International Women’s Day – one day is not enough

2014 marks the 103rd International Women’s Day. What began as a socialist political event in Europe is now celebrated world-wide, and endorsed by organisations as wide-ranging as the United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the Ukrainian feminist group, Femen. It remains as vital as ever to showcase women’s manifold social, political and economic achievements, but it is also crucial that the campaign for gender equality is loudly and energetically sustained.

Three recent examples underline the need for continuing vigilance against sexism and action for more egalitarian, more respectful gender relations both off- and online. An advertisement campaign entitled “The Autocomplete Truth”, recently run by UN Women, used actual Google searches to reveal widespread sexism and discrimination against women. It placed the search results over the mouths of women’s photographs, effectively silencing them, and makes for sobering viewing (on the web at http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2013/10/women-should-ads; on Twitter at #womenshould).

This week, the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency launched the most extensive survey yet undertaken on violence against women, which showed staggering numbers of women having experienced some form of violence right across the EU, including in those countries we consider to be most gender-equal.

At the same time, prominent women campaigners have recently revealed their shocking experiences of online bullying and abuse. Everyone should be able to use the web without being subjected to this type of thing.

Whatever the medium of communication, women’s voices must not be silenced. This message is one of the most important that International Women’s Day can convey. But International Women’s Day must also be a day when women, and men, celebrate the respectful, peaceful and progressive acts that are done to advance women’s and human rights. For advancing gender equality and celebrating the gains made so far, one day per year is not enough.

By Juliet Webster, Director, Gender and ICT Programme, IN3

Steve Jobs was a woman because he bit the apple!

By Marta Aymerich,  Vice President for Strategic Planning and Research at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC).

Apparently, from our very “creation”, we have a special affinity for this fruit. Or at least, this is what we have been told. As we have also been told, though more subtly, that studying a technical degree course is not for women. Both things are far from the truth. They are just ways of making us see gender as preconditioning us for certain tasks and attitudes, and not for others. In reality what happens is that we end up being preconditioned –but not because of genetics, but because of culture. From birth, we are taught that there is a colour for girls and a colour for boys, and later, that there are toys for girls and toys for boys. And, subsequently, we end up believing that there are studies for girls and studies for boys. And from here it is a short jump to think that there are more suitable men for positions of responsibility in academia than suitable women. More women than men graduate from university in Catalonia today, but this has not led to a substantial change in the proportion of women in academic positions. This is partly  because we have grown up thinking that we do not have the right predisposition. Well, I do not believe this. And I myself am proof. I do not have to believe that technical degrees are not for women either; nor are we particularly drawn to biting apples. Or are we? If you think about it, maybe that is what we have to do. Jobs chose an apple with a bite out of it for the company’s logo and he broke the mould. 

«Maybe, and I speculate, he chose it as a ground-breaking symbol, with the image in mind of the first person, a woman, who is able to overcome the status quo.»  

Indeed, you often have to break the rules to make progress. Especially if what’s at stake is ensuring we do not lose so much talent.

Filling the gap with Steve Jobs

By Dóra Groó, president of the Association of Hungarian Women in Science.

From my national and international view, I can say that in order to change the traditional and pre-modern processes and stereotypes — in every part of the life ― we always need good practices, which we can use to underpin the necessity of our aims and tools; and role models who can prove that nothing is impossible, thus legitimating our work. 

Today in the ICT and in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) sector, women need to be more mentored, encouraged, inspired and supported, because these sectors need more female talents, otherwise the industry won’t be sustainable and renewable. A lot must be done before we got the talents. 

 «We need role models who can prove that nothing is impossible, thus legitimating our work» 

We should start to support and encourage the girls — from childhood through the high school years and finally the university ― not to be afraid of math and informatics. Imagine if Steve Jobs had been a woman. People would say: “Hey girl! If Ms Jobs did it, you can also do it! Go and code that robot!”. 

If Steve Jobs had been a woman, we could break the glass ceiling and fill the gap in one second.

