Where are Austin's women in the tech industry?

The stereotype that men are better suited or better equipped to handle tech industry jobs is just that - a stereotype. As it stands, Austin is the second fastest growing city according to a study by the Kauffman Foundation, second only to Washington D.C., along with companies like Apple and Google setting up new campuses around the city as well. Despite all these expansions, the tech industry in Austin has not expanded its reach toward bringing in new women into the workplace.

 

Only 29.7% of technology employees in Austin are women, according RJMetrics.  While that’s higher than the national average of 25% it is lower than other major cities in the state, with a 34% hiring rate for women in tech companies in Houston, and a 40% hiring rate in Dallas. As such, women in both the public and private sector in Austin have taken on the role of encouraging women to become a bigger part of the tech industry.

 

Belinda Perez, IT project manager and Director of Engagement for the City of Austin, has been working for the past 10 years to get the city more involved in supporting women in the tech field.

 

Apart from her job at the City of Austin, Perez also serves as the president of Austin Women in Technology, an organization of Austin women who recognize the need for gender diversity in the tech work environment. She says that she and many of the women she works with have faced problems at work specifically pertaining to gender.

 

“I think that sometimes men have a tendency to think that they’re the only ones who can think about science and math and they think that girls don’t think that way, or women don’t, so they think it’s exclusive for them, and they want to have that exclusive boys’ club style, and we’re going to change that,” Perez said.

   

Not that all the effort to make the field more gender inclusive is coming from local government. Nicole Engard, content strategist at Red Hat Software, is all too aware of the tendency for women and young girls to be ignored for jobs in the industry.

 

“I can say that no one talked to me about technology, computers, or engineering as a job when I was in high school,” Engard recalls.” It just wasn’t brought up. And so, in a way, that is a form sexism because they didn’t think that girls should be doing that.”

 

Engard currently serves as the director for the Austin branch of ChickTech, an organization that over a fall weekend gives 100 high school girls a crash course in the STEM (science, tech, engineering and math) field of their choice. Everything from web design to robotic engineering is offered, to make sure these girls are not limited in scope and hopefully get them interested in the field. Mentor programs are offered as well as a way to help these young women stick in the field, hopefully for the rest of their lives.

 

Not to say these efforts will not be an uphill battle. As 2015 study by the American Association of University Women points out, the hiring rate for women in the tech industry has stagnated since 2010 at 25%, while the rates of hire in other STEM fields such as engineering or biology have all gone up. The ingrained sexism of the industry, whether conscious or not, is still present even in a self-proclaimed progressive city like Austin. Given the daunting statistics, though, women like Perez and Engard are not deterred from actively making a difference in this field.