On being an ally

This past week my sister (an elementary school teacher) asked me if I would like to present to all the third-graders at her school about programming: what is it, what can we do with it, and just generally get them excited. After all, it was their school district's "coding week."

I blew their MINDS. In between showing them game prototypes I made and injecting a Super Mario player into their school's website, they were incredibly excited for programming, coding, and all things development. Then it came to Questions and Answers time with Mr. Duque. "Can you make apps on phones?" "What different coding languages do you know?" "How did you do that?"

"Can girls be programmers?"

These third-graders already had the notion that the tech industry is "meant for boys." We work in an industry that features men predominantly over women and yet I have not found any convincing arguments as to why men would perform better than women in the workplace. What I have found is a ton of convincing arguments for why a diverse workplace provides tremendous benefits to everyone. If you doubt either of those sentiments, I would invite you to just google the dozens and dozens of research studies on these topics.

So tech should be for everyone and having every kind of person in tech makes it even better, yet here we are in a male-dominated industry.

From subtle things like office temperatures being controlled by management (predominantly male) and thus run cooler than what would be comfortable for women, to every-day social interactions like water cooler-talk that could be more or less alienating, to bigger problematic statistics like women are more likely to be excluded from important events or decisions--what does it mean for someone who benefits from this privilege just by their gender?

In other words, what does it mean to be an ally?

• Does it mean empathy? At a minimum, learning of these little to big, subtle to obvious problems? Educating yourself about what a woman's perspective would be in your context?

• Does it mean not accepting "how it is?" Taking uncomfortable steps to realize your own and your workplace's prejudices?

• Does it mean learning and practicing what you can do to make it better for others?

• Does it mean taking steps to challenge systemic imbalance and disrupting societal "norms?"

Yes, it means all these things. But while it means all these things, for each person it just means one of these things at a time. Fostering safe and inclusive environments is a “one step at a time” process for the individual. Honestly, once you intentionally take the first step of being an ally, the rest comes naturally; that first step, empathy, will be the first big step into a better world and you will not look back.

Being an ally isn't necessarily affirmative action or quotas, being an ally is realizing that the scale has already been tipped in your favor. Being an ally is willing to lift others up to where you are. Some of the most helpful allies to a group are the ones who have benefited from that imbalance.

So to the little girls of my sister's third-grade class who ask "Can girls be programmers?"

Yes, and I will do whatever I can to make it so.

And to the women who are trying to make it in this industry who ask “Are you an ally?”

Yes, and I will do whatever I can to take that next step.