Why the Face of Tech Remains Stubbornly Male

[Commentary] How do we explain the absence of high-level women in the technology business? The answers, from new social science research, may surprise you.

Talented women run into land mines that make it hard for them to move up the corporate ladder in tech. Too often, the bias is invisible to everyone. It’s not that companies are trying to discriminate. It’s that the old scripts that both men and women unwittingly follow still have amazing power. New York University psychology professor Madeline Heilman and University of Massachusetts – Amherst’s Michelle Haynes have shown that credit for a team’s successful performance is far more often given to the male than the female. Female members are seen as less competent, less influential and less likely to have played a leadership role in the job at hand. Both men and women fall into the trap of giving higher marks to the male team member. A woman’s performance has to be at the top 20th percentile, and, in many cases, in the top 10th percentile, to be viewed on par with the average man’s performance.