Success in technology is rarely just about technical merit; it is shaped by the invisible rules of the work game that often leave women navigating a complex professional landscape blindfolded. When these unspoken, gender-biased expectations remain hidden, careers stall not from a lack of talent, but from a profound lack of transparency. In this conversation, host Kate Byrne sits down with feminist anthropologist and University of Virginia professor Coleen Carrigan, author of Cracking the Bro Code, to decode how these unwritten dynamics really operate. Carrigan pulls back the curtain on computing culture, offering sharp insights into the subtle barriers shaping advancement and how women can master the playbook to truly thrive.
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Cracking The Bro Code: Professor And Author, Coleen Carrigan On The Hidden Rules That Still Shape Women’s Careers
Decoding The Tech Bro Oligarchy
What are the biggest barriers keeping women from advancing in technology? It isn’t a lack of talent or ambition, or even opportunity. It’s a set of unwritten rules about who belongs, who gets heard, and who gets to lead. My guest, Coleen Carrigan, has spent years studying those very rules. Coleen is a Professor at the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering, an applied scientist, a feminist anthropologist, and a former senior leader in high tech. She knows what she speaks of firsthand. She is also the author of Cracking the Bro Code, a fascinating look at gender, power, workplace cultures, computing, and technology.
As it turns out, the bro code isn’t a code at all. There’s no handbook that would make things way too easy. Instead, it lives in informal networks, assumptions about competence, ideas about who looks like a leader, and the often invisible ways opportunity gets passed from one person to another. Does that sound familiar? It certainly does to me. Coleen’s work challenges one of the most persistent explanations for why women remain underrepresented in technology, and that is that we simply need to get more women into the pipeline. If only it were that easy.
Her research suggests the harder question. What happens once they get there? In this episode, we’re going to talk about hidden rules, shaping women’s careers, culture of technology and AI, who gets to build the future, and what it would take to change, not just who gets into the room, but the room itself. Be sure to stay to the end for KB Takeaways. There are quite a few because this is an extraordinary, robust conversation, and one that, sadly, and in some way, gladly, far too many of us will relate to. That’s when we know it’s time for us to change it. Let’s listen.
We are in for a broad-based treat as we are being joined by the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences Professor, author, and feminist anthropologist, Coleen Carrigan. Coleen, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much. I’m so honored to be here. Thanks for asking me.
It’s our pleasure. I paused when I was saying author because I want to make sure I got to hold up the fabulous book, which is Cracking the Bro Code. As someone who’s a fourth-generation Bay Area Californian who lived in many of the phases of the development of said bro code, I encourage everyone to pick this book up. This especially resonated with me, so thank you for taking the time to delve into this. Let’s start with the obvious question. Why don’t you share with folks what exactly is the bro code? Why did you choose that phrase, or how did you come to that phrase?
It’s a phrase I came to from both my own personal lived experiences and also my years of research with women and non-binary practitioners in the big tech industry, but also in computer science and academia. A lot of my colleagues in my anthropology and science and technology studies like to study technological artifacts. That’s very important, but for me, it’s important to study the labor conditions under which computers are made. I consider myself a labor scholar.
I started seeing patterns in the labor relations within computer science workplaces. In these conditions, I started to see a pattern that I call the bro code. These are core values that are driving the culture in computing. They include things like precision, aggression, abstraction, a love of machines and tinkering with machines, but also, darkly, disdain for altruism, like caring for the social good. Even more disturbingly, a hostility for behaviors or ideas that possibly may threaten the marriage between masculinity and technical competency. Those are deeply imbricated in computing culture.
In our current technological age, we're no longer content consumers, we're content providers. The moment any of us use a digital commodity, we are working for free for these billionaire bosses. Share on XI call the bro code both a performance and norms of gender that are enacted by purportedly straight, cisgender men from dominant racial groups. It is also influenced by broader social norms outside of computer culture. Insidiously, these norms that are percolating and rewarded within these worksites, because these products that are produced in these worksites are becoming so popular and are so ubiquitous in our society, these gender norms in these worksites are then exported to our society.
