Here is a brief excerpt from Kara Sprague’s interview of Reshma Saujani for the McKinsey Quarterly, published by McKinsey & Company. The founder of Girls Who Code (GWC) discusses the need for gender diversity in technical fields and ways companies can begin to achieve it. To read the complete interview, check out other resources, learn more about the firm, obtain subscription information, and register to receive email alerts, please click here.
To learn more about the McKinsey Quarterly, please click here.
* * *
The number of young women completing engineering and technology programs has dropped significantly in the past 30 years. As a result, women are generally underrepresented in technology-related jobs, especially in technical positions and at leadership levels.
The not-for-profit organization Girls Who Code (GWC) was founded in 2011 to improve these numbers. The organization’s goal is to expose a million young women to computer-science education and training by the end of 2020. To achieve that objective, GWC is partnering with US universities, elementary and secondary schools, and large corporations to sponsor after-school clubs and summer immersion programs for girls in grades 6 to 12.
According to Girls Who Code CEO and founder Reshma Saujani, the results have been encouraging. By the end of 2015, GWC will have reached 10,000 girls across the United States. Follow-ups with program alumni reveal that 90 percent are planning to major in computer science or mechanical or electrical engineering in college, Saujani says.
In this interview with McKinsey’s Kara Sprague, Saujani talks about the importance of fostering gender diversity in technical fields, the obstacles for young women entering them, and the role IT professionals and organizations can play in removing some of those barriers.
What prompted you to create Girls Who Code?
I’m a somewhat unlikely person to start up a group called Girls Who Code—I’m not a coder. I majored in political science, not computer science. But in 2010, I was running for congressional office, and I visited a lot of schools and met a lot of parents. At that time, New York was becoming a booming city for technology. A lot of established companies were opening offices here, and a lot of entrepreneurs were settling into the city. But in the classrooms of New York, there would be 100 boys in a robotics lab, and maybe two or, worse, no girls. I found myself asking, “Where are all the girls?” That question started this journey for me.
So where are they? What is preventing young girls from entering science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields?
There has definitely been a decline in the number of women entering STEM fields since the 1980s. During that period, almost 40 percent of computer-science graduates were women. Today, the number is less than 18 percent. Our team believes that’s due to several factors — popular culture being one of the biggest culprits. Girls get messages all the time from the Internet, fashion magazines, social media, and other forms of media that technology is not for them. I mean, teen girls can walk into any Forever 21 store in any mall in the United States and buy a T-shirt that reads “allergic to algebra.” And the typical computer-scientist protagonist in a TV show is a young guy with a hoodie in a basement somewhere. Because their perspective is not reflected in what they see, these girls say, “Well, I guess that’s not for me.”
A second factor is lack of knowledge. I think a lot of people—not just young girls—don’t fully understand what it means to be a computer scientist or a technologist nowadays, what people in those roles do day to day, and the impact they’re able to have on society. How can you pick a career without exposure to people in these roles? That’s what Girls Who Code is trying to provide—opportunities to see and talk and experiment and learn.
* * *
Here is a direct link to the complete article.