December 12, 2024
This post is part of my 30in30 challenge, where I write 30 minutes every day for 30 working days. Due to my limited time for this challenge, the content will be only very lightly researched and edited. The idea is to just write. Find my voice, and find the courage to publish. To follow my curiosity wherever it may take me.
What if I told you that there was a time when a female company founder had to change her name to a male one just to be taken seriously? Would you believe me?
I couldn't imagine it being true when I learned about this story. As a woman in tech, I'm well aware of the issues women face: discrimination, the glass ceiling, and various biases. But changing your name to get a chance? Seriously?
Well, it did happen.
Dame Stephanie Shirley (1933) was a mathematician working in tech companies in 1950s London. Like many women in a male-dominated industry, she experienced her share of sexism and various gender-based obstacles: different pay scales for men and women, being unable to be promoted because men refused to promote a woman to a management position, being fondled or physically pushed against a wall. Eventually, Stephanie had enough and resigned from her job. She founded Freelance Programmers in 1962, a software company she ran from her dining room.
Her approach was quite revolutionary, if I may say so. In many ways, the society was very different back then. For example, women could not open their own bank accounts, and they were expected to stop working when they got married or had their first child. This meant there were a whole lot of qualified women that traditional employers overlooked: married women, mothers, and people with disabilities. Stephanie hired them to give them the chance to earn their own money and use their well earned skills. And even more radically, they all worked from home—which was pretty much unheard of then. Stephanie would pay her employees not by the hour but by their completed tasks—the original freelancers.
But getting clients wasn't easy. Potential customers often ignored business propositions from a woman. When she signed letters as "Stephanie Shirley," almost no one responded. Interestingly, when she signed her correspondence as "Steve Shirley," the very same people responded, doors opened, and contracts followed. This makes me so angry, but I'm comforted by the fact that her company ended up being extremely successful, making her a millionaire in her 60s. Since then, she has given away most of her wealth to various charities - almost 70 million pounds! Stephanie was appointed a Dame in 2000 for her contributions to technology and philanthropy.
While this is an amazing and inspiring story, it's also sad that not much has changed at all. We still have sexism; we still have a glass ceiling, and we also have the glass cliff. Women can open their bank accounts and have a family and a career, but, as Stephanie said:
Today's women have a much more difficult fight against cultural difficulties. [...] They are much more subtle, nuanced, but equally as hard.
I only found out about Stephanie today, in a foreword of a book I'm currently reading. I can't believe I didn't know about her before. She is such an inspirational woman—one who wasn't afraid to go against the societal norms and expectations of her time and created a life that worked not just for her but also for her employees.
I keep returning to "You can't be who you can't see." These are the role models I was and still am missing out on. Not because they don't exist but because I simply didn't know that they did.