Skirts and Ladders 'Computing is too important to be left to men' — Karen Spärck Jones

“Diversity is not about how we differ. Diversity is about embracing one another’s uniqueness.” Ola Joseph

Diversity in investment banks is a contentious issue. I tend to focus my attention on graduate recruitment, because it's the easiest way to see what the demographics of the future workforce will be like.

I have a friend that joined the technology graduate scheme of one large American bank a couple years ago, and was part of an intake that was at least 70% white male. My friend, a white woman, joined the most unexpected team in that firm.

The team was founded by another woman. This woman went on to build her team, and after a couple years, when my friend had joined, this was the breakdown:

The next incarnation of this team involved the man relocating to New York, and a new graduate coming on board. Yes, we have arrived at an all-women team - in IT!

And guess what - the best is yet to come. Because my friend, that 1 white woman, is moving on. Let's introduce her replacement, as well as this year's new graduate.

There's something fantastical about this team. Shouldn't there be a token straight, white man?

It's easy to understand how it started, because it comes down to the key problem with diversity: everyone wants to hire people like them. This is not out of malice or (reverse) discrimination, it's because we generally feel more comfortable with people that have something in common with us.

Dyslexia's an interesting thing to appear in this mix, because it's a fairly hidden disability - given that it's estimated that 10% of the population is dyslexic, there should be thousands of such people employed by all of these large firms, and yet I'm sure most people aren't aware of their dyslexic colleagues.

And that leaves us with women and gay men. There are many, many variables at work, but given that women and gay men are few and far between on technology grad schemes, it's interesting to watch them gravitate into this specific team. Is it the job? The manager? The team? For once, I'm interested in the flip side: why are the stereotypical straight, white men not ending up here?