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1. An Empirical Investigation on the Challenges Faced by Women in the Software Industry: A Case Study

   https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-SEIS55304.2022.9793931  

   Trinkenreich, Bianca; Britto, Ricardo; Gerosa, Marco; Steinmacher, Igor (June 2022, 2022 IEEE/ACM 44th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering in Society (ICSE-SEIS))

   Context: Addressing women's under-representation in the soft-ware industry, a widely recognized concern, requires attracting as well as retaining more women. Hearing from women practitioners, particularly those positioned in multi-cultural settings, about their challenges and and adopting their lived experienced solutions can support the design of programs to resolve the under-representation issue. Goal: We investigated the challenges women face in global software development teams, particularly what motivates women to leave their company; how those challenges might break down according to demographics; and strategies to mitigate the identified challenges. Method: To achieve this goal, we conducted an ex-ploratory case study in Ericsson, a global technology company. We surveyed 94 women and employed mixed-methods to analyze the data. Results: Our findings reveal that women face socio-cultural challenges, including work-life balance issues, benevolent and hos-tile sexism, lack of recognition and peer parity, impostor syndrome, glass ceiling bias effects, the prove-it-again phenomenon, and the maternal wall. The participants of our research provided different suggestions to address/mitigate the reported challenges, including sabbatical policies, flexibility of location and time, parenthood support, soft skills training for managers, equality of payment and opportunities between genders, mentoring and role models to sup-port career growth, directives to hire more women, inclusive groups and events, women's empowerment, and recognition for women's success. The framework of challenges and suggestions can inspire further initiatives both in academia and industry to onboard and retain women. Women represent less than 24% of employees in software development industry and experience various types of prejudice and bias. Even in companies that care about Diversity & Inclusion, “untying the mooring ropes” of socio-cultural problems is hard. Hearing from women, especially those working in a multi-cultural organization, about their challenges and adopting their suggestions can be vital to design programs and resolve the under-representation issue. In this work we work closely with a large software development or-ganization which invests and believes in diversity and inclusion. We listened to women and the challenges they face in global soft-ware development teams of this company and what these women suggest reduce the problems and increase retention. Our research showed that women face work-life balance issues and encounter invisible barriers that prevent them from rising to top positions. They also suffer micro-aggression and sexism, need to show com-petence constantly, be supervised in essential tasks, and receive less work after becoming mothers. Moreover, women miss having more female colleagues, lack self-confidence and recognition. The women from the company suggested sabbatical policies, the flexibil-ity of location and time, parenthood support, soft skills training for managers, equality of opportunities, role models to support career growth, directives to hire more women, support groups, and more interaction between women, inclusive groups and events, women's empowerment by publishing their success stories in media and recognizing their achievements. Our results had been shared with the company Human Resources department and management and they considered the diagnosis helpful and will work on actions to mitigate the challenges that women still perceive. 

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2. Women’s Participation in Open Source Software: A Survey of the Literature

   https://doi.org/10.1145/3510460  

   Trinkenreich, Bianca; Wiese, Igor; Sarma, Anita; Gerosa, Marco; Steinmacher, Igor (April 2022, ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology)

   Women are underrepresented in Open Source Software (OSS) projects, as a result of which, not only do women lose career and skill development opportunities, but the projects themselves suffer from a lack of diversity of perspectives. Practitioners and researchers need to understand more about the phenomenon; however, studies about women in open source are spread across multiple fields, including information systems, software engineering, and social science. This paper systematically maps, aggregates, and synthesizes the state-of-the-art on women’s participation in OSS. It focuses on women contributors’ representation and demographics, how they contribute, their motivations and challenges, and strategies employed by communities to attract and retain women. We identified 51 articles (published between 2000 and 2021) that investigated women’s participation in OSS. We found evidence in these papers about who are the women who contribute, what motivates them to contribute, what types of contributions they make, challenges they face, and strategies proposed to support their participation. According to these studies, only about 5% of projects were reported to have women as core developers, and women authored less than 5% of pull-requests, but had similar or even higher rates of pull request acceptances than men. Women make both code and non-code contributions and their motivations to contribute include, learning new skills, altruism, reciprocity, and kinship. Challenges that women face in OSS are mainly social, including lack of peer parity and non-inclusive communication from a toxic culture. We found ten strategies reported in the literature, which we mapped to the reported challenges. Based on these results, we provide guidelines for future research and practice. 

