[The song Work by Rihanna plays]

Melissa Harris-Perry: This is The Takeaway, and I'm Melissa Harris-Perry grooving over here on the mic to queen Rihanna singing about work, or really about all the good stuff that happens when the workday is finally over. On this day, August 3rd, we're reminded that for Black women work does not pay equally. August 3rd is Black Women Equal Pay Day. No, it's not a celebration of us sisters securing our bags. It's a marker of just how much harder it is for us to stack our cash, because Black women earn only 63 cents for every dollar earned by non-Hispanic white men.

This means that on this day in 2021, Black women's average wages finally match the average wages of non-Hispanic white men from 2020. Yes, it takes an average Black woman 19 months to earn what the average white man earns in 12. This is economics professor Michelle Holder, discussing why.

Michelle Holder: The double gap means that Black women in the United States are in a labor market where they face wage penalties, based on both their gender and their race.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Joining me now to discuss how this double gap shows up in the tech industry is Tarika Barrett, CEO of Girls Who Code. Welcome to The Takeaway, Tarika.

Tarika Barrett: Thank you so much, Melissa. It's a pleasure to be here.

Melissa Harris-Perry: How does this double gap show up in tech industries? Because don't Black women in computing related jobs actually face a more narrow pay gap?

Tarika Barrett: I want to start by saying, we are still a far cry from pay parity, but instead of the 63 cents to the dollar that you just referenced in your introduction, Black women make a lot more in tech. It's actually 90 cents to the dollar. The point that I want to underscore is that despite this, Black women hold only 3% of computing jobs in the US. It's a reminder of how far we still have to go before we achieve pay equity for Black women and other women of color.

Melissa Harris-Perry: That makes perfect sense to me, right. That within the narrower field of tech, the pay equity might not be as disparate, but given how small percentages there are, that small percentage then leads to what that overall gap is in average workers' wages.

Tarika Barrett: That's right, and I think that-- Listen, the 90 cents at its face sounds very promising. Certainly it's a reminder that we need to get more Black and brown women into tech. It's an improvement over 2019 when it was 87 cents to the dollar, and 2016 when it was 79 cents. We know that it's certainly better than the national average, but we have to recognize that it's still unacceptable nonetheless, that Black women continue to be locked out of the tech industry. This matters because it means a lack of opportunity to some of the most highest paying jobs in our economy.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me a bit more about these two aspects. When you talk about this lockout from the industry, how much of it is driven by the workers themselves, by either lack of preparedness or a lack of interest on the part of Black girls and women to go into these fields, and how much of it is about an industry that is not prepared to open itself to Black girls and women who want to be in these fields?

Tarika Barrett: It is never about what's happening to our Black and brown girls and women. They're ready, they are eager, they're poised to take on these opportunities. I think what we have to hone in on, is what's happening before they even get their foot in the door. I'm talking about hiring practices and obsession around credentialing. It's also about an inhospitable and unwelcoming culture that they encounter when they get there.

What we find ourselves grappling with right now is continued reliance upon an elitist system of academic credentialing that offers a very narrow and privileged perspective of success. What is really appalling is that you have an industry that's not looking at these women who are the embodiment of bravery and resilience, qualities that these companies are desperate to have represented in their workforce, but when they're obsessed with conventional academic credentials that they rely on all the time, they miss this.

It's absolutely self-defeating, because we know that computer science is one of the fastest growing professions in the country. We're talking about growth of 11% that will translate into a half a million new jobs. We can't afford to leave a single ounce of tech talent on the proverbial table. Melissa, that gets at, again, before these young women put their foot in the door, but what happens when they actually get there?

We're still encountering a punishing work culture in tech, rooted in systemic racism and sexism and discrimination, that often alienates young women and especially women of color when they get their first jobs.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Talk to me a little bit more about precisely that. Once you have the foot in the door, but the work of getting promoted, of moving to the next rung on the ladder.

Tarika Barrett: We know, based on research we've done with Accenture, that 50% of women leave the tech industry before the age of 35. It's exactly what you're pointing to. It's things like parental leave policies, it's that they don't get promoted or don't see women who look like me in the senior ranks of leadership. Sometimes it's just a toxic corporate culture. For Black women in particular, we know that it's also constant microaggressions that don't leave them feeling as though they can continue motivated to work in that industry.

We know that creating a more welcoming environment would actually increase the number of women in tech by three million. That's what our recent study found.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Are there any models that are working right now? Either partnerships between tech companies and HBCU's, or places where we've seen the pay gap really narrow? Are there any sectors or companies or initiatives that seem to be working?

Tarika Barrett: There are lots of seeds, and there's some bright sparks here and there. I'll point to something that we have done recently. Girls Who Code, we've been thinking about how to address these issues with companies, right? Because we are heavily corporate partner funded, we are doing this work so that our young women have opportunities with these companies. We decided in this moment of the pandemic to launch this program called Work Prep, which introduces college-aged women to career pathways in tech, and we decided to do this with our partners.

It's two weeks, it's virtual, it's flexible. It contemplates the barriers that women who are typically underrepresented in counter, so they're balancing responsibilities. In terms of your question about promise and what we think is working, we had to have some of the most unvarnished, direct conversations with our partners about something like GPA and credentialing, saying we don't want GPA to be an unnecessary barrier for these women.

What's great is that they heard it, and they also said, "You know what, not only are we going to move this barrier away, we're going to think about other things that are credential-based, that are getting in the way of recruiting and bringing women into an opportunity where they get a chance to have an internship, or their first job in tech," and I know it's not just us. I know folks over at NPower are doing phenomenal things in this space, in terms of really pushing industry to think about how they have a huge role to play in changing this paradigm.

Melissa Harris-Perry: Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. Tarika Barrett, CEO of Girls Who Code, thank you for joining The Takeaway.

Tarika Barrett: Thank you so much again.

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