A visit of Stephie Jobs to Shenzhen

This month's blog post has a different focus from most of our others, because it concerns the working conditions in Foxconn, Apple's main supplier, and the terrible injuries inflicted on China's (largely rural migrant) workforce. Qiu raises the question of whether a female Steve Jobs would tackle this horrendous human attrition. So, this is not so much about redressing the gender imbalance in professional computing work, more about asserting and protecting the human rights of computing assembly workers. It is a devastating read.

By Jack Linchuan Qiu, associate professor, School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Had Steve Jobs been a woman — let’s call her Stephie — I'd take her to the Second People's Hospital of Shenzhen (Guangdong Province, China), a place I've been visiting once a month — sometimes once a week — in the past year. There lies Tingzhen Zhang, who lost his left brain in an industrial accident at Foxconn.

Foxconn is Apple's main supplier, employing 1.4 million workers in China alone. It manufactures about half the world's electronics each year. If China is the "world's factory", then Foxconn is the "electronics workshop of the world".

Stephie must go to the hospital because Shenzhen is where most of her gadgets are put together; because she must have watched the Mike Daisy show, at least its online version, and because she might wonder what the heck is going on there. She must go, as I need a woman to talk to Tingzhen's relatives.

Tingzhen, like most his peers, is from the rural hinterland. Due to work injury at Foxconn, he now walks with difficulty and he only has the intelligence of a one-year-old. His whole family has come to take care of him, find out what happened, and obtain justice. Every time I visited, his father kept talking to me: what a wonderful person his son used to be, how outrageously Foxconn treated them, why he thought the local officials were sympathetic, but incompetent.

«A conversation between Tingzhen’s sister and Stephie Jobs may well inspire a whole new world beyond capitalism, a better world for workers and for humanity»

His mother and sister seldom talked to me though, likely because I'm a man. They smiled, brought me water, never tried to interrupt dad. But I know they need people listening to them, talk to them, as well. A few months ago, driven by despair caused by Foxconn's refusal to help, Tingzhen's sister, Hongling, even tried to commit suicide.

— "Suicide?!" 
— "Yes, Stephie." I’d say. "Foxconn is known for its workers killing themselves, as much as it's known for making your Apple products. Thirteen people jumped from tall buildings in 8 months in 2010. Never before had this happened in the entire history of industrial capitalism, anywhere in the world."
— "Hongling, I'm sorry." 

— "No, you don't...", would reply Hongling after a long pause. "You have no idea how helpless we were." 
— "I’m really sorry. Can you tell me more? Is there anything I can do?"

At this point, I'd leave, dragging Tingzhen's dad with me. He and I need to manage an on-line campaign, designed with our old-fashioned masculine impulse, to help the family sustain their legal battle. If they win, it will be the first time Foxconn China ever gets defeated in a labor court. That may mark a new chapter for Foxconn, and for Apple.

Yet winning this case is perhaps not as important as the conversation between Hongling and Stephie. I hope her mother can join them, too. The results from that conversation may not just bring about a new company or two. They may well inspire a whole new world beyond capitalism, a better world for workers and for humanity.

Sisters of the world, think different.

Tingzhen Zhang before and after his injury at Foxconn. The company still withholds the ID card he wore around his neck, making it difficult for his family to establish his employment relationship with Foxconn Shenzhen.

Could Apple have been founded by a woman?

By Inés Sánchez de Madariaga, director, Women and Science Unit, Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness

Would Apple, as we know it, exist if there had not been a Steve Jobs? Probably not, but perhaps we would still enjoy the same type of devices because, as Sánchez de Madariaga says, innovation comes when its time has arrived. Could have this "twin" tech company have been created by a woman? Again, probably not, at least in the time Steve created it, but it seems that now things are starting to change. GenderSTE COST action chairperson, Sánchez de Madariaga talks about all these questions in the video below. She kindly agreed to be recorded during a visit to Barcelona.

«In the 80's, when Steve Jobs started working on Apple, a woman wouldn't have been given credit for such innovative approaches»

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.”

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.

Jobs, the mother

By Zeng Jinyan, blogger and human rights activist

© Ai Xiaoming

My five years and seven months old daughter has been under single parenting since she was born. Her father was detained and sent to jail for three and a half years for the crime of “inciting subversion of the state power”, which was a price of his writings and international press interviews in an autocratic state. We moved to Hong Kong last September after I had been prohibited from travelling to — as well as abroad ― for five years. Meanwhile, her father is still prohibited to travel and join us in Hong Kong.

