Last month, a national survey ranked St. Louis as one of the worst cities for women in technology careers. Now, two St. Louis organizations are launching a new initiative to diagnose the challenges and improve opportunities for working women.
Leslie Gill, president of Rung for Women, and Emily Hemingway, executive director of TechSTL, joined KMOX to talk about the new initiatives.
Gill said that one reason women often get paid less than men is because employers aren't transparent about pay.
"Many employers don't publish pay scales. And so going in, you don't know what to ask for," she said. "Let's be honest, men tend to negotiate a little more than women do."
Rung for Women and TechSTL are coming together to collect data to help employers make informed decisions. They're sendng out a survey for women to take that they say only takes 10 minutes.
Hemingway said one problem is that a lot of women in tech don't see themselves as being in tech.
"Even though they have a lot of tech skills, if they didn't get a degree in it, or they don't have a specific certificate, they don't necessarily negotiate around, they're playing a role that's involved in tech, that's it's a high value role that they're playing," she said. "And so women are less likely to do that than men."
Listen to the full conversation from Total Information AM: