In this episode of That’s Girl Code, Eden and Ellen pull back the curtain on what it really means to be a woman in tech — not just through personal experience, but through decades of data. They trace the fictional journey of “Hannah,” a composite of every woman who’s ever written code, sat through a bias-laced meeting, or been told she’s “too opinionated.” From her first math class to her first pull request, Hannah’s path reveals how stereotype threat, subtle bias, and structural inequities shape who stays in the pipeline and who burns out trying to prove they belong.

Eden and Ellen dive into studies showing that gender-diverse teams literally build better software — faster fixes, cleaner code, fewer bugs — while also exploring why women’s work still faces harsher scrutiny and smaller rewards. They unpack everything from the silent politics of code reviews to the glass cliff of leadership, asking the bigger question: if the data proves diversity makes tech stronger, why is progress still so fragile? This isn’t a pity party; it’s a data-driven reality check — equal parts stats, story, and solidarity.