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3. U.S. Women Faculty in the Social Sciences Also Face Gender Inequalities

   https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.792756  

   Casad, Bettina J.; Garasky, Christina E.; Jancetic, Taylor R.; Brown, Anne K.; Franks, Jillian E.; Bach, Christopher R. (May 2022, Frontiers in Psychology)

   There is a national interest in United States women’s underrepresentation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM); however, gender inequality in the social sciences has not received similar attention. Although women increasingly earn postgraduate degrees in the social sciences, women faculty still experience gender inequities. Consistent gender inequities include slower career advancement, blunted salaries, unequal workloads, work-life conflict, systemic gender biases, underrepresentation in positions of power, and hostile work environments. Cultural biases suggest that once women have achieved parity, gender bias no longer exists. This review challenges that notion by providing evidence from social science domains in which women are well-represented but continue to face systemic gender biases. We examine cultural influences on gender representation and career advancement in psychology, economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology. We make interdisciplinary comparisons of career trajectories and salaries using national data, documenting patterns across the social sciences. For example, women economists face gendered standards in publishing, and women political scientists are less likely to have their work cited than men. Furthermore, data show that salaries become stagnant as the representation of women in these fields increases. These disparities reflect cultural biases in perceptions of women’s competence stemming from social role theory. We discuss best practices to address these problems, focusing on the ADVANCE organizational change programs funded by the National Science Foundation that target (a) improving academic climate, (b) providing professional development, and (c) fostering social networking. Federally supported interventions can reveal systemic gender biases in academia and reduce gender disparities for women academics in the social sciences. 

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4. Being Asian American Women Scientists and Engineers in the United States: Intersection of Ethnicity and Gender

   https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642221078510  

   Varma, Roli (March 2022, American Behavioral Scientist)

   A high level of educational and occupational achievements in science and engineering (S&E) in the US has changed the image of Asian Americans from the “yellow peril” to a “model minority.” Behind this new identity is the belief that Asian Americans as a group have equaled, if not surpassed, the standards of success set by White America in S&E. It is further assumed that Asian American women are advancing equally in S&E. The reality is that they are over-represented as Asian Americans but under-represented as women in S&E occupations. They experience challenges associated with both, their ethnicity and gender. They face “double bind”—a term used for women of color who simultaneously experience sexism and racism in S&E. This paper presents Asian American women’s unique situations within S&E organizations, with a particular focus on high-technology industry, where most of them are employed. It focuses on their identities and socio-cultural categorizations. 

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5. Lessons from Diverse Women in STEM: Acknowledging Institutional Challenges and Empowering Agency Towards STEM persistence

   Schuyler, S.; Briseño, J.; Natarajan, M.; Sista, A.; Wilkins-Yel, K.G.; Arnold, A.; Bernstein, B.; Randall, A.K (January 2021, Proceedings of the 2021 Collaborative Network for Engineering and Computing Diversity (CoNECD) Conference)

   null (Ed.)

   Women pursuing graduate studies in STEM fields often face challenges, such as implicit and explicit messages (e.g., microaggressions, stereotyping) that communicate their lack of belonging in STEM, the delegitimization of their skills and expertise, and instances where both their voice and physical presence are ignored. These gendered, and in the case of Women of Color (WoC), racialized experiences, result in additional stress that negatively influences women’s efforts to persist and succeed in STEM fields. This study, which is part of a larger NSF-funded project within the CareerWISE (CW) research program, highlighted the voices of white women and WoC in STEM doctoral programs with the goal of identifying factors that promote their STEM persistence. A total of 33 women in STEM doctoral programs across the United States were interviewed. Participants were asked to provide recommendations for fellow women in STEM who are considering leaving their programs to facilitate their persistence amidst challenges they might face. The findings were summarized into four broad themes: 1) seek interpersonal support, 2) prioritize mental health and wellbeing, 3) affirm and encourage one’s belongingness in STEM, and 4) explore different academic options if needed. Findings led to important implications for current and future graduate students, departments, and institutions (i.e., building community, fostering a welcoming environment, reducing barriers to persistence). 

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