6 Books on Women in Tech for Women’s History Month
It’s tough to start a new career, especially if you plan to have a career in an area that’s dominated by another group, which is the case when it comes to women breaking into technology and product management.
In this book list we’ve included some stories from those who are pushing the boundaries within technology, those who are highlighting the challenges that are being faced, and stories of success.
Women in Tech: Take Your Career to the Next Level with Practical Advice and Inspiring Stories
Geared toward women who are considering getting into tech, or those already in a tech job who want to take their career to the next level, this book combines practical career advice and inspiring personal stories from successful female tech professionals Brianna Wu (founder, Giant Spacekat), Angie Chang (founder, Women 2.0), Keren Elazari (TED speaker and cybersecurity expert), Katie Cunningham (Python educator and developer), Miah Johnson (senior systems administrator), Kristin Toth Smith (tech executive and inventor), and Kamilah Taylor (mobile and social developer).
Written by a female startup CEO and featuring a host of other successful contributors, this book will help dismantle the unconscious social bias against women in the tech industry.
How to buy:
Getting Started in Product (supporting independent bookstores)
Women of Color in Tech: A Blueprint for Inspiring and Mentoring the Next Generation of Technology Innovators
Women of Color in Tech, a award winning book that will help you overcome the obstacles that often prevent women of color from pursuing and staying in tech careers. Contrary to popular belief, tech careers are diverse and fun-and they go far beyond just coding. This book will show you that today’s tech careers are incredibly dynamic, and you’ll learn how your soft skills-communication, public speaking, networking-can help you succeed in tech.
How to buy:
Getting Started in Product (supporting independent bookstores)
Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech
Buying groceries, tracking our health, finding a date: whatever we want to do, odds are that we can now do it online. But few of us ask how all these digital products are designed or why. It’s time we changed that.
Many of the services we rely on are full of oversights, biases and downright ethical nightmares. Chatbots that harass women. Sign-up forms that fail anyone who’s not straight. Social media sites that send messages about dead relatives. Changing this comes about when we get more diversity into the teams behind the apps.
How to buy:
Getting Started in Product (supporting independent bookstores)
Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boy’s Club of Silicon Valley
For women in tech, Silicon Valley is not a fantasyland of unicorns, virtual reality rainbows, and 3D-printed lollipops, where millions of dollars grow on trees. It’s a Brotopia, where men hold all the cards and make all the rules. Vastly outnumbered, women face toxic workplaces rife with discrimination and sexual harassment, where investors take meetings in hot tubs and network at sex parties.
In this powerful expose, Bloomberg TV journalist Emily Chang reveals how Silicon Valley got so sexist despite its utopian ideals
How to buy:
Getting Started in Product (supporting independent bookstores)
Girl Code: Unlocking the Secrets to Success, Sanity and Happiness for the Female Entrepreneur
Girl Code is a roadmap for female entrepreneurs, professionals and ‘side hustlers’. Blending personal stories, inspirational quotes and mantras with practical workbook sections, Girl Code will teach you how to build confidence, reconnect with your ‘why’, eradicate jealousy and use the power of connection.
How to buy:
Getting Started in Product (supporting independent bookstores)
The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Computer
In The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage Sydney Padua transforms one of the most compelling scientific collaborations into a hilarious set of adventures
Meet two of Victorian London’s greatest geniuses… Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron: mathematician, gambler, and proto-programmer, whose writings contained the first ever appearance of general computing theory, a hundred years before an actual computer was built. And Charles Babbage, eccentric inventor of the Difference Engine, an enormous clockwork calculating machine that would have been the first computer, if he had ever finished it.
Winner of the British Book Design and Production Award for Graphic Novels*
*Winner of the Neumann Prize in the History of Mathematics*
*Nominated for the 2016 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album and Best Writer/Artist*
How to buy:
Getting Started in Product (supporting independent bookstores)