The aura of the Tech Brothers is losing its luster and, in 2025, the computing industry's glamor will be gone continue to fade awayVery. While other STEM fields are making progress in broadening participation in their workforce, year after year, computing, a purportedly innovative field, fails to recruit, retain, and respect women and non-binary workers. For example, precise questioning, abstraction, aggression, sexism, and disdain for altruism – serving the social good – are some of the core values driving the culture in computing workplaces. These values and the way they are monitored through bias, discrimination, and harassment in high-tech companies create the “Bro Code”.
brother code continuous high tolerance Of sexual harassmentThis also contributes to the failure to repair the sharp separation of the area. Only 21 percent The majority of computer programming positions are held by women. Of that 21 percent, only 2 percent are African American, and only 1 percent are Latina. While the sector as a whole is extremely underrepresented, Women are disproportionately affected During downsizing of the industry. For example, about 70 percent Women were among those laid off in the 2022 technical layoff. This matches my experience in Big Tech. As soon as the company went public, shareholders demanded annual layoffs. For the first two years, only women were fired in my department.
Furthermore, due to their vast wealth and skillful branding, owners of the Bro Code consider themselves magicians or priests. They tend toward authoritarianism, driven to suppress grievances and resistance. Some programmers imitate this behavior. For example, in 2023, the Tech Brothers gathered grace hopper celebrationThe world's largest conference for women and non-binary tech workers. Female attendees I spoke to at the career expo described men simply approaching them in lines, and some said they were verbally harassed and assaulted. .
In 2025, the march toward a future determined by algorithmic lords will falter. The alliance between feminist movements and labor activism will lead to increased public scrutiny of tech culture. These efforts will mark the beginning of breaking the bro code. The bosses of Bro Code talk big about its socially revolutionary impact, but participants in my research felt like failures trying to use their tech skills to serve others. For example, Lin reported that an eye-tracking tool she developed to help people with disabilities was reused for marketing analysis; When Shauna worked on projects to help underprivileged people in computing, her lab mates nicknamed her “Accessibility Bitch.”
As Big Tech continues to make empty promises rather than solve social ills – avoiding taxes, skirting regulations and widening the pay inequality gap – the public will continue to become disillusioned with the industry. In 2025, failing philanthropic efforts like Shauna and Lynn's will accelerate growing skepticism about computing's service to humanity.
Disenfranchised tech workers will continue to help us hold bro code owners accountable not only for failing to live up to their widely publicized altruism, but also for. their efforts To concealing social harms of their products. As Recent event activities According to tech workers, it is the strong alliance among workers that most threatens these ruling elites. For example, in 2018, more than 20,000 Google employees Walkouts took place around the world against sexual harassment and systemic racism in companies. In 2025, activism against militarization, racism, sexism, and economic exploitation in the tech industry will grow bigger than bro code bosses' space jets.