An overview on women in tech (and on this blog)

By Judith Astelarra, emeritus professor, Department of Sociology, Autonomous University of Barcelona.

I must say that when I was invited to participate in this debate several months ago I did not like the question. Now I think that it was a provocative question that lead to very interesting answers. However, I still have doubts about the question because I feel that if what we want is to analyze the absence of women in the sector of technology, do we need to play this provocative game of making a transvestite of Steve Jobs?

Steve Jobs was an outstanding creator, everybody has agreed on that. Traditionally the creators in any field, had been considered beings who had an exceptional individual talent that was emphasized in its work. However, individual genius can only be put into practise and recognized in social and cultural contexts. It is society that allows the creative talent to be developed and, what is equally important, is responsible for the recognition of the value of the creation. Gender is part of this social context related to creation, but there are other factors as well.

«We can look at the women that are now in these fields, even if they are a minority, to see if they make a difference»

Most of the answers to the question about Steve Job have spoken about how the gendered dimension of society and culture, characterized by inequality for women, have been an impediment for women’s incorporation in the technological field in terms of creation, production and recognition (the “icon”).

Others answers have stressed the individual characteristics of technological creation be it men or women. Only a few have dealt with Steve Jobs as a creator and tried to relate it to gender. In this sense, I liked very much the analysis made by Gillian Marcelle. In describing Steve Jobs as a woman most of the answers either spoke generally of the situation of women, or plainly admitted that they did not know whether it would make such a difference. Henry Jenkins spoke about Bill Gates, what was very interesting because here we deal with two men, in the same field and time, who shared gender but were different.

All these answers could have been just the same if Steve Jobs had not been in the question and all we were dealing was with the issue of women and technological creations. What makes me uneasy about it is that, even if it is not the intention, the proposal of replacing Steve Jobs by a woman leads to a sort of confrontation between men and women.

«Finding places in which both genders can collaborate is also part of the feminist proposal of creating new realities»

I have been a feminist from the late 1960 and early 1970 when I was doing my PhD at Cornell University. When we started, women’s inequality was not even a social, cultural and political issue. We needed to be loud and confrontation was part of it. But now, the situation is different. Obviously inequality still exists and we need lobbies and political movement to deal with it. But the problem is now recognized and there are women now in the fields from where they were excluded. We can evaluate what we have done to correct inequality and look for new things to do. But, we can also look at the women that are now in these fields, even if they are a minority like in the technological field, to see if they make a difference. Not just give hypotheses of “what if” that cannot have rigorous answers.

I liked very much the answers that stated the need of social innovation in technology, no matter what the person’s gender is. I think that finding places in which both genders can collaborate is also part of the feminist proposal of creating new realities. Here we can play the game “what if”, not changing the past but looking at the future, because in this case imagination can be used. Starting from the problems that the TIC have today and the new lines that should be developed in the future, we can think of a woman (even if imaginary) that can play the role that men like Steve Jobs played in the past. We would not be using a man as a reference, we would be using women’s experiences and realities today. An endeavor that can be shared between this new outstanding woman and the men of her time. A pluralist proposal that does not discriminate anybody.

But in spite of my doubts with the question I really think that the debate has been very interesting.

How to promote female 'geek' vocations

By Cristina Ribas, Associate Professor, Pompeu Fabra University

Could Linux, Facebook, Apple and Google have been created by women? I think they could, but the fact is that the most visible faces on the internet right now are still men. Does this have anything to do with women's reluctance to consider themselves, and indeed refer to themselves, as brilliant or ‘genius’? Or is that geek culture is too distant from the prevailing sexist education? I wouldn't like to hazard a guess as to the reasons, though I'm sure that both of these have an influence. What is clear is that the consequences of the fact that very few women are creating and influencing technology are very negative, both for women themselves and for society as a whole. As is the case in so many other fields, not only is it unfair to limit decision-making powers and participation by relegating women to simple consumer status, but also shutting women entails a huge waste of talent which could be focused in new and innovative directions. What can we do to make the culture and vocation of technology more appealing to women?

«It is unfair to limit decision-making powers and participation by relegating women to simple consumer status, but also shutting women entails a huge waste of talent which could be focused in new and innovative directions»

First of all, greater visibility needs to be given to the female protagonists of the history of technology to shatter the image of their presence as unusual or impossible: Ada Lovelace, the mathematician daughter of Lord Byron, regarded as the first female programmer; Betty Jean Jennings and Fran Bilas who, amongst other things, programmed the first ENIAC computer in the 1950s; plus all those anonymous women who worked tirelessly at Bletchley Park deciphering codes during the Second World War, who cyberfeminist Sadie Plant paid tribute to in her book Zeros and Ones. In the same way that the industrial revolution was woven by the hands of women in the textile factories, so digital workers were also women, according to Plant.

