Women still do it tough in the tech industry
The veneer of the equality of women in the technology industry vanishes the deeper you delve.
You’d think science and research would foster a modern, diverse IT workforce sector where women thrive.
The appointment of women to lead some of the world’s largest tech companies, such as Marissa Mayer as Yahoo! CEO in 2012, Ginni Rometty as IBM CEO the same year, and Meg Whitman to Hewlett Packard Enterprises in 2011, gives the impression that women are breaking the glass ceiling to run some of the world’s biggest tech firms.
Read the fine print and it’s a different story. According to an International Labour Organisation, while women continue to expand their skills in science, technology, engineering and maths, the so-called STEM subjects, men continue to dominate these fields of study.
The ILO concern is not only the disadvantage and underrepresentation women face in IT roles. It’s also the disadvantage businesses generally face predominantly selecting men from a reduced talent pool
The ILO argues that enterprises with an inclusive business environment are 3.2 per cent more likely to have higher productivity and profitability, as are enterprises with a female CEO (2.8 per cent more likely), and enterprises with an equal employment opportunity policy (3.8 per cent).
Dig even deeper, and there’s still major concerns about the underrepresentation of women in technical roles, with women underestimating their own capacity to perform them.
Australian university researchers Yolande Strengers and Jenny Kennedy in their book The Smart Wife say that in 2017, men around the world still vastly outnumbered women in computer programming jobs. They comprised more than 75 per cent of the total pool of programmers in the US.
“In the field of robotics and AI, men outnumber women as well. Men comprise between 77 and 83 per cent of the technical positions at Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and General Electric and just over 63 per cent at Amazon. Men make up 85 per cent of the AI research staff at Facebook and 90 per cent at Google.
“Likewise in academic environments, more than 80 per cent of AI professors are men, and only 12 per cent of leading AI researchers are women.”
Strengers, associate professor of digital technology and society at Monash University, told The Australian that the representation of women declines the further you head into advanced fields such as artificial intelligence and machine learning. “ That‘s where we see fewer women, or significantly fewer women,” she said.
She cited several reasons for it. There’s the “unhelpful masculine stereotypes” in technical fields, the pervasive idea of the computer geek and computer nerd being male, and the “self proficiency gap” which is women’s lack of belief in their own abilities.
“They have this undercurrent, which also reflects the stereotypes that have been brought up with, which is that men are just better at science and technology and medicine,” she said, adding this began before school with the type of toys girls were given.
There was also the perceived lack of role models for girls and younger women to look up to in STEM fields.
Assoc Prof Strengers said female participation in computer science itself had gone backwards over the last 30 to 40 years; at one stage it had been a female dominated profession.
While progress was being made, the imbalance prevailed.
Beyond the issues of equality and diversity, there remains a sinister undercurrent of sexual harassment and ill treatment of young women in some areas of tech.
The worst of recent time were the drug-ridden, sex-crazed parties in Silicon Valley exposed in Brotopia, a 2018 book by Emily Chang, a US TV anchor and executive producer of Bloomberg Technology.
In 2018 Chang wrote that some of the titans of the Valley, including some household names attended these parties, along with powerful first-round investors, well-known entrepreneurs, and top executives.
Many female guests from the tech and allied sectors were attractive, willing, and usually young.
She said that at these parties, the ratio of women to wealthy men was roughly two to one, but she was told a lot of men sleep with a dozen women at a time.
This misogynistic culture had shut women out of what was the greatest wealth creation in the history of the world.
For most women, the burning issues remain stable well paid employment, a supportive work culture, and access to higher paid technical jobs and senior positions in the IT and other STEM-related industries.
These days Chang is more optimistic about diversity and inclusion for women in tech.
“The conversation is happening and I believe more people and companies are focused on improving gender diversity than ever before,” she said.
However women in tech had experienced a rough ride during the pandemic. “I am definitely concerned about women backsliding amid the pandemic,” Ms Chang told The Australian.
“Working mums have been among the hardest hit by the additional child care and household demands and women overall have lost more jobs than men. Remote work offers new flexibility and new opportunities for better inclusion but also new ways exclude workers as well.”
She said diversity numbers in the tech industry were moving, but the change had been too slow to see meaningful improvement yet.
“Diversity will take time but inclusion can start today,” she said. “I’m optimistic despite the roadblocks that the world will keep moving forward to a better future for women, men and generations to come.”
Lisa Edwards, president & COO, of US based Diligent Corporation, said the recent Women in STEM Decadal Plan found that Australian women made up 50.7 per cent of the population, but only 16 per cent of Australia’s STEM-skilled workforce.
Women were also grossly under-represented at board level. “The world is 51 per cent women, but the number of women that hold board seats isn’t even close to 50 per cent,” she said.
While 30.2 per cent of boards and governing bodies have no female directors, by contrast only 0.4 per cent had no male directors, according to figures by the Australian government’s Workplace Gender Equality Agency.
“ASX 100 reports that 31.8 per cent of all board seats are held by women, but this rate drops to 22 per cent in the ASX 201-300, according to a KPMG study last year.”
“Organisations in the public and private sector need to prioritise the inclusion of women in the room where decisions are being made and elevating them to leadership positions.
“Time and time again data shows diverse boards produce better shareholder returns, but even with that fact, women are still under-represented and don’t have access to the right networks.
“I would encourage employers to partner with organisations that focus on diversity.”
Tami Erwin, executive vice president and CEO, Verizon Business, is tentative about the future.
She said that with the explosion of technologies such as AI and 5G, there was a danger the gender gap would widen.
“We have reached a crisis point at a time when technology is advancing so rapidly, that if we don’t take immediate action, women may never catch up,” she warned.
She also believed the pandemic had reduced the proportion of women in the workforce.
“We have seen nearly four times the amount of women who have left the workforce as they struggle to balance work with the estimated fifteen additional hours of domestic labour they are spending versus their male counterparts,” she said.
“We need to create opportunities and clear paths for women to not only have a seat at the table but a voice because there’s an abundance of new opportunities for young women that didn’t exist even 10 years ago.”
Ms Erwin, however, said there had been slow but steady progress towards closing the gap for women’s leadership positions in STEM fields in recent years.
“I believe that large organisations have a moral responsibility to take action for this cause and help push for a more inclusive future for all. I’d challenge women and men to find ways to become a sponsor and help women rise through the ranks.
“Last but not least, practice self-care. We‘re only our best if we take care of ourselves. And now more than ever it’s time to lift each other up. Equality is key, but equity is the goal.
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