The world of tech entrepreneurs is heavily male dominated, resulting in female leaders being underrepresented, especially beyond the start-up stage in technology. This article from the Globe and Mail shed’s light on the fact that while there are initiatives to give women-led startups mentorship, and investors and organizations that fund women-startups, they are being rejected by women because these spaces imply that women entrepreneurs can’t play on the same field as men.
The overall lack of female presence in the tech industry isn’t because they are lacking in entrepreneurial ability or spirit. Although female students account for only 20-25% of all computer science students in Canada, I think that the image and culture of tech enterprises simply don’t appeal to a lot of women because they view the prototypical owners as masculine, aggressive, and obsessive.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/10/07/women-tech-mainsplaning_n_12385612.html
The link above is an article about a twitter exchange, where a woman took a screenshot of an exchange and vented her frustration about the response she got from a man — who assume women don't have knowledge or experience in a particular field or topic, not only on the Internet but in the tech and science communities as well.
I think that this goes to show how the stereotypes around women in the tech industry and their knowledge about technology in general, correlates with the number of women who take interest in the industry. This also effects how willing they are to accept the help of males when in the industry, as seen in the first article.
In relation to the course readings, Peck's article on Creative Liberties talks a lot about embracing diversity because it gives birth to creativity, innovation, and positive economic impact. Bringing diversity into enterprises allows for barriers to creativity such as exclusivity, intolerance, and social degradation to be broken. While a lot of companies say that every person has the right to creativity, I just don't see the change applying within the tech-industry, as the representation of women is still lacking due to reasons mentioned above.
Do you think there are less women in tech startups because of the stigma around the male dominated industry, or do you think there is a different reason behind this gender imbalance?
This is a very interesting topic to bring forward in relation to the course Natalie!
ReplyDeleteCombining history with present day, males have always been pressured to demonstrate forms of hegemonic masculinity within society; in terms of being the "white, powerful male" in the workplace and at home. Men have always been expected to work, and make money in order to care for his family, and for this reason, males have been designated as the dominant gender in the workforce. On the other hand, women were viewed as strictly child-bearers who were expected to stay home, cook and clean.
Unfortunately, stigmas do not disappear very easily, and even though we have made strides towards equality, in terms of both genders in the workplace, it is not present in all job careers. For example, in the tech industry—many women expect judgement when pitching a product to a board of investors. In the first article you shared called, “Why some female founders are rejecting women-only start-up initiatives,” it mentions how Lauren Schulte, the CEO and Founder of Flex Co, a LA-based start-up making an innovative menstrual product, knew she was likely to be judged when entering male-only investors’ boardrooms. She states, “I have a young voice, I have a young face, I have blond hair” (Lindeman). Therefore, many women assume before even entering a room that they are going to be disregarded because of their gender. In response to your question, it is likely that women are straying from the tech-industry in fear of male domination. However, this fear is a form of internalization, and women will only make strides in tech-start-ups if they put themselves out there. In the article, it states that companies such as the S Factory in Santiago, Chile is giving women mentorship in start-ups, as well as 50,000 in seed investment (Lindeman). In other words, assistance is available in the market, and it is now up to women to take the initiative to make themselves known. In order to do this, a sense of common ground and communication needs to occur between genders, if positive collaboration is to exist within the tech industry. To end off, it would be interesting to hear men’s perspective on this topic, and how they feel about women’s strong interest in entrepreneurship and technological development. Do they feel threatened by women’s presence? Or are they opening their arms to women’s participation in the tech-industry?
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ReplyDeleteI really liked that you were able to link such a broad comment in the reading that you mentioned, which could be applied to a multitude of different things, to women in the tech industry. It is a topic that I, too, have thought about - especially after I watched a Ted talk a year or so ago that discussed something similar to this. In it, the founder of a non-profit organization called Girls Who Code discusses how we must teach girls bravery, and not perfection. This relates heavily to issues of gender in communication studies, and can even be applied to issues in the tech sector. It also relates to what Rachel mentioned above.
ReplyDeleteThis Ted talk is extremely inspiring, and heartening to see that women are teaching other women valuable skills that will, hopefully, lead those within the tech sector to embrace gendered diversity - because women are just as valuable in the industry as men. Programs like this, which teach young women to code, can even strengthen the skills that women have from a young age, thus making them extremely suitable for such an environment. Granted, these issues will not be solved overnight, but any effort to mitigate the problem gets a thumbs up from me.
Here's a link to the Ted talk, which I would actually encourage anyone who is interested in the topic to watch. It's 12 min long: https://www.ted.com/talks/reshma_saujani_teach_girls_bravery_not_perfection
I think that it's a really good point and I completely agree, that starting to encourage women to code from a young age and to think about the tech industry in a positive light will make them not only brave enough to enter the industry, but confident that they can have a positive impact within it. After watching the Ted Talk, I found it really inspiring as well. My biggest take away from it was that imperfection is okay, and I think that this idea relates well to what we have often discussed in class, that start-ups require multiple failures before they are even remotely successful.
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