On International Women’s Day, Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code, told Auburn students and community members that there needs to be a culture change in America to bring more women into the tech industry.
“We have a Barbie doll who says, ‘I hate math, let’s go shopping instead,’” Saujani said. “I can walk into a Forever 21 and buy a t-shirt that says I’m allergic to algebra. All of you have watched Mean Girls, which I’ve watched on repeat, and you know the scene where she gets an A on a math test, and she crosses it out to a D, just to get the affection of a boy.”
Saujani’s keynote speech was the second installment of the Critical Conversations spring series, which was given in the Student Center Ballroom on Wednesday at 5 p.m.
One factor Saujani said is in American culture, girls are taught that they cannot fail, which she said needs to change. She said she carries around every rejection letter she has ever gotten, from college applications to her recent failed attempt to get on her community board.
“I spend my life teaching girls to code because I spend my life teaching girls to fail,” Saujani said. “The most beautiful thing about coding is [it] shows them the process of getting things wrong over and over – it teaches you failure, it teaches you rejection.”
Saujani gained national recognition in 2010 when she became the first Indian-American woman to run for a seat in the United States Congress. After a career in law, she served as the public advocate for New York City, and is currently a political activist for the Democratic Party.
With a mission to close the gender gap and bring more women into the job industry of the future, Girls Who Code offers free summer programs and organizes clubs to give girls the opportunity to learn the skillset.
“I’m passionate about this because I think girls will change the world,” Saujani said. “I think there are so many problems that we’re just not solving because girls are not going into technology.”
According to Saujani, 40,000 Americans graduated in engineering last year, 10,000 of which were women, while 350,000 people graduated in China. She said she believes the answer to this problem is women.
“As movements such as #MeToo and #TimesUp continue to shape our nation’s dialogue, it is imperative that we also continue advancing the conversation around the impact of gender gaps, particularly among STEM fields,” said Taffye Benson Clayton, Auburn’s vice president and associate provost for the Office of Inclusion and Diversity.
Saujani said there are over 4,000 Girls Who Code clubs in the country, but not enough in Alabama as there should, encouraging Auburn members to start up clubs. She was asked in the question and answer session how people should go about encouraging others to learn code.
“Just do it,” Saujani said. “Set out, [it] as a goal to teach five people how to code by the end of this year.”
Saujani, who majored in political science, said the message of encouraging girls into STEM careers must not just come from people in the STEM fields, but the encouragement must come from all people.
“What I think keeps girls from aspiring to go into this field is that they have other loves like theatre or communications or political science,” Saujani said. “I think it behooves us who are non-technical to find places for them and be champions of girls who are learning these skillsets.”
Saujani said the motivation to start Girls Who Code came when she was on the campaign trail for her 2010 run for Congress. She said she visited
“One of things I’ve learned at Girls Who Code is that it’s far beyond coding,” Saujani said. “It’s about how do we teach resiliency; how do you teach bravery.”
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