Sophia Eng talks about “Hear Us Roar: A Manifesto for Women and Minorities in Startup, Tech, and Business Communities with Sophia Eng” in this episode of ColdFusion Alive podcast with host Michaela Light. She has a passion for closing the minority and gender gap in business leadership and ownership. Recently, she founded a community group called Women in Growth, open to all women in startup, tech, and business communities for support.
Have you heard already about the Google #Iamremarkable movement?
Show notes
- How men and women in tech are different and the same?
- Buying patterns
- Women buy the most, repeat buy more, most social sharing
- AB testing and CRO
- Decision making
- Social conditioning vs DNA in tech skills
- Women get 50% of degrees are 30% of corporate employee
- Women are systems oriented too
- Buying patterns
- How traditional female characteristics help in programming
- Empathy for innovation
- Mother coders organization helping mothers learn to code
- Why she wrote her first article overcoming fear to hit publish
- Hear Us Roar: A Manifesto for Women and Minorities in Startup, Tech, and Business Communities
- Felt vulnerable and did it anyway
- If not me, who
- If not now, when
- How did writing articles and speaking at events help your career?
- Women supporting women group
- Gender silence
- Cultural silence
- Children silence
- WWIT for women in tech to speak up more this year?
- Whether it’s speaking up in the meeting room or writing a viral blog post. Do it afraid. Do it anyway.
- You’re hired to speak up, and if you don’t do it, you’re being selfish. Hurts business, hurts other women, hurts men too
- The challenge of getting women to speak at events
- Why fewer women attend conferences
- Need to sell you going to your manager
- Women have tended not to speak up, especially to men or when men are the room
- The frat party atmosphere at some events
- Code of conduct
- What are issues you have experienced with being a woman in tech
- How have you dealt with them?
- Encouraging girls/teen girls to go into STEM careers
- How she got involved in the Google #Iamremarkable campaign
- Self-promotion is key to getting raising and promotion esp
- Why are you proud to be a woman in tech?
- Female and minority
- Osmo kid tech game playosmo.com
Mentioned in this episode
- Google #Iamremarkable campaign
- STEM
- Mother coders
- “If not me, who? If not now, when?”
- There are several possible sources for this quote including
- Emma Watson on Gender Equality at the UN
- In my nervousness for this speech and in my moments of doubt, I told myself firmly: if not me, who? If not now, when?”
- She extends her invitation to both men and women.
- “Men, I would like to give this opportunity to extend your formal invitation. Gender equality is your issue, too. Because to date, I’ve seen my father’s role as a parent being valued less by society. I’ve seen young men suffering from mental illness, unable to ask for help for fear it would make them less of a man. In fact, in the UK, suicide is the biggest killer of men between 20 to 49, eclipsing road accidents, cancer and heart disease. I’ve seen men fragile and insecure by what constitutes male success. Men don’t have the benefits of equality, either.
- We don’t often talk about men being imprisoned by gender stereotypes, but I can see that they are. When they are free, things will change for women as a natural consequence. If men don’t have to be aggressive in order to be accepted, women won’t feel compelled to be submissive. If men don’t have to control, women won’t have to be controlled.
- Both men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Both men and women should feel free to be strong. It is the time that we all see gender as a spectrum instead of two sets of opposing ideals. We should stop defining each other by what we are not and start defining ourselves by who we are.'
- Mikhail Gorbachev said it
- Rabbinic sage Hillel the Elder said, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when
- Emma Watson on Gender Equality at the UN
- There are several possible sources for this quote including
- Code of conduct
- Timeline of sexual harassment at tech events from 1963-present
- Update – extra related items:
- “You Just Don't Understand” by Deborah Tannen. This showed me how the language that men and women speak is very different (in grammar, vocab and meaning) and can lead to misunderstandings where none are intended.
- This article “Still not on MathOverflow” by top female math professor Izabella Laba might help you understand the way that female scientists and academics are treated by men in the field. (Hint – generally it is not good treatment)
- And this is her original article about how badly men treat women in online forums for math, gaming etc.
- She also writes about gifted women and some of the problems they face due to their gender:
- “Men are often judged on their potential, but women are judged on their achievements,” Williams explains, adding that women have to provide more evidence of competence to be considered as competent as their male colleagues. What’s more, “women’s mistakes tend to be noticed more and remembered longer, but women’s successes tend to be attributed to luck.”Williams calls this pattern “prove it again.” Women literally need to prove themselves over and over again, where a similarly situated male colleague does not, she explains.The obvious solution to this problem would be for women to engage in serious self-promotion, by broadcasting their accomplishments and minimizing their faults. But, says Williams, self-promotion has its pitfalls. No one likes a braggart, especially if she is a woman. Instead, coworkers expect women to be modest and community-minded.
- “The “greater male variability” hypothesis is alive and well. There’s no shortage of talking heads and internet commenters assuring us that women are innately uninterested in demanding careers and must prioritize domesticity to feel happy and fulfilled. Hollywood films serve up stories of high-achieving professional women who are miserable, psychologically damaged, and/or must be saved from themselves by a man with a good heart.”
Listen to the Audio
Bio
Sophia Eng
Sophia Eng is a tactical and intuitive growth advisor and consultant to women in startups and small businesses. She also holds the position of Senior Manager, Online Marketing at InVision App. Views are her own.
Sophia has a passion for closing the minority and gender gap in business leadership and ownership. Recently, she founded a community group called Women in Growth, open to all women in startup, tech, and business communities for support.
Links
Interview transcript
Michael: Welcome back to the show. I'm here with Sophie 00:03 [Eng] who published a blog post that went viral talking about women in tech. Her post was all about 00:12 [inaudible] role. It was a manifesto for women and minorities in startups, tech and business communities.
So, we're going to be talking about how men and women are different and the same in tech. And how traditional female characteristics actually can help in programming. And that applies to both men and women who have those characteristics.
And how she came to overcome her fear about publishing her first article that went viral. And how writing articles and speaking at events can help your career. So, we'll talk about a number of other things too. So, welcome Sophia.
Sophia: Thank you so much Michael, very excited to be here, really appreciate and really honor the opportunity to share more of my story and my experiences on being a woman, a minority in tech.
Michael: Yeah so, you actually have been researching this for a while. You're basically a growth hacker or you help people improve their conversion rates and marketing on their websites and startups particularly with women. And also, you’re involved in the Google ‘I am remarkable’ movement and several other initiatives. And we'll talk more about those later.
But you've been researching how men and women are different online or maybe they’re just the same and you can't tell. What's the scoop?
Sophie: So you know, I have been sitting on some of this research for a couple of weeks now. And looking at the differences not just biologically but even how women and men make different purchasing decisions, right. And how important it is for businesses to understand how to speak directly to women and men as well and how to create products around that.
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