They continue to reproduce and shape gender norms outside of these workplaces through the products that they produce. As computers get more popular and their regressive social norms within their workplaces are exported, in our broader society, we’re seeing regressive gender norms and a rise of gender violence in US society in particular. Even looking at the numbers here, if we look at the symbols of these cultures, because representation does matter, we’re seeing 21% of all computer scientists in the US are women, and only 2% of these women are African-American, and only 1% are Latina.
If you look at the subfield of theory and algorithms, which is the subfield that produces what is popularly called artificial intelligence, these numbers get even worse. Eleven percent of the people working in the subfields of theory and algorithms are women. Even more so, these women and non-binary practitioners are disproportionately affected by the downturns in these fields as well. In 2022, there was a big mass of tech layoffs in Silicon Valley and Seattle, and almost 70% of those layoffs were women. We’re the last hired, the first fired. There’s already extreme amounts of sexual harassment in computer science, and women of color bear the worst brunt of that.
One of the questions I was originally going to ask was, will AI be able to disrupt some of these old power structures? Could it or will it potentially reinforce all these existing biases?
Challenging The Illusion Of Artificial Intelligence
I hate to disappoint you, but I am going to take a strong stance against artificial intelligence. In fact, I even bristle at calling it artificial intelligence. The term itself is not used by computer scientists when they’re speaking to each other. They’re more prone to use large language models or machine learning. The first person who invented the chatbot, Joseph Weizenbaum, back in the late ‘60s, from MIT Media Lab, said there was a concern.
The popularity of his chatbot and the use of it was misleading people to believe it was intelligent. He didn’t believe machines are intelligent. By calling it artificial intelligence, we’re buying into the PR campaign that these computer company bosses want us to believe that their machines can be intelligent. The reason I take a strong stance against artificial intelligence is for several reasons. One, I mentioned the representation of who creates it. It’s created in one of the most highly segregated workforces in the United States. Secondly, the way that it’s created is through harvesting data from its consumers.
Years ago, a Black computer scientist named Dr. Siobahn Day said something that blew my mind and led me to be more critical of theory and algorithms. She said, “In our current technological age, we are no longer content consumers. We are content providers.” The moment that any of us use a digital commodity, we are working for free for these billionaire bosses.
Lives are being surveilled in order to collect data to train these models. The way that these models are even designed and constructed is not only in sexist places where men are overrepresented. Not only are they designed in workplaces where certain labor counts, like building systems, but other labor, like social and personal labor, doesn’t even count as labor. That gets built into the models that are then exported, but then the models are dependent on their consumers working for free and also opening their lives up to surveillance.
What I’d like people to take away from this critique of artificial intelligence is that we have a lot of power and agency not to use AI at this point. We’re being coerced, though. The way that artificial intelligence is being disseminated, I feel, doesn’t give us a lot of options to enthusiastically consent. For example, if you’ve ever clicked on an accept button on a graphical user interface to consent to the terms and conditions of a big tech corporation, you are being subject to this kind of coercion. Did you sit down and read these terms of agreement? I know I tried to, but then I gave up fifteen minutes into it.
There are so many scrolls.
There are some scholars around this. Some scholars like Kate Schoenberger and her colleagues found that if the average American spent time reading every single term and condition of the big tech bosses’ terms and agreements, it would take 73 days or 76 days a year. They’re counting on us not to read it and give up our privacy.
Confidence is important, but also believing in other people's potential and checking your own bias about whether you believe in their potential based on their own intrinsic accomplishments. Share on XI think about who has been surveilled in US society. It goes all the way back to the days of slavery and also people of color because of redlining and White supremacy. They’re often put into public housing more often than White residents. Public housing is going to be surveilled 25 times more than someone living in a White neighborhood, for example.
