Pinning Down the Jellyfish: The Workplace Experiences of Women of Color in Tech

New Report: April 2022

This report is a product of ASU’s Women of Color in Computing Research Collaborative. The collaborative is comprised of 14 research projects exploring the participation of women of color in computing in higher education, the technology workforce, technology entrepreneurship, and venture capital.

In partnership with the Kapor Center and the Center for Gender and Equity in Science and Technology, the Center for WorkLife Law examined how bias plays out in the computing profession. This report challenges the narrative that the underrepresentation of women of color in tech is only due to the leaky STEM pipeline. This new quantitative study shows that bias within the workplace plays a significant role.

The researchers studied basic patterns of bias, how bias plays out in both informal workplace interactions and formal workplace systems, outcomes related to bias, and sexual harassment. This report reflects the experiences of 216 responses to the Workplace Experiences Survey as reflected in a 10-minute survey designed to pick up how bias plays out in the workplace. The quantitative survey data is supplemented by qualitative data in the form of survey comments and one-on-one interviews.

View the report.