We can also find women in senior management positions in many iconic internet companies, such as Marissa Mayer, who shone at Google and since July has been president and CEO at Yahoo, and Sheryl Sandberg one of the most successful executives in the digital business, currently at Facebook. It is also worth pointing out that even though there has been a drop in the number of engineers and computer technicians in the United States, we are seeing innovative start-ups led by young entrepreneurs, as explained by this article in USA Today.

«Something is not working in the educational system because there are very few girls with a geek vocation, who want to become programmers»

Who knows what we might be losing if there are fewer women programmers and entrepreneurs, as we need new strategies to help us transform the world, society and the economy, with the help of ICTs. This happened in the field of primatology, which had a before and an after, when three women introduced a new study method by sharing the habitats of groups of chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans. The "trimates" —Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birutë Galdikas― managed to understand the behaviour of these simians which are most closely related to humans as never before. One of the keys to this was that they considered human integration in the group of animals, a method that had not occurred to any male researchers.

There are many more examples of women's input in traditionally masculine sectors. For example, many years ago the sociologist Carme Alemany found that the washing machines designed mainly by men had numerous wash programmes, of which only two or three were ever used, while solutions to practical problems, such as how to make a wash stop if the colours start running —which are technologically simple to resolve― were dreamt up by women designers. Some engineers, such as the Colombian Inés Restrepo often think along different lines in order to tackle the same problem. Restrepo dreamt up a system of harvesting water in local communities using small gutters built in a network by each inhabitant, without the need for huge, costly and environmentally-damaging dams, which had been put forward as the only solution by the (male) engineers in her country. All of us benefit from new solutions from fresh perspectives. Another contribution might be a change of leadership, from the purely transactional short-term and predominantly masculine perspective to a transformational type of leadership with other goals that focus more on creating long-term value, as explained by doctor Sara Berbel on the subject of women's leadership.

Caption from the EU video campaign Science: it's a girl thing!

Furthermore, we need to move away from the stereotypes featured in campaigns such as the European Union initiative to promote scientific vocations among young people. This controversial video, which ended up being withdrawn, showed women among make-up and microscopes, as if they had to trivialize research to make it appealing to women. Psychologist Gemma Altell, on analysing this case, highlights two important questions. On the one hand, what do we need to change in the educational system to make girls more interested in science and technology? It is obvious that something is not working because there are very few girls with a geek vocation, who want to become programmers. And, furthermore, how can we stop fuelling the prejudices that make us judge women —and not men— by their appearance, and how do we reinvent what it means to be a man or a woman in the 21st century, casting aside the androcentric models generated thousands of years ago.

A biased culture for heroes

By Siri Hustvedt, novelist, essayist and poet.

© Marion Ettlinger.

Steve Jobs is an icon of late capitalism. A parallel, equal feminine icon is impossible. No matter how sleek her products, the hypothetical Stephanie Jobs could not and would not occupy the same place in our culture as her brother. It is not that there are no female entrepreneurs or CEO’s, no brilliant women who can package a product as well as any man, but rather, that Jobs is the projection of an idea that remains hyper-masculine, a rags to riches American myth for our era. Along with beautifully designed computers and phones, Jobs sold himself as tech hero, master of a new revolutionary culture of connectivity that is still coded as male not female.

«Jobs is the projection of an idea that remains hyper-masculine, a rags to riches American
myth for our era»

It is fascinating that Jobs chose Walter Isaacson as his biographer, a man who had previously written best-selling books about Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. Franklin, Einstein, and Jobs have little in common except their iconic “genius” status, which is, of course, the point. Simone de Beauvoir’s reiterated statement in The Second Sex that woman is Other to man, that women are not accorded universal status, or, in other words, Everywoman is radically different from Everyman, remains true. Men are not trapped inside their sex. Women are. It is this inescapable “femininity” that makes the woman “genius” an anomaly, a riddled, contorted, or suppressed being in history. Consider this: The person credited with creating the first computer program was Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852), daughter of the poet and Anne Isabelle Milbanke. Although there is no question about her contribution, she is not a historical icon.

«It is this inescapable “femininity” that makes the woman “genius” an anomaly, a riddled, contorted, or suppressed being in history»

If we do not examine and articulate the reasons for our hero worship, we will continue to be duped by unconscious biases against women. Apparently, Isaacson’s biography uncovers a ruthless, unpleasant narcissist. As Sue Halpern noted in The New York Review of Books, the biography proves that “it is possible to write a hagiography even while exposing the worst in a person.” Could a grasping, manipulative, ambitious, high-achieving woman gain the same stature as cultural saint? At this juncture in history, it seems to me that the answer is a resounding no.