Because of that, as soon as we arrived in Hong Kong, I bought an iPad, which was my first time to buy an Apple product. Apple products are too expensive to me, a de facto single mother, even though their function indeed greatly facilitates me in dealing with researching and teaching tasks, parenting and social activism in my everyday life. No longer after the purchase, my daughter claimed the iPad as hers. Now, she contacts her father via Skype any time she wants to and thanks to that she spends a lot of story time with him before going to bed.

So I wonder what if Steve Jobs had a single mother parenting experience. I am not sure how many distant families benefit from Apple products and Skype. But I am very sure that there are lots of people in rural China and less developed areas around the world that are left behind. In 2012, a 17 years old senior secondary school student, Mr. Wang, sold his kidney for 20,000 CNY (around 2,400 EUR) in underground organ transplantation market. His purpose was to buy an iPhone and an iPad.

«I found more relevant to reflect on whether Jobs believed in feminity not masculinity, partnership instead of domination»

If Jobs had been a mother witnessing the whole process, she would have probably raised the critical question to the public: who is left behind in the high speed development of IT technology and IT products? What should we do to make opportunities, to guarantee empowerment for those who are left behind?

In fact, when thinking about the main question of this blog, I found more relevant to reflect on whether Jobs believed in femininity not masculinity, partnership instead of domination.

Before I moved to Hong Kong, I hardly used mobile phone for social activism. Even if all suspected software is deleted, its security is still doubtful, because all Chinese telecommunication companies are active in implementing state surveillance orders and policies. Even leaving behind all the politic risks, we still cannot do our online activism as we wish, for either the social media websites are blocked by Chinese government or the contents are censored, filtered, and even deleted by the website companies which cooperate with the government in the implementation of censorship policy.

Would a female Jobs have considered installing virtual private networks (VPN) in her products as a factory setting? That would have definitely been an act of solidarity with the victims of state surveillance and censorship on freedom of expression around the world.

Beyond a pink phone

By Anne Bouverot, Director General, GSMA

If Steve Jobs had been a woman, the iPhone would have been pink. Siri would have been a man, and the default ring time before voicemail kicks in would have been two minutes, to allow women time to find their phone in their handbags. Very bad stereotypes, I know!, but sadly there is a grain of truth here. When I ran the mobile business for Orange – France Télécom, handset makers did actually send me pink phones, ‘because she is a woman’…

Thinking about this seriously now, if Steve had been a woman, I think products like the iPhone would be elegant and stylish. They would be perfectly sized to fit in your hand, and they would have a sleek design, sculpted from the finest materials. The software that runs on the phone would be simple and intuitive, while providing all of the features needed for your daily life. The iPhone would be a high-quality product that consumers would love to own.

Now, those of you that own an iPhone will realise that what I have described above is exactly what an iPhone is today. In fact, many of the latest generation of smartphones coming to market meet these criteria. We are in the midst of an exciting time for the mobile phone industry, with a range of amazing designs from companies like Apple and Samsung and others to capture the imagination of consumers.

«My goal is to live in a world of great design and services, but also a world where they are produced by companies that are led by great men and great women»

The key point for me is that it does not matter whether Steve Jobs was a man or a woman. What is important is that great design comes to the fore and helps us all take advantage of the revolution in our lives that is being enabled by mobile broadband services.

But there is an underlying problem that needs to be resolved. While woman make up over half of the world’s population, they hold less than 5 per cent of the senior management positions in technology companies globally. And this is a massive lost opportunity for the world’s leading technology companies.

My goal is to live in a world of great design and services, but also a world where they are produced by companies that are led by great men and great women. Only then will we see the next generation of amazing products, and the demise of the pink phone stereotype!