Surveillance is very racialized. Surveillance is also gendered. When you have women in abusive relationships, every movement is controlled and surveilled. Sexism and regressive gender roles are being scaled up to all of US society, where the US public may be even in an abusive relationship with these AI bosses.
Critical thinking, stopping what they don’t like, and also seeing through things. I know some people seem to think that they’re better at this than others. I also know that there are still some of us who are so incredibly trusting, so they tend to be more optimistic. They’re like, “If we only did this. If we only did that.” The point is, from the get-go, it’s such a parasitic relationship, and we’re the host. That’s what you told me. I’m the host. I’m the one who’s providing all the food and all the nurturing. I’m telling them how to sell to me.
I’ve been writing about that. They’re taking lived experiences and selling them back to us for profit.
I’m then going, “That’s brilliant.”
We’re like, “That’s magic.”
We’re like, “They get me. They understand. That sounds like me,” because it is.
It is you.
Influence, Authority, And Confidence In The Workplace
On this show, I talk a little bit about influence versus authority. Women often believe that if they simply work harder and produce better results, they’ll become indispensable. They’ll naturally advance. Your research says, “Come to the dark side. You’re falling into my trap, my pretty.” It certainly would challenge it.
This was a few years back, but someone was talking to me about the whole notion of competence versus confidence and that women go based on competence. That’s why they question, “If I only fill 8 of these rules, I’m not competent in these other 2.” Whereas the other gender says, “I got this. I’ll figure it out.” Is confidence a good value to have? It’s not a value. It’s a skill.
It is a skill, and I think it’s a great skill to have. I appreciate that you have gendered it. I know some empirical evidence that supports the claim you made, for example, and it can relate it to computer science. Young women in a computer science class will be getting a B or B+ and think, “I’m not competent enough. I can’t do this. I should drop out.”
A young man who’s getting a C minus will say, “This is great. I’m doing great. I’m going to get a great job, and I’m going to kill it. I’m going to be an entrepreneur. I’m going to be a founder. I’m going to keep on doing this.” I appreciate you bringing that up. Our readers can find plenty of evidence to support that claim. It’s not just an individual level of confidence. People are responding to feedback from their communities and their culture.
I see this in evaluative settings in academia. Let’s say it’s a faculty search. A man’s CV will show that he might have some potential. Joan Williams calls this the halo effect. It’s like, “We believe in his potential. We aspire that we’ll bring him on and he’ll do great.” Women and also people of color are only judged on their track record. It’s like, “They’re early in their career, but they don’t have enough papers here. Maybe we should go into their papers and look more deeply.”
We can aspire to have an even playing field. That's a great vision to have, but we're not going to get there without doing the work and having conversations. Share on XThat confidence can be intrinsic. We can practice it and own it, but if we’re not getting the same response from our peers, our colleagues, or our superiors, like, “You can do it. We believe in you,” and, “You’re good, but you’re not great.” One word I always hear in my ethnography in these evaluation settings in academia is the word vision. They’re like, “He has vision. She doesn’t have it.” It’s hard to measure vision, so it’s a bias of the person who wants to hire someone who looks like them.
Confidence is important, but I also think believing in other people’s potential and checking your own bias about whether you believe in their potential based not only on their accomplishments, but also on why you believe they’re a good fit. Why do you think they have vision? Are you doing that based on your comfort level with them?
In some ways, whether it’s realized or not, I’ve often thought about interview situations related to that. Sometimes, the person who is doing the interviewing is threatened.
Jealous, too.
My dad was the one who said, “They’ve got green eyes. They don’t worry about it.” I thought, “Dad, you’re being Dad.” Over time, I’ve seen it and lived it. I decided, “I’m going to go in and think of it through that lens.” I’m thinking, “That’s a big thing.” You talk about understanding rules without losing yourself. My readers know I’m an okay rule follower. Sometimes, I think of them as guidelines. Some of them are so unfair. They’re not going to get us to where we need to go. I know that that’s a balance that a lot of women struggle with.
