In this weeks episode we speak to Catherine Ruggles, Director of Software Engineering at Google and Nosipho Damasane. Who discuss rising up in the current meritocratic systems as someone from a marginalised group, being the ONLY woman, women in STEM and making successful challenges of systems.

[00:00:32] Will be successful so that women the world over will be able to say if that's leadership, I'm in. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Julia Middleton, expedition leader. The expedition is now eight months through, we've done eight months since May. Seems extraordinary, and there's four months to. On our recent session, I asked all the members to come and to bring an object with them, an object that they would then describe to us that would, and the objects sort of should reflect, um, not what they've learned so far in the expedition, but rather what they've unlearn.

[00:01:52] She, she half thought that maybe the, the struggle for women was, was, was coming to an end, and that we had moved on. And I think that for Ana Luz, the big thing that she's unlearn is that that isn't indeed true and that, um, it's very much a struggle that continue. It rang a bell for me because I remember when we started women emerging, there was, um, someone who said to me, but surely, but surely, you know, progress on the women front, progress on the women front has been significant over the last 30 years.

[00:02:55] Yeah, sure, there's been some progress, but the pace has been almost glac. And it's been glacial in so many places moving forward, but incredibly, slowly. Well, and, and in some places it's actually being, it's going backwards and particularly to my mind in stem. There's a lot of talk about STEM being slowly to progress.

[00:03:52] And secondly, because Catherine Ruggles is, um, director of software engineering at Google and, and, and therefore has real in insight into the issues I ask Catherine about what were the prospects of getting, getting STEM back on. And perhaps more importantly about where the pressure would come from for it to get back on track, because it hasn't always been like this.

[00:04:57] Catherine.

[00:05:26] So one of the difficulties is when you look at, say, women in STEM is a really good example. Um, women coming in who are ambitious, they have a stake in believing in the. You know, they're, they, they need to buy into the myth if they're going to succeed in some ways. And so the difficulty is if you start challenging that, you are gonna have a hard time if you want to actually, you know, rise up in that world, right?

[00:06:28] If in fact you don't need the job, then you can challenge. But if you really need the job, if you really need to succeed in your career, It's really hard to challenge. Um, and I think that, that, that is true the more you don't fit the mold. So the more you are a marginalized group, the more you are, you know, from a disadvantaged background, any of those things, the harder it is to challenge, the more you are part of the majority group and so on, the easier it is.

[00:07:24] What about the people who are not part of the marginalized. I think, I think that's, that's much easier. They, they tend not to get as dinged for it. Um, I mean, it is the case that when you look at sort of, you know, women who are doing things around, um, women, uh, around, you know, sort of advancement of women in the in stem, you know, they're especially engineers, their managers sometimes learn, well, are they, they're doing too much of that.

[00:08:18] Um, and I, I, I. I feel the same look on my face coming when I use the word ally. I mean, you know, these male allies, I feel so patronized. It's unbearable, . It's true. But at the same point time, they do make a huge difference. You know, I mean, it is the case that they make a huge difference. Uh, and so I, I, you know, I would hate for them to stop

[00:08:55] Catherine: I think external, I think it's very hard to, to challenge from inside, um, any of these systems and especially the ones that are these, this, that really can consider themselves a true meritocracy. Um, I think it's really hard. I mean, I think things like the gender pay gap report and things like that are really good.

[00:09:36] Um, so, but I think it has to come from outside. I really do. I don't, I don't think it will come from inside. Remember the people who are running these c. Uh, are very much, you know, believe in it. Believe that they really did devise a system that was objective and merit marriage, you know, all that stuff. I think the, the worst part is you see a lot of young men who come in, like the young women thinking it's a meritocracy, look around and see only male leaders and say, well, that must be cuz women aren't suited.

[00:10:41] Um, and so when things, when I didn't get whatever the data was getting or whatever, I assumed that, you know, there was, there was some discrimination going on there. And I mean, I knew that. , they paid the guys more because they had a family to support and so on and so forth. So, I mean, you know, I, I had no illusions about that stuff.

