The Gender Divide - WM Commentary
The world’s digital divide was an important and serious discussion
many years ago. The term was used to describe the
discrepancy between people who have access to — and the
resources to use — new information, communication and
media tools (e.g. the Internet), and people who do not have
access to those resources and technologies.
The world of course has changed since that
phrase first entered the lexicon, but while the
digital divide has lessened somewhat, it’s still
present. Facebook’s recent initiative with its
Internet.org partners including Qualcomm
and Ericsson has put the
technology disparity in its
sights, hoping to bring Internet
access to the 5 billion
people that are still
not yet connected, as well
as addressing the necessary
technologies required
to accommodate the 1,000
times more Web traffic (of
which there are many) that
will result. Yet another,
perhaps more insidious, divide
remains.
I started thinking about the digital divide —
as well as the concept of division in general
— in another context recently. It’s not only access
that separates some from technology, it
can also be gender. The technology industry
has, at least historically, been predominantly
male (although it’s most certainly shifting).
Only 2 percent of open source developers and
only 28 percent of B.S. degrees
in Computer Science
were women. Why exactly?
A study from the Level Playing
Field Institute found that
workplaces like tech startups
can be “hostile or unpleasant
environments” leading
to those employees seeking
out other companies or even
other industries to work.
The divide was well highlighted
and illustrated with
quite the hullabaloo in early September 2013
when a presentation at an event for tech startups
featured a mobile application that was,
shall we say, if not salacious in nature, then certainly sophomoric. It’s not necessary to go
into the details of what that app actually did,
but let’s just say that it objectified women,
surely making the females in attendance uncomfortable,
which included a 9-year-old girl
presenting at the event. Who would want to
subject themselves to that and what does it say
to that 9-year-old girl?
The lone positive result of that now regrettable
presentation was that it refocused the
attention of many within the sphere of technology
(and elsewhere) on the ongoing gender
divide in the technology industry. That focus
is, of course, a very good thing as I believe that
this damaging divide is keeping the industry
from reaching its true potential. More women
are entering technology industries — as well as
its supporting industries like online advertising,
Web design and Internet marketing — and
more women are making their digital marks
than ever before. That shift will undoubtedly
continue in the future — but are enterprises
ready? It will require a cultural shift within
enterprises, one that values the content of the
résumé and the completeness and quality of
work, more than a worker’s default anatomy.
Closing the gender divide just doesn’t fall on
the shoulders of the men in tech. Women in
the field need to commit themselves to speaking
to groups like Women in Technology or
breaking out of their comfort zones to present
at — or even organize — career days in
underprivileged areas. Young girls in poverty
are even less likely to know what technology
careers are available to them or the roads they
have to take to get there. When they don’t have
access to technology, it’s even more difficult to
imagine building a future around it.
There is still a battle raging between the digital
have’s and have not’s, and there is still a
shortage of women in the technology sector —
at least those that feel respected and confident
enough to participate, compete and innovate.


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