Navigating Organizational Politics And Mentorship
I lost a job because I wasn’t able to navigate not only organizational politics, but I didn’t even know they were there. I had created this app, and it was winning awards. It was bringing attention to the company. I thought, “I’ve done my part for the company community,” but I ticked somebody off because I did it before they did. How does one learn to navigate those organizational politics without feeling like we’re compromising ourselves, our values, and our authenticity?
Those are two very deep questions, so let me write them down to you. The authenticity piece, I’ll get to in a second. Learning the rules, especially if the rules are hidden, and hidden because you didn’t have a parent who was an engineer, you didn’t have a parent who was an academic, or you didn’t have the social capital when you were being raised to understand how to prep for the SATs, for example.
All of those hidden rules that allow people to either swim with the current if you know them, or you’re swimming against the current if you don’t know them, there is one solution to that. There’s plenty of scholarship on this, and that is mentorship. It is finding your way to certain networks that can give you the support and the guidance that you need. That is so hard.
Some people think of mentorship as a one-on-one relationship. That can be very helpful, encouraging, and valuable. I’m a big believer in the multiple mentorship model. I’ve been mentored by senior White women and very senior women of color. I’ve also tried to find mentorship from male colleagues as well because I see them moving through the organization a little bit differently. I want to learn from that and then adapt my strategies as well.
If you don’t know a rule exists, or you didn’t know, if you write it as a hidden rule, then you are going to lose out on opportunities. Sometimes, it’s understanding cultural norms. Sometimes, you have to violate them to even see that they’re there. It’s picking yourself up when you’ve lost an opportunity, or you violated a norm, gotten in trouble for it, and then learned from that, too. It’s such trial and error and skinned knees.
That’s a great way of putting it. There was a woman who once said to me, “Katie, what you have to do is learn how to swim with the alligators without becoming one.”
That’s good advice. That helps me think through the other part of your question about authenticity. I see a lot of younger women who are upset that they try to get mentorship from some women, and because that senior woman’s path has been so harrowing, once she gets to the top, she wants to pull the ladder up and say, “You have to go through the same trauma.”
I see men do this as well. They’ve survived a very hostile culture, and then they think that helps you in the long run. They’re like, “I’ve done it, so you should have to go through that.” I don’t think that’s the right type of mentorship. I think trying to make someone’s path easier, even if you’ve suffered, is the right way to go. That, to me, is a way of maintaining authenticity where you experience the harm, and it stops with you. You don’t reproduce the harm.
You probably saw this in chapter five of my book. I was talking about how women can work together to overcome all of these biases, harassment, and discrimination. One thing I learned from the very senior women that I interviewed is that they’re in the C-Suites. They’re in the boardrooms. They can tell some of the wealthiest men in the world, “I don’t appreciate the way you talked to me.” They have that much power. That power can then change the minds of very senior people, which can trickle down.
Getting into the C-Suites without losing your authenticity and still advocating for people who have much less power than you, people who have been historically banned or faced steep barriers to leadership in structures of power like higher education or government, is hard to pull off. I admire women, and I seek to model myself after them, who have done that.
One thing that I encourage modern-day mentors, in general, is that for a lot of us, because the world is changing so quickly, especially in technology, where Moore’s law seems like a vacation that, rather than direct and tell, ask questions. Some of the experiences and some of the insights we have may not be as relevant in an odd way. I came to realize that. I keep saying this to my daughters, “What you’re going to end up doing doesn’t even exist right now.” They’re 27 and 31. It’s realizing, “For now, I’m doing this. I’m learning this,” but from a mentor standpoint, remember how much changed from when we got to start.
Asking questions is instead of being didactic. I have to do that with my students, too. Every year, as I get older, the gap between me and my students grows, so I have to be curious, and I always have to be learning. Mentorship can go both ways. The most hurt I’ve ever seen some senior women have is when they feel dismissed, or the hurt that they experienced on the way up is not recognized by the women who are in the room because of their path blazing.
