Women in tech report continuing discrimination and harassment

A new report from the non-profit Women Who Tech says that over 40% of women founders and women in tech continue to be harassed, despite the #MeToo movement, and initiatives within companies to educate on diversity issues.

The report is based on a survey of over 1,000 tech employees, founders and investors conducted for Women Who Tech by Lincoln Park Strategies. Among the other findings focused on founders:

• High rates of harassment for women founders, women founders of color, and (65%) LGBTQ founders;
• Of the 41% of women founders who experienced sexual harassment, over 60% reported that they were propositioned for sex (up 9% on last year’s findings);
• 38% of white women founders and 44% of women of color founders were harassed by potential investors; and
• Almost half were told they would raise more money if they were a man.

Slightly more than half the investors interviewed thought that good products would be funded regardless of who the founders are, while 70% attributed under-funding of launches by under-represented groups to pipeline rather than demographics of founders.

This story first appeared on MarTech Today.

About The Author

Kim Davis

Kim Davis is the Editorial Director of MarTech Today. Born in London, but a New Yorker for over two decades, Kim started covering enterprise software ten years ago. His experience encompasses SaaS for the enterprise, digital- ad data-driven urban planning, and applications of SaaS, digital technology, and data in the marketing space. He first wrote about marketing technology as editor of Haymarket’s The Hub, a dedicated marketing tech website, which subsequently became a channel on the established direct marketing brand DMN. Kim joined DMN proper in 2016, as a senior editor, becoming Executive Editor, then Editor-in-Chief a position he held until January 2020. Prior to working in tech journalism, Kim was Associate Editor at a New York Times hyper-local news site, The Local: East Village, and has previously worked as an editor of an academic publication, and as a music journalist. He has written hundreds of New York restaurant reviews for a personal blog, and has been an occasional guest contributor to Eater.