The lack of women in a progressive and disruptive sector like the startup tech world is, unfortunately, still a topic for discussion in 2016. 

Women are making a lot of headlines lately. There’s one running for U.S. President. Their numbers in political positions are on the rise. More women are also graduating from college and university than men.

But a huge gender diversity gap persists, especially in tech startup ecosystems. While articles — see here and here — boast that female-founded startups in the U.S. have increased to 18% in 2014 from 9% in 2009, that number is still objectively deplorable.

This should be a huge disappointment for the startup tech industry given the growing body of research showing that gender diversity isn’t just the right thing to do — it can boost profits for companies and investors alike. In fact, Bloomberg recently ran a backtest and discovered a gender-focused investment strategy would beat the S&P 500 by 141% over the past 10 years.

So why would an industry known for game-changing innovation still lag when it comes to gender diversity.  

To explore this, we sorted through some of the numbers and found that women in the tech workforce still account for a meagre 30%. When looking at CEO positions in the top 100 tech firms, the numbers are worse. And for the funding sector, the low percentage of female VCs and disparities in funding is, frankly, embarrassing.

Our coverage also includes profiles of a few women who are breaking through barriers, including Sonia Strimban of MaRS and Shopify’s Julie Hache.

Lastly, we’re conducted our own survey for women in tech — on the site but also across our social media channels — to get a better sense of how they’re faring when it comes to treatment in the workplace and opportunities for advancement.

Here’s what our respondents said: