of Latina women said they'd had this experience. The numbers for white and Asian women are lower but still disturbing, at 32 percent and 23 percent, respectively. Those are just some of the findings from new research reported by the Harvard Business Review. The takeaway of the study, by Joan C. Williams, Katherine W. Phillips, and Erika V. Hall, is that personal choices aren't the onl
Middle East | Saudi Arabia | Culture

Saudi wife is divorced, lashed over WhatsApp post

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A man from Saudi Arabia divorced his wife because of her WhatsApp status: “I pray to be patient enough to put up with you,” followed by initials matching the husband’s name. The 32-year-old woman admitted that she posted the offensive status after she and her husband argued via the mobile messaging service. She was sentenced to 70 lashes as punishment.
International | Crimes

14 Women Sailed to Sea to Investigate Plastic’s Toxic Impact on Hormones

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Last November, an all-woman team set out to sail the Atlantic, collecting samples of seawater and plastics as they went. They travelled from Lanzarote to Martinique over three weeks, some of them barely having stepped on a boat before. Their mission, which they named Exxp​edition, was to shine a light on several “unseens”: the unseen plastics and chemica​ls polluting the oceans; the unseen women vastly underrepresented in science and adventure; and the unseen research on women-specific diseases, which they feel has a low public profile. Some studies have shown that we have ove
North America | United States | Business

Google chairman gets called out for cutting off a woman while talking about diversity

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On Monday, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt and acclaimed Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson were wrapping up a SXSW Interactive panel that had focused on diversity, when an audience member called out the two men for repeatedly interrupting their fellow panelist, the United States' Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith. Even more awkward? The audience member who posed the question was apparently Judith Williams, who heads up Google's unconscious bias program. During a Q&A session with the audience, Williams, who is Google's Global Diversity and Talent Programs manager, asked
North America | United States | Business

Silicon Valley’s diversity problem goes beyond hiring practices

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Workplace diversity advocates hope to shine a spotlight on the industry’s hiring efforts, which remain abysmal. At Twitter, only 10 percent of tech jobs in its global workforce belong to women. Among its U.S. employees, just 4 percent of those lucrative positions are filled by black or Latino people. The numbers aren’t much different at places like Facebook, Google and Yahoo. Even Apple, which can point to above-average diversity, still counts just 20 percent of its tech hires as female, and black or Latino workers make up only 13 percent. Anecdotes of implicit gender bias reinforce wha

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