Navigating the “Double-Hurdle” for Marginalized People in Tech

“You can’t be what you can’t see”* is a quote commonly used by those of us doing equity-focused work. The general idea here being that until you see someone who looks like you filling a particular role, carrying responsibility, or holding power, you may not envision yourself fitting there. We’ve seen this in examples of Barack Obama being elected the first Black president of the United States, or Kathrine Switzer as the first woman to run the Boston Marathon, and most recently in Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice. When positions or places are associated with one kind of person — be that by gender, race and ethnicity, or age — the barriers to joining when you “can’t see” yourself someplace, are significant.

Looking beyond anyone trying to be a first, we see similar barriers for someone trying to be one of a few. For women attempting to enter places and spaces associated with men (think: careers in STEM, construction, or sports), the hurdles to full integration and participation are twofold: First, gaining the necessary skills and training needed to do the job proficiently and second, adapting to the masculine norms of the space (Fotaki 2012, Johnson 2014, McIlwee & Robinson 1992).

The myth of “fitting in”

What does this look like in lived experiences? Imagine a woman pursuing a career in tech. She would first need the necessary training — be that a bootcamp certificate, college degree, and/or work experience — associated with a particular job. This first hurdle makes clear sense, as it’s the same hurdle every single one of their peers has to first jump before landing a job in tech.

The second hurdle, however, is specific to women, transgender, and nonbinary people working in tech (or any other masculine-associated space). Depending on the particular environment, this could mean learning the lingo of a space, becoming comfortable with aggressive forms of communication, deciding what to wear to the office, or downplaying a role as a parent or caretaker. Of course, not all women are warm, effusive, quiet communicators, just as all men are not aggressive, macho, loud communicators. Yet even while we can recognize these are very generalized assumptions, they are still built into the foundation of spaces associated with men.

While women, trans, and nonbinary people can easily clear the first hurdle by getting the training necessary for the job, they will never be able to fully clear the second hurdle. Here, we also have to recognize that there is no actual way for women, trans, and nonbinary people to adapt. They can adopt an aggressive and/or “masculine” way of communicating, they can wear the styles appropriate to the space, and they can keep issues and topics related to feminine or agender experiences to themselves. Yet, despite best efforts to adopt masculine social norms, simply existing as a woman, trans, or nonbinary person within a masculine space will obstruct their full involvement.Thus, the second hurdle becomes impossible to clear.

The gaps in the data

Most of the research on people who are the first, or among the first, to do things focuses on the gender binary (men and women) and how they fit into spaces and places together. But it’s important to remember that similar hurdles exist for transgender and nonbinary people within workplaces — especially for those who may transition as working adults. While social hurdles for transgender and nonbinary people are bigger than bathrooms in the workplace, bathrooms represent just one example of a visible space in which folks may be learning the gendered expectations of them. This may sound like it’s feeding back into the problem of upholding normative gendered expectations, for sure. Depending on the workplace, as Schilt (2011) says, this understanding of expectations is less about upholding problematic norms, and instead gives people the knowledge of the “potential penalties for failing to meet new social expectations” rather than being about upholding idealized gendered activities.

Rejecting the need to conform

The more we allow spaces to be associated with one kind of person, rather than all kinds of people, the higher that second hurdle becomes and the harder it is to find full, joyful, respected participation. While there isn’t a magic bullet to solve this problem in the workplace — or any social space — there are steps that can be taken by those with power to enact change. Socially, we’re seeing more conversations about diversity — be that race and ethnicity, gender existing on a spectrum, neurodiversity, or people with disabilities, among many others. In the media, we’re seeing more diverse characters in books, tv shows, and movies. At the individual level, increasing numbers of Americans know someone who is transgender or uses gender-neutral pronouns than ever before (Minkin & Brown 2021). This sort of change is slower and relies on education and willingness to be open to information and changing opinions. What we can control right now are the sorts of boundaries and guardrails created within workplaces to protect folks who don’t identify as white, cis-gender, heterosexual, men**. Workplaces can investigate their policies, protections, and benefits to make sure they’re inclusive of all people and all people’s varying and diverse needs. They can set up structures and anonymous reporting systems (that have clear, unbiased processes for addressing reported issues) for those who do feel discomfort or harm at work. In general: workplaces can build in and build up systems for hiring, promotions, salary decisions, and conflict resolution that don’t leave solutions up to one individual’s ability to handle issues equitably.

Getting back to the idea of “you can’t be what you can’t see”, if young women, trans, and nonbinary people can look toward a future in which they see themselves as successful participants in spaces currently associated with men — in our case, tech — without having to downplay their gender identities or acclimate to masculine expectations of interactions, we can expect them to join at higher numbers and their attrition in these areas to lessen. Only when women, trans, and nonbinary people feel as equal members in any social setting will they joyfully join up and stay put for the long haul.

*I’d be remiss to not attribute this to Marian Wright Edelman, the first Black woman admitted to the Mississippi Bar, founder of the Children’s Defense Fund, and lifelong champion of disadvantaged communities.

**For help with vocabulary here, Kristina Williams and her team at Unpacking have got you covered: https://unpacking.co/resources

Works cited:

Fotaki, M. (2013). No woman is like a man (in academia): The masculine symbolic order and the unwanted female body. Organization studies, 34(9), 1251–1275.

Johnson, R. (2014). Hiding in plain sight: Reproducing masculine culture at a video game studio. Communication, Culture & Critique, 7(4), 578–594.

McIlwee, J. S., & Robinson, J. G. (1992). Women in engineering: Gender, power, and workplace culture. SUNY Press.

Minkin, R., & Brown, A. (2021). Rising shares of US adults know someone who is transgender or goes by gender-neutral pronouns. Pew Research Center, 27.

Schilt, K. (2011). Just one of the guys?: Transgender men and the persistence of gender inequality. University of Chicago Press.