{"id":1424,"date":"2014-10-16T16:25:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-16T16:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=1424"},"modified":"2016-08-13T22:18:58","modified_gmt":"2016-08-13T22:18:58","slug":"women-have-played-a-key-role-in-tech-so-we-cant-just-trust-the-system-to-close-pay-gap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/women-have-played-a-key-role-in-tech-so-we-cant-just-trust-the-system-to-close-pay-gap\/","title":{"rendered":"Women have played a key role in tech \u2013 so we can\u2019t just trust the system to close pay gap"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kate Devlin<\/a>, Goldsmiths, University of London<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m not a fan of karma. I\u2019m still waiting for it to come back to the child in my class who pushed me over in the playground and chipped my tooth. That was in 1983 so I\u2019ve been waiting quite a while. By that reckoning, I\u2019m not sure I want to wait 31 years for a pay rise.<\/p>\n

Microsoft\u2019s new CEO Satya Nadella<\/a>, speaking at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing<\/a> event last week, was asked what advice he would give to women who aren\u2019t comfortable asking for a raise. He said:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not really about asking for the raise, but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along. Because that\u2019s good karma. It\u2019ll come back because somebody\u2019s going to know that\u2019s the kind of person that I want to trust.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For those unfamiliar with the US Navy Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper<\/a>, she was an early computing pioneer. Hopper pushed forward the field of programming, created the first compiler<\/a>, and was key in the development of the modern computer, earning her the nickname \u201cQueen of Software\u201d and \u201cAmazing Grace\u201d. She has a warship<\/a> and a Cray supercomputer<\/a> named after her.<\/p>\n

The conference bearing her name is organised by and for female computer scientists, bringing women together from across the world to explore, address and compare the challenges of being a woman in technology. For the 2,000+ women attending, being told by an industry leader to sit back and trust the system is, at best, insulting and, at worst, dangerous.<\/p>\n

Following a subsequent storm of criticism, Nadella went on to clarify that he was wrong to say women should rely on \u201ckarma\u201d to reward them appropriately. However, at that stage he didn\u2019t contradict his statement; rather, he claimed he didn\u2019t articulate it correctly. How he meant to explain it, he said, is that women should trust that the system will recognise their contribution (with the added implication that if they keep their mouth shut and behave, their bosses will look more favourably upon them).<\/p>\n

Forgive me if I remain sceptical and unimpressed.<\/p>\n

We know there is a gender pay gap. We know that women are significantly unrepresented in technology industries<\/a>. Why then should it be a surprise if women don\u2019t trust a system where the odds are already stacked against them?<\/p>\n

Nadella later followed up (the less charitable might say \u201cbacktracked\u201d) with the line \u201cif you think you deserve a raise, you should just ask<\/a>\u201d. It\u2019s a nice, simple idea \u2013 but research has previously shown that women are much more reluctant<\/a> to ask for promotion or a raise, and if they do, they are much more likely to be treated harshly<\/a> than a man making the same request.<\/p>\n

Nadella\u2019s comments come two weeks after the Royal Society announced it would be looking into the reasons why, of the 43 individuals<\/a> who won their University Research Fellowships in 2014, only two were women<\/a>. Again, women being reluctant to put themselves forward could well be a factor in this: women accounted for 19% of applications for the URF scheme but only accounted for 13% of those shortlisted, 9% of those interviewed and less than 5% of those awarded<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d rather not leave it up to karma, so I\u2019m asking this: Satya Nadella, could we please have more women in Microsoft? Perhaps more than the current 17.1%<\/a> female technical and engineering staff? And maybe more than two women on your board of directors? And maybe paid equally, rather than just 78% of the salary of their male colleagues<\/a>? And then maybe other companies will take note and follow suit, and you can bask in the warmth of the good karma that you\u2019ve engendered.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Kate Devlin does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.<\/em><\/p>\n

This article was originally published on The Conversation<\/a>.
\nRead the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kate Devlin, Goldsmiths, University of London I\u2019m not a fan of karma. I\u2019m still waiting for it to come back to the child in my class who pushed me over in the playground and chipped my tooth. That was in 1983 so I\u2019ve been waiting quite a while. By that reckoning, I\u2019m not sure […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":5963,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1424"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5965,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions\/5965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}