Women in Tech and Tech for Women

The number of women working in STEM sectors is growing [1] and has been on a steady rise during the 21^st century. Whilst this progress is good, the overall percentage of women working in STEM roles is still low. At the time of writing, just 24% of the STEM workforce are women [1].

We are all too aware of the negative impacts that a lack of diversity in any industry can have on things like innovation and revenue [2]. Because of this, many organisations are actively trying to recruit and retain women in the tech sector by working with organisations like the WISE campaign [3] to better understand the issues faced by women in STEM, including unconscious bias from recruiters, lack of flexible working opportunities, or poor maternity support.

The lack of women in tech in particular presents another (and my opinion, much more concerning) problem not just for the tech sector, but for any woman living in our 21^st century world.

Technology is now an embedded part of our everyday lives: from our smart phones with AI assistants like Siri, to smart watches that track your health. There are very few places left on Earth where the impact of modern technology cannot be felt. In many ways these cutting-edge technologies have made our lives better, easier and faster, so demand for more technology is growing [4]. As a result, technology is evolving at a rapid pace.

We can invent new digital tools or pieces of software with relative ease, and tech start-ups are being created faster than ever [5] to help fill the gaps in this age of invention. Whilst this is all very exciting, the fast-paced nature of all this change and development has led some to start asking two questions about new and existing technologies:

Is our technology doing the right thing?
Are we developing the right technology?

For many women across the world, the answer to both of those questions is no. The reasons for why this is the case might not be obvious at first. Let’s start with the first question.

Is technology doing the right thing?

In her book Invisible Women [6], Caroline Criado-Perez presents some real-world examples where the technological needs of women have been forgotten or ignored, leading to women users getting frustrated, injured or even dying [6]. These consequences are serious, so why are they still being seen in 2021?

Simply, the tech sector forgets about women because of the lack of women in the tech sector. It’s a vicious cycle. As an example, when AI for smart assistants is trained to recognise human voices, it will usually be better at recognising a male sounding voice [7]. The issue with this is that when women (whose voices tend to be higher pitched than men and who use different mannerisms and tones of voice to men) try to speak to the assistant, they are more likely than men to not be understood. This is part of a larger problem, known as AI bias, which we discussed in a 2020 blog [8].

Now this example isn’t necessarily a life-or-death problem*, but why develop and produce this technology if it won’t work for half the world’s population? Technology companies aren’t purposefully trying to exclude women from using their products, but due to the lack of gender diversity in tech companies (particularly at senior levels [1, 9]), women’s perspectives can be lost during the development and testing processes. The issues with the product or technology just aren’t found before being released into the world. It’s not until women use a product that the issues emerge, but by then it’s normally too late.

With how the tech sector is now, the only way of being to answer this question is by releasing the technology to the world and seeing how everyone reacts (which I would say is a very risky strategy). Sadly, the tech sector will remain reactive to the needs of women until such a time as women are actively included in the development and testing of new technologies. This is unfortunate both for tech organisations (who could make more money by making products that work well for everyone) and their female consumers (who must sometimes wait for changes to be made to a product post-release for it to be useful).

* Although there are plenty of examples where women’s lives are put at risk by not having their technological needs considered [6]

Are we developing the right technology?

This is a question that can start hours-long debates. Technological ethics is a hugely important area of research and debate, however in this blog I am just focussing on developing the right technologies for people of all genders, rather than discussing controversial uses of technologies like CRISPR and data collection on the internet.

There are so many areas of technology that we could be, and are, developing in: from self-driving cars, to foldable phones – the innovation never stops. But is this the technology we should be developing? Some areas of technology have fallen by the wayside since their inception and have not seen any large-scale innovation in decades, including items from parachutes to breast pumps [10, 11, 12]. The saying goes ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ – but who is saying these technologies aren’t ‘broke’, or at the very least aren’t outdated?

It’s certainly not women. Take breast pumps for example, a technology exclusively used by people who can breastfeed (of which the majority are women). Many commercially available models are usually noisy, inefficient and sometimes painful for mothers to use [13]. Technically yes, they work – they can pump breast milk. But in today’s day and age where we can create toasters that are smart enough to know exactly how you like your crumpets, shouldn’t a tool as vital as a breast pump do more than just the bare minimum?

Judging by the rise of FemTech in the 21^st century, it would seem people say they should. Companies like Elvie are investing and innovating heavily in this space, creating products designed for women that women like to use [14]. So why is Elvie different to most tech companies? Well for one thing, it’s led by and was founded by women, so women’s needs and experiences are always included during product development. Whilst companies like Elvie are still few and far between, their existence shows that the tech tide is slowly changing, and women’s needs are coming into the forefront.

The Future

Rather than looking to develop the next big thing, or the smartest toaster, we should be applying our new skills and knowledge to improve outdated technology that doesn’t work for half the world’s population and develop new technologies that fill critical gaps. This will only happen if we have more women working in tech, particularly in positions of leadership and influence. So how can we make this a reality? My thoughts are:

Develop the confidence of women working in the tech sector already, so that they are more likely to put themselves forward for promotion to senior roles.
Inspire and engage with the next generation, showing them the value they could bring to tech and that they can make a real difference to women across the world.
Make the tech sector a better place for women to work. This can be done by improving maternity benefits, allowing flexible working, and implementing mentorship programmes amongst many other practices.

What are your thoughts? How can we make tech work better or women, and encourage more women to work in tech?

By Beth Probert, Vice Chair of the WISE Young Professionals’ Board.

Sources:

[1] https://www.wisecampaign.org.uk/statistics/updated-workforce-statistics-to-september-2020/

[2] https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-diversity-can-drive-innovation

[3] https://www.wisecampaign.org.uk/members/

[4] https://techjury.net/blog/how-fast-is-technology-growing/

[5] https://www.itpro.co.uk/business-strategy/startups/358860/a-new-uk-tech-startup-created-every-30-minutes-in-2020

[6] https://carolinecriadoperez.com/book/invisible-women/

[7] http://www.ethicsinnlp.org/workshop/pdf/EthNLP06.pdf

[8] https://www.wisecampaign.org.uk/diversity-and-inclusion-through-the-lenses-of-artificial-intelligence/

[9] https://blog.entelo.com/entelo-women-in-tech-report