GenPORT: sharing knowledge and inspiring collaborative action on gender and science

By Juliet Webster, Director, Gender and ICT Research Programme, IN3-UOC

Imagining the world of computing as if Steve Jobs had been a woman requires a considerable degree of guesswork, since we do not know for sure precisely which aspects of this world would be different from how they currently are. Nevertheless, during the last three decades, research has taught us a great deal about the gender relations of science and technology, and provided a firm basis for practical action to advance gender equality. The problem is, though, that this growing body of information is scattered, and for many reasons it is not always easily accessible.

We are therefore very pleased to announce today the beginning of a new four-year action on gender equality in science which we are co-ordinating in the Gender and ICT Programme at the IN3. The ‘GenPORT’ project will exploit the numerous resources that try to advance gender equality in science, technology and innovation. Although the wealth of gender and science resources developed in Europe over the last decade offers enormous potential for knowledge sharing and informed action, these resources are dispersed, and have varying degrees of visibility and usability. Globally, too, major gaps in the dissemination of past and present knowledge persist, while new knowledge is constantly being produced. This information needs to be offered in accessible, timely, and useable ways to enhance the potential for its exploitation. This is the purpose of the GenPORT project, which will develop an online community of practice on gender equality in science, technology and innovation.

«Although the wealth of gender and science resources developed in Europe over the last decade offers enormous potential, these resources are dispersed, and have varying degrees of visibility and usability»

Exploiting the Open University of Catalonia’s established expertise in developing online resources, the project will create an internet portal to provide an open entry-point to the high-quality research, policy reports and practical resources on gender, science, technology and innovation which already exist, and to new resources as they are generated. The main gender and science policy environments in the EU, US, Australia and beyond will provide the platform for developing the collection worldwide. Policy support will also be provided through research syntheses and ICT-enhanced policy briefings.

Since it will support a community of practice, the portal will be interactive and dynamic. We will achieve this dynamism by ‘crowd-sourcing’ the portal: we want to draw stakeholders in, share knowledge, create web tools to add value to resources, and exploit social media to boost the impact of the key messages coming from the latest research and policy insights.

«GenPORT will showcase a vast array of resources and innovative user interaction to boost practical and policy action by illuminating the contribution of gender equality to science excellence»

On-line community activities will be at the centre of the portal. We are also planning physical meetings and stakeholders’ events to create synergies for increased collaboration between members of the community of practice. Our aim is that this portal, showcasing a vast array of resources and innovative user interaction, will boost practical and policy action by illuminating the contribution of gender equality to science excellence. It will link closely with EU activities to promote structural change in science and research, specifically those being undertaken through the EU COST Action GenderSTE, which under Inés Sánchez de Madariaga’s leadership is also concerned with policy action for gender equality in science. In the US, the portal will exploit and promote the work being done under the National Science Foundation's ADVANCE program, among others.

We have received funding for this action from the EU FP7 Science in Society Programme under the theme ‘Creating a transnational community of practitioners (Internet Portal)’. Five partners — GESIS in Germany, Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini in Italy, Matej Bel University in Slovakia, Örebro University in Sweden and Portia in the UK — will work with us to develop the portal over the next four years. In the longer run, we aim to make the portal self-sustaining through the contributions of community members, so that its resources are permanently available to the gender and science community.

We are convinced that a shared vision, and shared information to achieve it, are vital elements in creating a society where the question posed in this blog no longer carries any meaning.

Contact us

We are keen to hear from you, whether you are an academic, policy maker, employer, professional association, or have another type of practical interest in this field and would like to be involved in this project by contributing your resources, ideas, news, and expertise. You can reach us at the addresses below:

• Dr Juliet Webster, Project co-ordinator: jwebster@uoc.edu
• Dr Jörg Müller, Project manager: jmuller@uoc.edu

Women in the techie world, far from being a bed of roses

By Athene Donald, Professor, Department of Physics, University of Cambridge

If Steve Jobs had been a woman, let’s say called Stephanie, one has to ask whether she could have gone on to be the leader of Apple. Not because of a lack of brains, or innovation skills or imagination, but because she would have found the environment in which she worked so unpleasant she might have decided she’d rather work in some other field which didn’t make it so hard to progress.

Maybe Stephanie would have gone on to excel in some other sphere, or maybe her innate creativity was sufficiently specific to the world of computing that her amazing skills would have been permanently lost, but as the recent story of Adria Richards —known as "Donglegate"― reminds us, women and the techie world isn’t a match made in heaven ―at least as yet.