I want to do a little fun thing. This has made me think in these last few comments. I want to do a little lightning round. I’m curious. What’s the biggest myth about workplace advancement?
Debunking The Myth Of Workplace Meritocracy
That it’s a meritocracy. If we think about meritocracy as an idealized vision rather than something that exists now, then that dissolves the binary between people who think meritocracy exists and people who don’t. We are not at an even-playing field. Every single one of us, including those of us who are targeted by biases in harassment and discrimination, are still plugged into this collective imagination of our broader society.
One small example is that there are some studies about resume studies. Resumes with a woman’s name, a man’s name, or a person of color’s name and a White-sounding name are sent out. People of the minoritized group will still discriminate against their own folks. There’s internalized sexism. Women discriminate against women in the workplace, too.
Tokenized leadership is dangerous. Token leadership does not count. Share on XIf we realize that, the change does start with ourselves. We can have our stereotype activated, but to have the consciousness and the practice of how to interrupt that before we apply it starts individually, but it also takes education. I’m devastated. Since the Trump administration has come into power, one of the first things they’ve done is target any type of educational process that would allow people to have that moment of thought between activating a stereotype and applying it. We need that practice in our everyday workplaces every single day, particularly in evaluation settings.
For example, every job hiring committee needs to practice not applying the stereotypes that have been activated. It needs to understand that the best fit may not be someone who looks like them. We can aspire to have an even-playing field. That’s a great vision to have, but we’re not going to get there without doing the work and having conversations.
It’s also going to be uncomfortable when we do the work. Everyone, if it’s getting uncomfortable, you’re doing the work. That’s it. You’ve hit that spot. What’s one leadership habit women should stop apologizing for?
Apologizing.
That’s a double entendre.
“Apologies for cross-listing this.” I get that from women leaders all the time. In that state, I know that’s very common. Another leadership habit is also not thinking that a place is diverse because there’s one woman leader. Tokenized leadership is dangerous. For example, tech founders like Jeff Bezos. I worked at Amazon. I got to ask him a question many years ago.
I asked him, “As we’re continuing to grow, how are you going to make sure that the leadership of the company grows and it represents everybody who works here?” He said, “Our CFO is a woman. She’s the best CFO in the world.” Two weeks later, she quit, and then his executive board was all male for the next fifteen years. Token leadership does not count. You have to have a critical mass of women leaders at your company for me to even believe that you’ve tried to end sexism.
That’s a good answer. I was going to ask about a workplace practice that companies should retire, for sure. What’s one piece of career advice you wish you’d ignored?
Can I go back to my example of big tech?
Collectivize. It's not your fault if you're being targeted by bias or discrimination or harassment. Share on XAbsolutely.
This is maybe very controversial, but my NDA has run out. Before, the big tech corporation I worked at used to give financial advice to their workers about holding onto their stock options and not selling. I wish I hadn’t listened to that. I wish what I had done was to look at the founder of the company, sell when he was selling, and diversify my options before they tanked. If you’re going to recommend this to anybody who’s working for a corporation, don’t take any legal advice from them. Don’t trust their HR representatives. They’re there to represent the senior, the company, the leadership, or the university leaders. Don’t trust any financial advice from them. Get outside counsel.
That’s excellent advice. If every woman reading this could remember one thing from cracking the bro code, what would you hope it would be?
The Power Of Collectivization And Trusting Your Gut
Collectivize. I want you to think that it’s not your fault if you’re being targeted by bias, discrimination, or harassment. There are professional societies. There are always groups for people who share your interests and may even look like you who are there to support you. Join those groups and add your vision and your talents to those groups. Even if you’re in a senior position in a white-collar job, think of yourself as a worker. Think about yourself as workers who can collectivize for the public good. That could spill over into our citizenship.
What if our citizens, our freedoms, and our privacies are preserved? We’re not going to fight the incursions of the surveillance state that is fueling this obsession with artificial intelligence unless we band together both as workers and as citizens. Collectivize is my big takeaway. A part of my website is about groups you can join as women and non-binary professionals that may be able to guide you and support you as you continue to grow and to be successful.
