I work really hard, and I don't want to be given extra breaks, or have the bar lowered. I would rather fail an interview (and I have) than be given a boost in the process.
That being said, one thign that annoys me about the media scrutinizing tech companies like this, is that the MEDIA themselves is one of the most masogogynistic cultures out there, with the most widespread global impact on the perception of male and female roles in society, yet they have the audacity to scrutinize industries who have done far more for society, pumped far more into education programs for just females, both males and females, science fairs etc and provided more opportunities to open the playing field than anyone else.
I went to an engineering school as an Electrical Engineer with a minor in Computer Science and my department was 5% female is f that, despite my school bragging 30% of our school was female. Yeh right, 90% of those girls were management majors, the rest of us were sparsely strewn across the engineering majors.
I have worked in male dominated environments my entire career and at the age of 27, I am and almost always have been the youngest in upper level management meetings in addition to being the only girl.
What I can tell you is this, and i have talked to many female and male engineers working on east coast, west coast, multiple countries in Europe, India and Asia including Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and many other places in China.
The issue is this. Yes (disclaimer) everyone needs to take responsibility for their own success, companies included, but this is really about society, and the tech companies are at the end of the pipeline of a girls life before she hits her career, the end of a pipeline of 21 grueling years of social conditioning, and the tech companies inherit the results of our heavily biased society.
And I would also like to add, WOMEN DO ADD TO THIS PROBLEM. I've seen more MOTHERS steer their daughters away from STEM to engage in socialite activities and trophy wife conditioning and I've seen MORE WOMEN than men making fun of girls for being "weird" (weird in America means, oh my gosh that girl does all of her homework and prioritizes her school and career over boyfriend. O. M. G.)
to put it best, someone I know who has worked at 2/3 big three companies on both coasts and in Europe, as well as other people I know, men I respect, work with, men who have daughters they teach to code and want to raise to be strong independentm, smart respectable women, have said this "The western culture is very limiting to women. What women need to do to do more in STEM is stay at home, play with things on their computer and break things. Women are not encouraged to stay at home and be introverted and curious"
I agree, women are taught to waste their money and time being politically polite, politically correct and wasting money on clothes and makeup to seem desireable.
If you don't believe me just leave your home and go to any store, gas station, grocery store, clothing store, anywhere basically where other humans reside and you will see this conditioning all around you.
This is not the fault of tech companies, yet the media, the very people propogating this disgusting excuse for equality (spoken from the microphones of women who are airbrushed in pencil skirts with perfect hair) is asking tech companies to fix all of the root of societies problems with women and equality because they found a statistic the liberal media (I'm a liberal myself, but I'm also capable of scrutinizing my own party, you know why? Because I'm not in a cult.) and its just not going to happen.
Tech companies are an easy finger to point to.
YES, beleive me, I have lots of rants about the companies I have worked for, but I can tell you this issue did not start at these companies. They should take on more responsibility to stop it.
However, to believe that these issues begin and end with tech companies, and that tech companies can make their portfolios equal in 5 years with some stretch recruiting goals is unreasonable at best, but the media is pressuring them to do that.
I would LOVE to see this same scrutiny go to the finance industry, which is WORSE than tech and WAY worse when it comes to how they treat women, but finance and media are all snuggled up together in NYC so they are pointing at their biggest industry threat, which is tech.
Thats what really going on in my opinion.