The other side to the Silicon Valley magic

“Unhappiness”, “an epidemic of feeling empty”, “depression”, “suffering from integral struggles” are words that are unlikely to be associated with the shining image of the Silicon Valley. When I took to the streets to interview women of the silicon valley, the southern portion of San Francisco Bay Area, though, these were the exact words women used to describe their emotional state.

The story of a shamed dentist

The data indicates that software engineers in the San Francisco Bay Area have the highest average salaries in the United States at $132,000, Riley McDermid from SF Business Time reports. Women are less and less involved in the competition. The percentage of women working in tech companies is around 30 percent worldwide. The rate goes unchanged in the silicon valley culture. Only 30 percent of those working at Google, for example, are women.

“I have to sacrifice my life working at two jobs to compete with engineer salaries,” Luniva Shrestha said. As a 27 year-old young women who has a master’s degree in Healthcare Administration, she is afraid that she will have to move away from here one day due to extreme costs of living, especially high rents.

“I work seven days a week. If I was an engineer, life would be easier. I would have only one job and still earn much more than I currently do.”

Ozge Sozgen, a 27 year-old Turkish dentist who studied at Turkey’s Harvard, Hacettepe University, and worked at big hospitals there struggles with the same problem. She moved to the valley after getting married because of her husband’s job. Her husband is an engineer.

As per the U.S. rules she needs to go to school again to get an American dentistry certificate. She does describe her emotional state as being depressed for Silicon Valley has not been generous to her as it was to her husband. As schools in the valley focus on technical departments like engineering, or business, she is only left with two schools to apply to, where she needs to compete with at least 900 other international applicants. Because of the low number of schools she can attend, she is faced with an incredible competition to a point where a Toefl score of 85 is considered low to be an applicant, and her over-the-top credentials are ignored. She now has to sit at home and watch her practicality diminishes. “What hurts me more than anything is how cruel people are. I had been a successful and an ambitious person throughout my life. I was an idol for our neighbors’ kids. But now all I hear from people is things like ‘So you’re a housewife now’ with a condescending attitude, when I need support the most. Now I don’t want to see anybody in Turkey to avoid that attitude.”

‘Where are these beautiful older people?’

The commonality in the life stories of all the women I interviewed was striking. All of them approached to the word depression extremely carefully while depicting their emotional state, but all of them admitted that the silicon-valley-fashion caused them to lose the ability to keep their positive approach to life in general. It was as if the valley was doing everything to satisfy a good engineer but was failing to address to the expectations of those who simply wanted to enjoy life.

“Job is good here. It is a prestigious place to be. If you say I was in Silicon Valley doing A-B-C it has a wow factor,” said Jamie Seif, a 33-year-old teacher whose husband is an engineer. “But I’m not all about my work. I like people, colors. I am a nature person. I mean, even the name Silicon Valley doesn’t feel natural. Like ‘silicone’ . It doesn’t have a welcoming sound to it.”

She also felt that the lack of community brought about a feeling of emptiness. For her, this was a feeling instigated by the not-so-organic dynamics of the Silicon Valley. 2015 Silicon Valley Index indicates that 47 percent of the population in San Francisco is between ages 18 and 44. Realizing this, Seif said “There is not all age groups. There is a large amount of people at my husband’s age. Where are these beautiful older people? Older people do so many beautiful things for a community. I dont even see them. If you do see them you’re lucky.”

30 year-old Antonina Potanina, who is originally Russian, lived in the valley for 10 years and had been through a similar experience. She first thought it was her being homesick, but eventually understood that it was the lack of community that made her adaptation process much harder compared to Argentina, where she currently lives. “Here in the silicon valley, there is a great need in something that connects people on the spot, rather than social media,” she said.

Rapidly changing demographics and a monoculture of tech seems to have rendered Silicon Valley an unfavorable spot especially for its non-engineer woman residents. Building an ever-strong empire of technology has pushed expectations to live a quality of life into the periphery. With the soul, joy and the community on the verge of being lost in U.S.’ source of pride, Silicon Valley might use a healthier analysis, and a short pause of excessive flattery.