I have been active in trying to recruit more women into the tech companies I've worked for for the past 20 years. I've talked to a lot of women in tech during that time, I've taught classes in sexual harassment in the workplace, and I've tried to pay specific attention to this issue.
My impression is that things got better for a while during the 70s and 80s, but that they've been steadily declining since the mid 90s, and that right now things are worse than they've been in a while. I believe I'm relatively familiar with spaghettsquash's situation, and I recommended that she hire a lawyer, her situation was so bad.
I've known other women who left the company due to sexual harassment situations that I was sure didn't actually happen any more - a senior manager making direct and blatant sexual advances to women who worked for him.
Like spaghettisquash I encourage women who are in the industry, but these days my primary approach to getting more women in to tech is to try to improve working conditions in the companies I work for rather than trying to actually convince more women to work in tech - because until sexism in the workplace improves I can't in good conscience try to recruit more women into the field. (I do try to recruit women who are already in tech to companies I believe are good places to work.)
[ETA, an example. Yesterday in a meeting a woman presented a proposed hardware layout for a new system we're building. It includes a diagram of how the equipment should be installed in the hardware "rack." (it's called a rack diagram.) One of the (male) engineers said "Nice rack." I was shocked and said "You did NOT just say that!" The other males in the room all thought it was funny and presumably that I was a humorless git. (I'm in Australia, sexism is worse here.)]
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My impression is that things got better for a while during the 70s and 80s, but that they've been steadily declining since the mid 90s, and that right now things are worse than they've been in a while. I believe I'm relatively familiar with spaghettsquash's situation, and I recommended that she hire a lawyer, her situation was so bad.
I've known other women who left the company due to sexual harassment situations that I was sure didn't actually happen any more - a senior manager making direct and blatant sexual advances to women who worked for him.
Like spaghettisquash I encourage women who are in the industry, but these days my primary approach to getting more women in to tech is to try to improve working conditions in the companies I work for rather than trying to actually convince more women to work in tech - because until sexism in the workplace improves I can't in good conscience try to recruit more women into the field. (I do try to recruit women who are already in tech to companies I believe are good places to work.)
[ETA, an example. Yesterday in a meeting a woman presented a proposed hardware layout for a new system we're building. It includes a diagram of how the equipment should be installed in the hardware "rack." (it's called a rack diagram.) One of the (male) engineers said "Nice rack." I was shocked and said "You did NOT just say that!" The other males in the room all thought it was funny and presumably that I was a humorless git. (I'm in Australia, sexism is worse here.)]