This week in our WiC roundup: Gender parity in social media; the top companies for women in tech; 'greentech' and investment in female founders; and more.

Eryn Leavens, Special Features & Copy Editor

October 1, 2021

3 Min Read
WiCipedia: How women are mansplained into silence on social media

This week in our WiCipedia roundup: Gender parity in social media; the top companies for women in tech; "greentech" and investment in female founders; and more.

  • You'd think that anyone would be able to speak their mind on social media, yet just like real life, that freedom isn't always afforded to minorities. An article in Tech Republic explains that women are frequently silenced on Twitter, particularly when it comes to technical content. The author of the article interviewed several women in tech who use the platform, and found that they often experience rampant mansplaining and other abuses. One interviewee said, "I'm not even able to share 1-2% of the depth of my knowledge on a medium like Twitter." Another explained, "It's such a headache dealing with the comments on technical tweets." If women can't even experience gender parity on the Internet, how can we ever expect it at work? (See WiCipedia: What's it like being the only girl in STEM class?) Figure 1: This pretty much sums it up (Source: Pixabay) (Source: Pixabay)

    • Curious about the new top companies for women in tech? AnitaB compiled a report showing the new superstar companies, particularly those who have shone throughout the pandemic, CNBC explains. Organizations were scored on a range of different categories, from female representation to equitable hiring and caregiving support, to give the full picture of what it's really like for women to work there. Biggest surprise? Not one hip household name from Silicon Valley company made the list. Number one on the list was payroll company ADP, closely followed by The New York Times and Dev Technology Group, an IT services company. Check out the full list of winning companies here. (See WiCipedia: Pandemic culture shifts rank of best cities for WiT.)

    • We've talked a lot on here about why climate change tech needs women, but it simply cannot be said enough. The World Economic Forum recently published an article pushing for investment in female climate changemakers. As a burgeoning, male-dominated industry, female entrepreneurs face many more barriers to entry than men, and women are also more impacted by climate change. Yet currently, only about 20% of "greentech" startups even have a female founder. There are so many ways to change these stats, yet unfortunately so many of them come from the top. Check out the full article to see what needs to happen for women to create change in this incredibly important industry. (See WiCipedia: Gender equity and climate tech are 'inextricably linked'.)

    • It's hard to imagine in our current day and age, but what if the tech startup landscape was an equal environment for all genders, welcoming entrepreneurs based on talent and vision instead of whether they define themselves as male, female, or something else altogether? Yahoo Finance put together a list of the key struggles – and methods of remediation – that women in tech face when it comes to entering the startup scene. Many of them are so tied into greater gender bias and lack of opportunity that it's nearly impossible to separate them from the tech industry; they're just part of living in today's culture. Yet so many of them also relate to funding. If banks and VCs could get it together to provide equal funding to female entrepreneurs and founders, just imagine what women would be able to accomplish. (See WiCipedia: Women leave workforce in droves due to pandemic and burnout.)

      — Eryn Leavens, Special Features & Copy Editor, Light Reading. Follow us on Twitter @LR_WiC and contact Eryn directly at [email protected].

About the Author(s)

Eryn Leavens

Special Features & Copy Editor

Eryn Leavens, who joined Light Reading in January 2015, attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago before earning her BA in creative writing and studio arts from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. She also completed UC Berkeley Extension's Professional Sequence in Editing.

She stumbled into tech copy editing after red-penning her way through several Bay Area book publishers, including Chronicle Books, Counterpoint Press/Soft Skull Press and Seal Press. She spends her free time lifting heavy things, growing her own food, animal wrangling and throwing bowls on the pottery wheel. She lives in Alameda, Calif., with two cats and two greyhounds.

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