Link Roundup: What Can Be Stolen & What Can’t; Women in Tech

+ Friend of the site Leah Falk came home one day to find she had been robbed. She wrote a meditative essay in response called “I Am What Is Missing,” in a nod to the poet Mark Strand.

Our laptops disappeared, their absence immediately apparent from the laptop-shaped gap in the clutter on our desks. It took us hours to realize the few other things that were missing: a small wooden jewel box containing rings my mother had bought at flea markets as a young woman, a backpack with holes in the bottom. (One of the rings fell through the hole and found its way back to me.)

In the days that followed, I thought about the way my possessions clothed me. I have always been a messy person. Like some of my friends, I had tried to follow the advice of the Japanese organizing guru Marie Kondo, folding my clothes just so — but weeks later I was back to clutter. In truth, I am comforted by the array of stuff around me: on my desk, a program from a friend’s play, stapler, broken phone charger, Dr. Seuss coaster, paperweight made of the metal applique from a bookend, rock found on a stony beach in Scotland. These were handholds, or eyeholds, on the path backward through memory or forward through the unknown …

I feel very, very grateful to have never (yet) been burgled. I hope that when/if it happens, I handle the situation with similar grace.

+ Women in Tech has been a topic of passionate debate this year, from the peek-a-b00 Newsweek cover story to the Wadhwa craziness. Here are some of the best links I’ve found lately on the subject.

From the Los Angeles Times, “Why Are Women Leaving the Tech Industry in Droves?”

A Harvard Business Review study from 2008 found that as many as 50% of women working in science, engineering and technology will, over time, leave because of hostile work environments.

The reasons are varied. According to the Harvard study, they include a “hostile” male culture, a sense of isolation and lack of a clear career path. An updated study in 2014 found the reasons hadn’t significantly changed. …

So far, no company has found a solution for retaining women.

From Fortune: a female CS major at Stanford is “floored” by sexism, “something I’d previously thought of as media folklore.”

my achievement was questioned by male colleagues. I’d occasionally hear, “Oh you’re a woman, you’ll get a job at Google or Facebook just fine!” Which was the most discouraging encouragement. If I did get the internship, it was because I was a woman and if I didn’t, I’d just failed to leverage my upper edge.

And from Slate: Wanna work in tech as a woman? Forget Silicon Valley altogether. Try New Orleans, DC, or Kansas City.

while women face a substantial pay gap compared with men in Silicon Valley, there are two other major metro areas where women working in tech actually get paid more, on average, then their male colleagues.

To figure out which cities are the best for women working in tech, SmartAssets ranked cities based on the percentage of the tech industry that is made up of women, the gender pay gap in tech in each city, the average wage for women in tech minus the cost of housing (to account for cost of living), and the three-year employment growth for women in tech.

In no city do women make up more than 37 percent of the tech workforce. But women in tech have it a whole lot better in cities such as Washington, D.C. — the top-rated city — than they do in any West Coast city. In two cities, women in tech, on average, actually get paid more than their male colleagues.

Support The Billfold

The Billfold continues to exist thanks to support from our readers. Help us continue to do our work by making a monthly pledge on Patreon or a one-time-only contribution through PayPal.