International Women’s Day

In recent years, we have been progressively highlighting social justice topics at work. With our recent takeover with American owners, they have said it is one of our company objectives to be more Diverse, so expect more over the coming years.

I’ve stated in other blogs that if there is actually a problem to solve, then I am all for it. As far as I am aware, there is no problem with Diversity/Sexism etc where I work.

In Software Development, the demographics is male-dominated in the UK. However, I have found when we have hired women, they might only stay for a few years before leaving, or want to switch to management. I’m tempted to say women seem to be favoured for promotions and requests to change contract (reduced days or working hours). When it comes to Software Testing, it seemed fairly balanced between men and women. Management level seemed predominantly women.

In our India office, women are much better represented in all areas. Not sure of the exact breakdowns but it could be like 5% female developers in the UK, but 35% women in India.

Our head office in the UK is next to a predominantly Asian city so we have a high amount of Asian staff.

So with the new American owners, their constant claims that we need to improve diversity makes them seem foolish and makes me worry they might start making negative changes and introduce new problems. Constantly telling people we need to make things “equitable” and “inclusive”, and questioning how we are supporting certain groups of people – just creates a victim mindset. Spotlighting a certain group is also divisive if you think about it…

Today, on International Women’s Day, we take time out to celebrate the incredible women we work alongside and their achievements. Our commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goal of Gender Equality is shown through the value we place on the incredible women employed here and their impact, as well as the hugely positive influence we all have on women’s experiences.
 
This is a place where women have long, successful careers, and with that in mind, I want to inspire women and advocates by spotlighting women’s careers. I am delighted to share their views and experiences in this video and the images below, with even more great content and stories featured here on Sharepoint. Whilst you watch, I’d like everyone to think about what part you play in shaping our industry to be an equitable, inclusive space for all. How do you support women in the industry? In your department? In your team? It's up to us all to challenge gender stereotypes, call out discrimination, draw attention to bias, and seek out inclusion.
 
International Women’s Day is about raising awareness for gender parity, however you identify, and it’s an opportunity to put a spotlight on the successful contributions women make in our business.

Isn’t the entire post hypocritical? It opens saying how we have incredible women here, they have long, successful careers, then switches tone and implies that we aren’t supporting women and there’s discrimination!

Question: where have you seen the positive impact?

“it’s happening right now. The CEO is inspiring”

Director of Business Operations

In the video, we saw our female CTO who was talking about the company we merged with, also led by a female CTO. We then heard from the “Director of Business Operations” (who I think has been promoted every 2-3 years since she joined), then finally someone slightly lower down the hierarchy, a “Principal Software Engineer”.

So we have examples of women that have had no trouble being promoted. We are led by women, the Human Resources department is 80% women. If we do have a gender pay-gap, or if women struggle to get promoted, then whose fault is it? 

One manager replied to the post and used similar statements implying that there is a problem with sexism here.

Woo! Some amazing women right here and across the business, feel so lucky to work alongside some incredible women and for a company that is striving to tackle inequality and find new ways to support women in the workplace!

Manager

So much inequality here. If there is so much, then why aren’t they suing. It’s against the law isn’t it?