Facebook backs new conference for women in tech
A group of prominent women in the tech industry have announced that they are planning a new conference for Women in Product.
The conference, which is sponsored in part by Facebook, will be held at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 13. It is open to women who have eight or more years of experience in product leadership. Expected attendees include women from companies like Twitter, Uber, Apple and Google.
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“Being a woman is not the same as being a man within product management,” said Deborah Liu, including Facebook's vice president of platform and marketplaces in an interview with Fortune. “The ultimate goal for the conference is for women product leaders to learn from each other.”
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Facebook COO and author of Lean In Sheryl Sandberg will give the keynote address. Other notable speakers include Joanna Lambert, who is vice president of consumer product at PayPal, Facebook’s director of product Fidji Simo and director of project management at YouTube Shimrit Ben-Yair.
Despite strides made in recent years, the tech industry is still widely regarded as a "boy's club," with only 25% of IT jobs held by women. That number falls to 11% at executive positions.
Facebook has had a complex relationship with gender in the past. In April, the social network claimed that it had eliminated the wage gap between men and women at the company.
The company still struggles with an overall gender gap, as does much of Silicon Valley and tech companies at large.
In its 2015 diversity report, Facebook noted that 68% of its employees are men, a number that climbs to 84% for tech jobs.
Facebook was also been the subject of a sexual harassment lawsuit in 2015.
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Topics Facebook
