Tech may be fueling S.F.’s growing gender pay gap

[YoungDemCA]

...gender segregation in one of San Francisco’s fastest-growing and most lucrative industries may have helped fuel a growing pay gap in the city. Since the end of the recession, the pay disparity between fully employed men and women, those with advanced degrees and even those holding tech jobs, has grown wider, according to census data.

“Not seeing many people that look like you, having that added element of discomfort, makes it difficult to enter the industry,” Vogt said. “I’m sure the impostor syndrome has a lot to do with it,” she added, “the feeling that everyone else knows so much more than I do, which isn’t necessarily true.”

A handful of programs and nonprofits are trying to diversify tech — and in turn possibly shrink the pay gap — but the lack of women in the industry has complex roots. Factors include a shortage of female engineers, a higher-than-average exit rate for women within the sector, possible bias that impacts hiring and promotions, a lack of female executives and board members, and uncomfortable work environments for women at some companies.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Tech-may-be-fueling-S-F-s-growing-gender-pay-6841471.php

[KamaAina]

1. We need more woman-owned tech companies like this one

http://techliminal.com/about/

Our Founder

Anca Mosoiu’s vision for a world of accessible technology tools compelled her to create the Tech Liminal principles and workshop. Anca has worked in the business applications industry for more than 15 years in roles ranging from analyst to software engineer, in environments varying from start-ups to established corporations, and at companies that include Razorfish, Sony, Juniper Networks, and Cisco systems. After graduating from MIT with a computer science degree, she returned to her hometown of Oakland at the right time to participate in the Silicon Valley high-tech boom.

“I believe we can do whatever needs to be done as individuals, society and a species, but sometimes people need a little help getting things done.” She noticed that this was often the case with the businesses too small to support a dedicated technology department, who called her in as an independent consultant to solve their ad hoc computer problems. She also saw regular folk thwarted in their goals by lack of technology know-how. The desire to help these two groups was in no small part the inspiration behind Tech Liminal. She likes few things better than sitting down one-on-one, working with people to solve their problems, and seeing their faces light up when they suddenly understand.

Anca has great optimism for the future. “To me the information age is like being at the beginning of the industrial age” so much opportunity. But opportunity is restricted to those who have knowledge and resources. By putting the pieces together explaining Twitter, for example ”you start leveling the playing field.”