Women Who Code – the largest female tech nonprofit advocacy group for women – is shutting down. It had around 400,000 members & all employees will be terminated.
https://twitter.com/MacroEdgeRes/status/1781396203869028715
Women Who Code (WWC), a charity which supports women who work in the technology sector, has announced it is shutting down because of a lack of funding.
The US-based organisation says it had 360,000 people in its community, across 145 countries.
Tech has long struggled with its image of being male-dominated – the bosses of nearly all major firms are men.
Women working in the industry have been expressing shock on social media, describing the closure as “awful” and “heart-breaking.”
“It’s just sad to lose a space for women in a more male dominated industry,” says Jessica Mu, VP for technology at Artest Management Group.
Ms Mu first joined the network six years ago, when she worked at a different company which she says “didn’t have a great culture for women.”
She told the BBC she “found a lot of comfort feeling like, obviously this stuff isn’t just happening to me.”
Beyond that, she describes a “camaraderie of other women that are interested in the same things I’m interested in,” and got career advice from other participants at the WWC events.
As well as networking events and speakers, she also benefitted from events geared towards learning new skills.
“It’s disappointing that other women entering the space aren’t going to have that resource that I had when I was starting my career.”
Posting on X, women who had been part of the WWC community also expressed sadness and surprise.
“It was a wonderful resource that impacted thousands of people and their careers, including my own,” wrote Cassidy Williams, chief technology officer at app Brainstory.
Cecelia Martinez, lead developer advocate at software company OutSystems, called the news “heartbreaking,” adding that organisation “introduced me to amazing people.”
As of 2022, women represent about 34% of the workforce in large US tech companies, according to careers platform Zippia.
Apple boss Tim Cook told the BBC in 2022 that there were “no good excuses” for the lack of women in the sector.
‘Our mission is not complete’
WWC announced that “with profound sadness,” it had closed “following a vote by the Board of Directors to dissolve the organization”.
It continued that it had to close “due to factors that have materially impacted our funding sources”.
The tech industry has been cutting back in general in recent months, with layoffs announced by many of the largest companies in the sector.
WWC was started 2011 by engineers who “were seeking connection and support for navigating the tech industry” in San Francisco.
It became a nonprofit organisation in 2013 and expanded globally.
In a post announcing its closure, it said it had held more than 20,000 events and given out $3.5m (£2.8m) in scholarships.
A month before the closure, WWC had announced a conference for May, which has now been cancelled.
A spokesperson for WWC said: “We kept our programming moving forward while exploring all options.”
They would not comment on questions about the charity’s funding.
The most recent annual report, for 2022, showed the charity made almost $4m that year, while its expenses were just under $4.2m.
WWC said that “while so much has been accomplished,” their mission was not complete.
It continued: “Our vision of a tech industry where diverse women and historically excluded people thrive at every level is not fulfilled.”
Nothing is for free. Support the orgs that you use. 400k users, and no support. Sad.
Some man should’a picked up the bill.
Notice how there is not even ONE charity in NIGGERHOLE merca devoted to WHITE MEN ?
A charity for people with jobs?
That’s a new one on me.
That’s what I was thinking….if you need external help doing your job……..maybe your not competent…..ie.find a different job….?…hence the lack of “support”……
This exactly.
From the final sentence: “Our vision of a tech industry where diverse women and historically excluded people thrive at every level is not fulfilled.”
WITH 400,000 MEMBERS!
And it failed.
D’oh!
If those 360,000 people had supported the charity financially, it wouldn’t be closing down. You reap what you sow, and it sounds like the 360,000 people sowed little.
Or is this another charity like BLM where only the founders got any money?
What they are NOT saying is that dudes in dresses showed up and took over the organization, so the females left because what’s the point? Don’t bother searching for it unless you have an uncaptured engine. I saw the stories of trans identified males showing up at the conferences and shoving the real women out with the blessing of the people running the conferences
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/05/1203845886/women-tech-conference-men-grace-hopper
So, all you woman-haters here at TBP, join up with the girls with pen*ses! You have a lot in common, not just your ‘plumbing’.
Perhaps Home Economics would be a better fit for bio-front holes.
Women haters at TBP!?!?! Obviously you haven’t viewed FF
They OUGHT to shut down. It’s been 30 years now and my ‘puter STILL won’t make me a sammich! The pop out cup holder’s pretty cool though!
LOL, I remember the story about the women with the broken cup holder.
You should visit the website, it’s still up.
It looks like it is geared for children, Club Penguin level. One would expect that if coding were the field their website would look like it was cutting edge, not 2000 level mom and pop online store.
So much for their 360,000 women coders.
Plenty of virtue signaling right from the start of that site. All show and no go.
Wheres the beef??? 🙂
Women aren’t coding, because they don’t want to. Women gravitate towards other fields.
Those that do become software engineers live life on easy mode. I’ve seen professors pass girls who should have failed because they don’t know anything and can’t figure out basic logic. They get the same treatment at companies; not stop praise and promotion for subpar work.
Maybe you think this should happen more often
https://engineerscanada.ca/news-and-events/news/remembering-the-montreal-massacre-30-years-later
and the they should have a trans larper speak at the 30-year memorial
You can’t even pick up a fishing magazine in 2024 without finding an article about somebody’s victim struggles with the White Patriarchy.
Expecting the same quality and quantity of work from females is Sexist af.
“Tech has long struggled with its image of being male-dominated . . .”
No it hasn’t. It’s only recently that it even began to give a shit, with even the women not giving a shit so long as they were treated as peers, as they generally were, if they were.
If you are good you will have a job at top pay regardless of sex. Business people want profits and the best people give them the biggest profits. The rest is all bs.
If you have recognized victim status employers will hire you to meet “voluntary” quotas. You don’t have to know shyte. You just have to be “special”.
Looks like progress. A useless organization that no one supports bites the dust. If only that would happen in government circles–but then it couldn’t since every government parasite has their teeth right in the bloodstream.
Ahhh … the last sentence basically tells it all — go woke, go broke.
Perhaps if the Ones and Zeros were PINK?
10 bucks apiece is 4 mil. A hundred a head is 40 mil. That’s a lot, could go every year too eight bucks fifty a month. Women’s soccer… WNBA… ??