Challenging the "normal" gender order in society

By Ann-Christin Nyberg, gender and innovation researcher.

I bought my first Macintosh in the 1980s when I was an engineering student. It was radically different from all other computers I had seen: user friendly with an appealing design but also very expensive for a student like me. I really desired and loved it, as I later have come to desire and love other inventions brought to the world by Steve Jobs and others. Inventions that many of us now take for granted and use almost every day, innovations that have made an impact on society. That technology, intertwined with society as it is today, is often made by men for other men is problematic for many reasons. For instance, the shaping of society is not very democratic when women in general have so little influence.

What if Steve Jobs had been a woman? Would it have made a difference? When it comes to technology, women's talent has often been overlooked in society, and it still is sometimes. Men are often, on the other hand, expected to know technology by nature rather than by training and experience. Discriminating norms and practises concerning gender and technology still persist. Hence, probably none of Steve Jobs' brilliant ideas would have come to exist if he had been a woman. She would have encountered many additional obstacles that Steve probably never even would have imagined existed.

«The shaping of society is not very democratic when women in general have so little influence»

There are of course always exceptions to the rule. Some women have indeed succeeded in extremely male dominated contexts, despite opposition and structural barriers. Hence, there is a slight chance that Apple’s brilliant inventor and charismatic business leader could have been a woman. Today there are some women at high levels in the ICT industry, for example Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, and Marissa Mayer, President and CEO of Yahoo. Women in technology are important since they challenge to some extent the “normal” gender order in society where technology is considered to be a men’s thing. They bring hope that discrimination can be brought to an end and a more egalitarian and meritocratic society can be formed.

There is a lot to gain for society, its organizations and individuals from making the ICT industry more inclusive. Due to their marginalised position women may well be “the rebels” who see things differently today. As Steve Jobs put it: “The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.” With access to technology on equal terms, the Steve Jobs of tomorrow may just as well be women as men. Let’s make it happen! “Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Paddling against the wind

By Teresa Torns, professor, Department of Sociology at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

If Steve Jobs had been a woman, that woman would have been an excellent student, since that was the essential passport to being something more than a good mother and wife. Given her good grades in mathematics and her interest in computers, perhaps she would have chosen to study engineering. But arriving at university saw her encounter some unexpected surprises. Firstly, that of discovering that very few girls had joined her in her choice, with most of her classmates being boys. Secondly, the absence of female teachers. Small disadvantages that dispirited her, given that she would rarely be able to talk about the issues of interest to a girl, like her, whose life was organized and designed exclusively by ICT. The overall memory of those years is that the university environment was too boy-friendly; an environment that she learned to overcome with a survival strategy of invisibility which included concealing her excellent grades.

However, these grades were what got her her first job in a company in the technology sector; a job that she did not hesitate to accept, even though that was the moment when the surprising of the young student doubled. This was mainly because the excitement of landing her first job soon vanished when the working conditions and her salary were not what she was expecting. In the beginning, she blamed these disappointments on the crisis that was affecting her country, but she soon suspected that perhaps that was not a very good explanation. Colleagues with inferior academic records who endured such drawbacks because they were juniors had, after the first five years, a better professional career, more recognition and a better salary.

«At university, a female Jobs would have encountered some unexpected surprises, such as the scarcity of female classmates and the absence of female teachers»

After consulting with a few specialists, she relaxed. She learned to put a name to what was happening to her. It was the glass ceiling, a form of employment discrimination that affected women who were professionally best-placed, particularly female engineers in the field of ICT. So she realised that what was happening to her was nothing unusual and she was able to think of new and better solutions. In the short term, there was no need to increase her availability at work, putting her relationship at risk, as well as her plans to be a mother again, and even her health.

The best thing would probably be to change jobs. She would look for a company that used the potential of ICT to support teleworking. Or she would explore the possibility of becoming a web-based professional, so that she would always be able to combine her everyday life with her knowledge and capabilities. She was lucky to live during the age of the internet, where it was said that everything was possible. Thanks to the blog she had created during her first maternity leave, she had heard about the project launched by “Les Pénélopes” which, using ICT, offered support to immigrant women employed in informal sectors.

«She would have suffered the glass ceiling, a form of employment discrimination that affected women who were professionally best-placed, particularly female engineers in the field of ICT»

Colleagues had told her about the shortages in long-term care services. Perhaps she could explore the organisation and management of these services through an internet application and offer it to social healthcare companies. Or perhaps she could start a consultancy to promote the use of ICT among rural women. She knew about the existence of the digital divide. Perhaps she could increase ICT use by bringing the possibilities it offered to the daily needs of those women. She would only need to persevere and be optimistic. European statistics from She Figures 2012 show how, between 2002 and 2012, the proportion of female engineers and technologists employed in the public sector had increased, for the first time. She would just need to forget about surprises and get to work.

Confidence, resilience and self selling

By Rebecca George, Deloitte partner, responsible for the Firm’s Public Sector Health practice in the UK

If Steve had been a woman he probably wouldn’t have dropped out and started up his own company. Whilst he might have got jobs in the IT industry in his vacations, he probably wouldn’t have worked his network as well to support him as a young, new entrepreneur. He might not have had the self belief that enabled him to say in 1984 that he was going to change the world. By the time women get to the workplace, they act differently from men in three fundamental ways.

Firstly, in interviews. There are always exceptions to the rule but women are much less likely to say they are confident they can do a job in an interview than men are. If interviewees aren't aware of this they could pick male interviewees on the basis that they just sound really convincing, even if their skills and experience is identical to the female interviewees.

«There are always exceptions to the rule but women are much less likely to say they are confident they can do a job in an interview than men are»

Secondly, appraisals. Typically, women don't hear good news. So you can spend 90% of an appraisal telling a woman she has done a great job, and 10% of the time telling her how she needs to improve, and she will go home and obsess about the 10%. I think this is the same trait, by the way, which causes women instantly to forget, or never hear in the first place, all the compliments they are ever paid. Women need to concentrate on hearing good news and keeping criticism in professional perspective. Failing at work is also a fact of life. Most successful people have at least one failure during their career. You need to deal with failure, learn from it and increase your resilience.

Thirdly, women think that if they put their heads down, and do a really good job, they will get promoted. The majority of men, on the other hand, subconsciously spend up to 10% of their time selling themselves. That's nearly half a day a week. And if most men are doing that, managers and executives included, then that's what they expect everyone else to do. Women often don’t feel comfortable seeking out the company of more senior people and talking about their achievements. They also tend to be more collaborative, wanting everyone to be successful.

«Women need to concentrate on hearing good news and keeping criticism in professional perspective. Failing at work is also a fact of life. You need to deal with failure, learn from it and increase your resilience»

These are generic trends and don't apply to absolutely everyone. But it's worth women thinking about if they are getting their message across in ways men understand, and men being careful to avoid those random acts of discrimination by remembering that women do act differently in the office.

So if Steve had been a woman he would have been an incredibly talented, creative, innovative employee, consistently over-performing and probably reaching senior management or executive roles. But probably without the core of self belief, risk taking, networking and resistance to failure that Steve used to fuel his destiny to change the world.