Geek Girls - by France Winddance Twine

Book Synopsis

Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2023

An inside account of gender and racial discrimination in the high-tech industry

Why is being a computer "geek" still perceived to be a masculine occupation? Why do men continue to greatly outnumber women in the high-technology industry? Since 2014, a growing number of employment discrimination lawsuits has called attention to a persistent pattern of gender discrimination in the tech world. Much has been written about the industry's failure to adequately address gender and racial inequalities, yet rarely have we gotten an intimate look inside these companies. In Geek Girls, France Winddance Twine provides the first book by a sociologist that "lifts the Silicon veil" to provide firsthand accounts of inequality and opportunity in the tech ecosystem. This work draws on close to a hundred interviews with male and female technology workers of diverse racial, ethnic, and educational backgrounds who are currently employed at tech firms such as Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, and at various start-ups in the San Francisco Bay area. Geek Girls captures what it is like to work as a technically skilled woman in Silicon Valley.

With a sharp eye for detail and compelling testimonials from industry insiders, Twine shows how the technology industry remains rigged against women, and especially Black, Latinx, and Native American women from working class backgrounds. From recruitment and hiring practices that give priority to those with family, friends, and classmates employed in the industry, to social and educational segregation, to academic prestige hierarchies, Twine reveals how women are blocked from entering this industry. Women who do not belong to the dominant ethnic groups in the industry are denied employment opportunities, and even actively pushed out, despite their technical skills and qualifications.

While the technology firms strongly embrace the rhetoric of diversity and oppose discrimination in the workplace, Twine argues that closed social networks and routine hiring practices described by employees reinforce the status quo and reproduce inequality. The myth of meritocracy and gender stereotypes operate in tandem to produce a culture where the use of race-, color-, and power-evasive language makes it difficult for individuals to name the micro-aggressions and forms of discrimination that they experience.

Twine offers concrete insights into how the technology industry can address ongoing racial and gender disparities, create more transparency and empower women from underrepresented groups, who continued to be denied opportunities.

Review Quotes

"Geek Girls explores intersectionality in women's experiences in technology careers, thinking beyond the careers of white, middle class, Indian, or heterosexual women. Twine highlights the real divide between the experiences of white and Asian women in the industry compared to Black women, including the racial advantages they receive through their relationships with white friends and partners. Geek Girls complicates our understanding of race, gender, and sexuality in Silicon Valley"-- "Maryann Erigha, author of The Hollywood Jim Crow: The Racial Politics of the Movie Industry"

"Geek Girls is a critical, significant sociological work on structural inequality in technology occupations...this book is a must-read for anyone interested in systemic inequality in work and occupations."-- "Choice"

"Geek Girls should be on everyone's book list because the injustices described are not going anywhere unless individuals understand where they come from and how they work. Twine tells the story of the nontraditional geek in a comprehensive and thoughtful way that we all would benefit from reading."-- "Sociology of Race and Ethnicity"

"France Winddance Twine casts a harsh light on the supposed meritocracy of the tech industry, where Black and Latina 'geek girls' confront painful barriers while their white and Asian coworkers leap over them, thanks to elite connections. It's not what you know but whom you know and who you are that largely determines success in Silicon Valley--a massive injustice that stifles innovation and calls for new forms of recognition and solidarity."--Sharon Zukin, author of The Innovation Complex: Cities, Tech, and the New Economy

"The first step in dismantling unjust systems is knowing exactly how they operate. In Geek Girls, France Winddance Twine peels back the screen to illuminate the mechanisms that produce and sustain inequality in Silicon Valley. Through innovative research, this book offers conceptual tools that illuminate the way racism, sexism, classism, and casteism stifle opportunity behind the veil of meritocracy. This book should be read by everyone who is committed to broadening opportunity in our deeply stratified world."--Ruha Benjamin, author of Race After Technology: Abolitionist Strategies for the New Jim Code

"Twine's book is an important contribution to this canon of work, but it is also original in that it is a thoroughly sociological study ... The book's rigorous scholarship is presented in a highly accessible style, such that we become drawn into the lives and experiences of many of the 'Geek Girls' featured as they attempt to negotiate the 'dominant White world' in which they work."-- "Ethnic and Racial Studies"

"With Professor Twine's sharp eye for detail and compelling testimonials from industry insiders, Geek Girls fully captures what it is like to work as a technically skilled woman in Silicon Valley...is an exceptionally well presented expose of workplace discrimination in the computer and technology industry."-- "Midwest Book Review"

About the Author

France Winddance Twine is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author and a co-editor of ten books, including Outsourcing the Womb: Race, Class and Gestational Surrogacy in a Global Market and A White Side of Black Britain: Interracial Intimacy and Racial Literacy.