[00:11:26] I, I, I don't think women actually do have imposter syndrome any anymore than men do. I think the difference is women are self-aware enough to know they have imposter syndrome, and I think that that, you know, men tend to feel like that's not an okay thing, so they cover it up even to themselves most likely.

[00:12:05] Pretend you're, you're, you know, not hurt, pretend all of these things. And they have a whole lifetime of doing that. And so women come into the workplace and they're told, no, no, you have to start pretending like this. And, you know, women are not used to doing that. Um, but the difficulty is if, if in fact we, you know, we tell them that this is the reason they're not successful.

[00:12:52] I mean, and, and it really is that kind of thing. It's like, you know, women are used to showing their emotions. Women are used to being emotional. Women are used to, um, being aware of their emotions. Men don't have that awareness. Men allow themselves really only, you know, one emotion of one negative emotion, which is.

[00:13:38] Um, succeed makes women feel like they're wrong for having emotions and being aware of their emotions. Um, but I do feel like it does make women better leaders. Um, because they, I think that one of the problems with men not having as much self-awareness, especially when they're younger, is that they tend to misconstrue things.

[00:14:24] Julia: And part of that acting that way is to show anger.

[00:14:46] They're not that self aware.

[00:14:58] Catherine: Um, I don't know if I've thought it that much, but I'm sure I've been, it. I mean, you know, I've been doing this for, you know, 40 years and, and tech has been, you know, getting progressively bad over those years.

[00:15:39] I'm not sure it's mattered to me all that much a lot of the time. Um, but I do feel like it, it got to such a place and the culture of computing changed. And, and so one of the things that happened for me was the whole when, when I started seeing sort of the Facebook and the social media stuff and how that was influencing the world and how that had been built by a culture that was all about.

[00:16:33] um, I think as a result of, you know, the culture in tech.

[00:16:49] Catherine: Yeah, I mean, I, I, I definitely was a boiling frog. I mean, I think there's no two words about it. Um, and, and I do think that, For at least the first 20 years of my career, um, I, I was somewhat oblivious or, you know, somewhat boiled, but it's like, at this moment, you know, there's no, there's no boiling frog.

[00:17:41] A lot of the stuff around, um, Being who you are. I mean, and, and, and everyone being who they are is, is okay. That, that being clear about what the, the, the many, many different ways you can be a successful engineer. That there is not one type of good engineer. That, that, and that what matters is, you know, the software and, and building great software.

[00:18:27] But it's not easy. I mean, you know, you're, you're going against a huge, a huge amount of sort of, This is the way it is kind of stuff and you know, bro culture, um, that is just, you know, really entrenched. Are you quite glad you were your generation? I feel like, you know, I, I did get to ride a revolution that was, Fascinating to me.

[00:19:14] Um, so, you know, in that sense, I'm, I'm. Glad and I feel lucky, which you mean what women have to go through now is really horrible. Oh, I mean, just the, I mean, you know, the, the twist yourself into a donut and act like a guy in order to get, you know, to, to be successful. Change your personality. To be successful.

[00:19:41] It's even worse than that, isn't it? It's change your personality to be successful and you've learned outrageously to be authentic. . .

[00:19:52] Julia: Yeah. You have to be authentically inauthentic. and, yeah.

[00:20:00] Catherine: Um, and, and, and, you know, and it is like, it's kind. I mean, you know, I, I am a gay woman and I, you know, I was back then, and there's no chance in hell it would've occurred to me that I would ever be out on the job. You know? I mean, for the first 20 years of my career, I was totally closeted, of course, because everybody was, and didn't bother me.

[00:20:42] Um, to be who, not who they are in order to be successful. And I think that's kind of horrible. It's quite extraordinary how good men just don't see. They just don't get it. Hmm. I I, you know, I don't, I don't know the answer to that. I mean, I know, I know a few men who I think get it, um, who are really good at allies, but I will say yes, very few.

[00:21:40] It would be that it's not them, that it's, that it is not a level playing field. It is not a meritocracy. If they don't succeed at something, it's not their individual fault that we need to be really clear that this is, that, that the meritocracy that that they, the merito. That is supposedly, tech is in fact very uneven.

[00:22:28] Yeah, don't let yourself believe it yourself. And it's like, you know, the more, the more we succeed, the less it'll be necessary. Hopefully. I mean, that, that's objective, but it is necessary right now.

[00:23:19] To counterbalance that, I thought I would go and talk to Nosipho in South Africa. Because she sort of picks up on this issue of hope. Her approach over the years has been a total determination to be herself at any cost. And, um, she's got the scars to prove it. She also has success to report because, um, Her determination has taken to the top of the ladder in mining, in ports, in railways, if not in stem, but, um, huge success, but huge determination.

[00:24:30] Nosipho, Just how tough is. I'm being the only woman because I, I, I'm, I'm very much aware of the fact that I'm talking to a woman who is a woman of firsts and in extraordinary sectors, mining ports, railways. You have? Yeah. You've been first. So how tough is it?

[00:25:11] So what I actually realized quickly was that for me to learn. In this environment, I must wear my P P E, which is my overalls and my safety puts and my hard hat, and go to the ground to learn from the employees so that I can understand the language. It was in the port environment to understand the language, to understand how it works, because in the boardroom, nobody's willing to teach you when they actually think that you shouldn't be there Post in the first.

[00:26:04] All of them were more like more than 25 years experience. So if I walked into a meeting with them, with a client in the morning when they're having coffee, they'll exchange business cards. They'll completely ignore me as if I'm not in the room. They'll chat about sport and do all those other things that eliminate you and.

[00:26:44] You can help. But I felt very strongly about not being the only woman in the boardroom. So we di quickly, I looked at them, had a second woman coming in Before you noticed we were three and, and men were never ready for us. I think that's at the crutch, at the heart of this thing, is that men were just never ready for us.

[00:27:29] It's a burden. But you're not suggesting that we all become like men. Look, I don't want to be ever like a man. I always say to, that's why I wear the floral dresses I say to people, the. Have been designed or built to have egos, women have intuition. So we are driven by empathy. That's how, that's how we, that's how God did this, right?

[00:28:18] I could have, I think, but n but I, unfortunately, I was not in that game because it comes naturally to me that I'm a woman first and then I'm a leader. And if that means that you don't climb the ladder as fast, so be it. So be it. I have, I, I'll give you an example. When I actually, um, I think it was my fifth year as in an executive role, and I was, I was asked to actually go and head up operations and I told my boss that I don't, I'm not ready for that.

[00:29:15] Julia: Do you think that the real change will come from the inside of organizations or from the outside?

[00:29:37] There is no other way of doing it because influencing something that you can control does not give you any much value. But if you try to do it from the inside, will you never get to the. Well, I got to the top, I did it from inside. I got fired. I got demoted, um, twice in one day. But I continued to take the tree and um, and, and, and, and because of the strides I was doing in the industry, because I stayed in the industry as well.

[00:30:58] The will is turning and I think the future is women sub subsequent to covid, um, the pandemic. People have, are now choosing where they want to work. They choose who they want to work with. So there there isn't going to be future for bosses who think they'll bully people into doing things. Women have an opportunity to get into that gap and use their natural empathy to lead their teams.

[00:31:47] They asked three times the Germans, so where's your boss? This was in 2002. Long before they, they, they had a, a woman prime minister. The. Where is your boss? And I kept saying, I am the boss because for them this deal might not be closed cause there isn't a men accompanying you. So men have mastered the thing of actually getting the world to believe in them.

[00:32:35] Julia: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Nosipho and Catherine. Um, A great deal to think about as the wheel turns so very, very slowly, but I suppose it is turning. That is the positive piece. Um, I, uh, I, I worry about Anna Luz's grandchildren holding up her night dress in years to come. But anyhow, uh, the thing that frightens me the most is that maybe.

[00:33:42] So thank you both Nosipho and Catherine. So the Expedition has four months to go. There's a great deal going on. Thank you to everybody who's following us, everybody who's throwing their ideas in, everybody who's suggesting fantastic people for me to talk to and meet and learn from and explore with. Thank you so, so much, uh, and lots of love.