Girls Who Code study of 1,000 young women highlights the challenges faced when seeking internships, often an unpleasant experience in a male-dominated workplace
Nitasha Tiku / Wired : Tweets: @angichau , @rickybloomfield , @_dianakris , @kylebrussell , @ayahbdeir , @taylor_atx , @elenielstorm , @resourcefulsqrl , @girlswhocode , @feministabulous , @ekp , @schemaly , @nitashatiku , @sarambsimon , @nitashatiku , and @nitashatiku Tweets: Angi Chau / @angichau : “Tech has solved some of the world's biggest challenges but it hasn't cracked the one closest to home:toxic, sexist workplace culture. It starts before women even get in the door, when they're still teenagers in college applying for their very first jobs.” https://www.wired.com/... Ricky Bloomfield / @rickybloomfield : This is so sad. We have the most amazing group of interns this summer - men AND women. It's not possible to build *good* health products without a diverse team. If you want to work with a team that respects you regardless of your gender, we're hiring! https://www.wired.com/... Diana Kris / @_dianakris : The piece came out today: https://www.wired.com/... Was I scared to talk about this shit? terrified But do I want it to happen to other young queens in tech? no https://twitter.com/... Kyle Russell / @kylebrussell : I am sooo not swayed by Damore-esque thinking about gender differences informing the status quo in tech vs stuff like this https://www.wired.com/... How could you base your argument on averages when these women have cultivated skills and expressed interest in the field? Ayah Bdeir / @ayahbdeir : All day I hear “it's a pipeline issue, it's a pipeline issue”. No. It's a bullying issue https://twitter.com/... Taylor Barnett / @taylor_atx : oh my gosh, yes! some of my worst interview experiences happened while I was in college. which is also when you are the most vunerable, have no or very few whisper networks, zero clue if this is normal or not, etc. it's exploitive. https://twitter.com/... Alex Rockatansky / @elenielstorm : “No one should be calling this a ‘pipeline problem’ anymore.” https://www.wired.com/... We've been saying!! Katie Lee / @resourcefulsqrl : “If this is how you're going to talk to me during the interview, how are you going to talk to me when I work there?” If you work in tech, please take the time to read this. If you are a dude in tech, make other dudes in tech read this, talk about it, & change the workplace norms https://twitter.com/... Girls Who Code / @girlswhocode : We surveyed over 1,000 of our alumni. HALF OF THEM have had a negative experience in a tech interview. Think all-male interview panels, discrimination, harassment. #TechToo Read more from @WIRED's @NitashaTiku https://www.wired.com/... Liz Plank / @feministabulous : Half of women experience harassment be male recruits and their average age is only 19. Thankful for @reshmasaujani and all the women fighting to build a better future for girls. https://twitter.com/... Ellen K. Pao / @ekp : When techbros are blocking the pipeline: “he would stare at my boobs when he had to explain something to me” “You can hear when they snap at you.” Survey shows many young women are put off by their 1st encounters with tech cos I wish they had intersectional & harassment data https://twitter.com/... Soraya Chemaly / @schemaly : More than half of young women coders in recent @GirlsWhoCode survey report that even first encounters with tech companies raise red flags. One was asked why she would want to go into tech as a woman. Others were asked in dates and send pics, etc. #DoBetter https://www.wired.com/... Nitasha Tiku / @nitashatiku : 𝓘𝓽'𝓼 𝓷𝓸𝓽 𝓪 𝓹𝓲𝓹𝓮 𝓵𝓲𝓷𝓮 𝓹𝓻𝓸𝓫 𝓵𝓮𝓶 https://www.wired.com/... https://twitter.com/... Sara Simon / @sarambsimon : This, from @nitashatiku, is pretty much the story of how I landed in journalism. Technical interviews were so uncomfortable that I started applying to tech jobs outside of the tech industry. https://www.wired.com/... Nitasha Tiku / @nitashatiku : I had the absolute privilege of talking to 5 young female engineers for this story. 4 college students, 1 recent grad, all Girls Who Code alumnae. They're so determined, ambitious, shrewd& already face the same issues I hear from women into their careers https://www.wired.com/... Nitasha Tiku / @nitashatiku : “I'm going to graduate in 2022. I'm going to have to find a job. What if I'm like [Susan Fowler] that woman who went to Uber and her manager was making offhand comments?” says Devika Chipalkatti. “Who would I tell? What if HR didn't believe me?” https://www.wired.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This Girls Who Code survey of more than 1,000 alumni extends a documented arc: back in 2018, Wired reported on research from 66 companies' university recruiting sessions showing environments that intimidated female recruits — this study pushes the timeline earlier still, to the interview and internship stage before employment begins.
The finding lands amid parallel coverage of what happens after hiring: first-person accounts from women, people of color, and LGBTQ tech workers describing discrimination and isolation, and Bloomberg's look at why tech giants' renewed diversification pledges have faltered most on retaining new Black and Latinx employees. Together they frame the pipeline problem as continuous rather than entry-point-specific.
First-order effects
- Tech companies running university internship programs now have survey-based evidence that their earliest talent touchpoints — interviews and internships — are where many young women report sexist or harassing experiences, implicating the front door of their own diversity pipelines.
Second-order effects
- Recruiting teams face pressure to treat intern-hosting managers and interviewers as a culture risk surface, not just a staffing resource, since each bad internship converts a trained candidate into a negative signal for peers choosing between offers.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across the coverage — unwelcoming recruiting, discriminatory workplaces, weak retention — the industry's diversity shortfall looks structural, sustained at every stage from first contact through advancement rather than fixable by hiring pledges alone.
The trend: Tech's gender gap is increasingly traced upstream to pre-employment stages, with studies like Girls Who Code's showing the pipeline leaks before companies even count new hires.