Technology is certainly not the focus of International Women’s Day and rightly so. Instead, shameful statistics and often horrifying stories of continued, everyday oppression all over the world take front and centre stage in highlighting how far we have to go to ensure women and men are treated equally.
But, particularly as technology becomes so ubiquitous in modern life, and because we know equality starts everywhere, it’s a good time to look at how far we’re moving as an industry. The answer? Not far enough.
The GSMA just celebrated doubling the number of women on its board, from 1 to 2 out of 25 people, not great, but going in the right direction.
Back in November, Barbie became a computer engineer, but only to the point of designing her handsome new tool, lucky Kevin and Steve were there to help with the heavy lifting! Face palms all round at Mattell as they pulled the book following an online backlash.
August saw the #gamergate sexism story unfold, where female developers Zoe Quinn and Brianna Wu, along with feminist cultural critic Anita Sarkeesian, were subjected to a sustained campaign of misogynistic attacks, all for their love of video gaming. Not to be defeated, Leigh Alexander, Gamasutra editor-at-large, has just announced she’s founding a new site called OffWorld to cater for women and minorities who want to game in peace.
Revenge porn, something that, like it or not, appears to be an act done by men to women, has now been criminalised in the UK, with a maximum 2-year jail sentence attached. Likewise, trolling is being taken more seriously by British legislators. And in the lexicon of gender equality, mansplaining has given way to bropropriation, where Ched takes credit for that great work someone else (you) did; along with manterrupting, wher–.
You get the picture.
I recently chatted with someone about a mail order tampon startup (hey, if they won’t give them to us for free, at least make it convenient!) and heard that, as the founder was pitching her idea to a bunch of all-mail venture capitalists, explaining why it’s obviously such a huge market, one of the guys interrupts her and says: “Is there any chance you could use another word instead of period?”
…
“Well, I could use the word menstruation, if you’d prefer?”
Rather handily, two teenagers from New York just launched the Tampon Run game after completing the Girls Who Code summer course. Periods are a part of most women’s lives, nothing really to be afraid of, unless they’re weapons in a mobile game of course!
We know the stats are bad for women in technical roles at large companies – ranging from 10% at Twitter up to 31% at Etsy – and those figures have been dropping steadily since the 1980s. Many blame a ‘pipeline problem’, not enough women choosing to study tech subjects, but most women point to the high numbers who drop out mid-career. And we have to get to grips with the fact that’s because of the culture of the industry. The prize for the biggest tech-related, internet-enabled sexism story last year came in the form of the ‘guy who landed a rocket on a comet but didn’t learn how to wear appropriate clothing for his job’.
It’s also clear that while men control the purse strings of venture funds, and fail to engage with problems that don’t directly affect them, we’re unlikely to get many services beyond those that solve white, male problems. Another taxi app, anyone? Purpose-designed Accelerators like MergeLane in Colorado, the Female High Fliers Programme in Ireland and DreamIt Ventures in Pennsylvania are all attempting to address this issue by offering programmes tailored to women entrepreneurs.
Something that remains unaddressed by tech innovators, despite it being of growing concern and a genuine problem that needs solving, is the issue of care work. This is work, be it child care or elderly care, sick care or day-to-day caring responsibilities, and something everyone expects women to do for free. Tech City itself hosted at least two International Women’s Day events: the Makers Academy women’s hackathon, plus the annual Tech City IWD Showcase, with participants including Transcode, who are aiming to highlight transgender issues in tech.
Let’s face it, the anonymous world of the internet isn’t a greatly friendly place for anyone and we need brave legislators, pushed by engaged citizens, in order for us to build a digital world we can all be proud of. I’ve had the recent pleasure of meeting the near-all-female team behind the No More Page 3 online campaign to get rid of that eponymous ‘section’ of the paper because ‘boobs ain’t news’. While many tut at the ‘clicktivism’ that digital tools may encourage, never underestimate the power of a small group of conscientious citizens.
As being the ‘male ally’ recently became so fashionable, with 2014 unofficially declared the Year of the Male Ally, you can now print out this handy Male Allies Bingo put together by Cate Hutson and Karen Catlin off the back of some work done for the Grace Hopper Celebration.
Let’s all make this a more equal 2015, please.