That’s a great resource.
If you’re like, “I don’t know where to go,” go to my website. I have dozens of places that might be able to support your career growth.
Why don’t you say what that website address is?
My address is ColeenCarrigan.com. That’s my website. Under that, you can find Collaborative Resources as one of the tabs.
The last piece of advice is the one you would give to yourself. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give your younger self?
To trust my gut. To not tolerate being diminished. It’s something I still have to remind myself as I write this book that’s criticizing some of the most powerful men in the world. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to resist. Don’t be afraid to be the only person in the room who is proposing something that everybody else is like, “That’s weird or radical.” I feel like I still need to tap into some courage to trust my inner voice and my gut.
Thank you for having the courage to, frankly, take on this whole bro code giddy-up. There’s going to be more that Coleen’s going to be working on. We will have the subsequent episode about that.
I can’t wait. Thank you very much for sharing with me your philosophies, advice, and wisdom that you’ve received from other people in your journey.
Thank you. That’s how we all get ahead. With that, readers, please join me in thanking Coleen The Extraordinary Carrigan. Until our paths cross again.
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What a powerful conversation with Coleen Carrigan. Thank you so much for your thoughtful responses. I love your vocabulary. With that, let’s jump into KB Takeaways. The workplace has written rules and unwritten ones. Understanding those informal networks doesn’t mean accepting them by any means of the imagination. It means becoming more effective at navigating and then, hopefully, eventually improving them so that others don’t have to go through the same pain.
Performance matters, sure, but visibility and relationships matter, too. This is one where I think a lot of women tend to get tripped up on. Career advancement is often influenced by sponsorship, trust, and access. Who you know does matter. It’s not just competence. Do not forget that other C word, which is Confidence. Have it and use it unabashedly, unforgettably, and unforgivably.
Authenticity doesn’t require naivety. This is one that I sometimes get a little mixed up on myself. Women don’t need to become someone else to succeed by any means of the imagination, but understanding those organizational dynamics and taking the time to do that can lead them much more intentionally. It can help you get to where you want to go and make sure you’re on the right track.
What a deep, scary commentary on AI, but so well-thought and so backed up. Know that AI is not going to automatically eliminate workplace inequities by any means of that comment, primarily because it’s so deeply integrated within that bias. While technology can accelerate change or reinforce existing patterns, it depends on how leaders design and deploy it. That’s been the biggest question, and it’s becoming a bigger one every single day.
Better workplaces, frankly, benefit everyone. Creating a place and a culture where there’s more transparency, it’s more inclusive, and it’s not just good for women, people of color, or latinas, those who are not normally listened to is a good business strategy because it’s great for innovation, retention, and business performance.
Lastly, advice. I thought this was so wise and well said. When you’re working for a company, don’t necessarily follow their financial, legal, or HR advice from the company representatives because it’s often biased and potentially misleading. Coleen brought up an interesting point. She referred to wishing she had been watching more of what the company’s CEO was doing with his stock at the time and when to sell and when not to. Had she done so, she would have found herself in a much better situation.
With that, I’ll leave you to it. Go get the book. It’s Cracking the Bro Code. There are more books coming out from Coleen and her colleagues. One is going to be taking a look at the bro code and venture capital, which I think will be fascinating. There’s more, so stay tuned. Until next time, thanks so much for the show.
Important Links
- Coleen Carrigan
- Cracking the Bro Code
- Cracking the Bro Code on Amazon
- Media Discourse – Coleen Carrigan
- Collaborative Resources – Coleen Carrigan
About Coleen Carrigan
Dr. Coleen Carrigan (coleencarrigan.com) is a Professor at the University of Virginia. Using ethnography, she advances knowledge on interdisciplinary collaborations and the allocation of resources in US engineering and computer science.
In 2025, Carrigan received the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Her book, Cracking the Bro Code, is available from MIT Press.