«Somehow tech culture is stuck back in the Stone Age and, given the vile abuse that was generated by Donglegate, it seems unlikely it’s going to clean up its act fast»

I’m a female physicist, and I’ve frequently found myself in a minority of one in a meeting room, or a somewhat larger minority at conferences, but the sort of hostility which seems to pervade the world of PyCon —where Donglegate took place― and the like is beyond my experience. I don’t believe academic science is full of misogyny, although it may be full of people (men and women) suffering from a bellyful of unconscious bias.

Pirelli calendars no longer grace my department walls and I haven’t seen a woman asked about her engagement ring and child-bearing intentions for a long time at interview. Somehow tech culture is stuck back in the Stone Age and, given the vile abuse that was generated by Donglegate, it seems unlikely it’s going to clean up its act fast.

So, if Stephanie Jobs had been born, I suspect she might have been inclined not to fight against the tide just because she had so much to offer, but to take her skills to an arena which was better able to appreciate them and treat her decently at the same time.

Women can have a family and at the same time excel in the sphere of innovation

By Rebecca Chiao, co-founder and director, HarassMap

As manager of an organisation that uses technology to help changing the social acceptance of a terrible situation like sexual harassment in Egypt, Rebecca Chiao kindly agreed to put herself in front of the camera and give us her reflections on the main question of this blog. Chiao was one of the featured speakers at TEDxBarcelona Women event. We deeply thank the organisers for this contribution.

«When it comes to financial decisions from investors and partnerships, a lot of people tend to consider that women are entrepreneurs as a hobby»

Towards a new generation of versatile "Jobs"

By Isaac Mao, co-founder and director, Social Brain Foundation; philosopher at Sharism.org

CC Joichi Ito

I never had an Apple product for my daily use, but I did buy some of them for my family members, including my 7-year-old daughter VV and my father. I believe Apple really fits those people who are afraid of using a computer, or are trying to touch base the digital world. So it’s not difficult to imagine why China is now the biggest market for Apple products. 

Each time VV shows me some new apps on her iPad I can’t help praising: "it's really an exquisite toy", and my daughter always nods back. Once she even said: "(iPad is) like a pretty princess". I had to agree. The sense of touching the screen and the borders of Apple’s products really prevails the feelings I get on my Google tablet. Then, I reckon I would be not surprised if Apple's products were designed by some deft women. 

Even though we still remember Steve Jobs as the man that enabled those exquisite toys, Masha Ma, one of the top fashion designers in China, told me she always thought Jobs had a female heart. That might be the reason why he could transfer the view of ICT products from lame machines into soft fashion devices.

«After Steve Jobs, the combination of both aggressiveness and sensitivity is inexorably indispensable in industry»

After Steve Jobs, the combination of both aggressiveness and sensitivity is inexorably indispensable in industry. If any other “Jobs” wants to copy his success, he or she can’t be merely a designer or an engineer, but should be both. Last March, Masha just finished her show in Paris, which included very cool 3D printed earrings in her new seasonal collection. I see this combination of design and ICT on her work as well: apart from being a designer she also has a geeky heart. And more interestingly, she is now learning how to use Python (a programming language) to code her next season's design work. 

I don't know what would have happened if Steve Jobs had been a woman. In fact, Jobs' gender shouldn't matter, only his legacy. In the coming maker's age, as author Chris Anderson predicted, future may present us more versatile "Jobs", and surely they will be indistinctly called Steve or Stephanie.

A portrait of Stephanie Jobs

By Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin, Vice-Chancellor, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

If Steve Jobs had been a woman, she would have probably been named Stephanie and would have started and co-founded Apple in her family’s kitchen, not in her family’s garage. Stephanie Jobs would have completed her bachelor’s degree and continued to obtain a PhD. She would have postponed marriage to avoid the hassle of balancing work and family life. She would have started her career in a male-dominated division of an IT-company and would have become the first woman to rise to its top CEO position. She would have been a dynamic, visionary and charismatic leader driving the company to greatness.

As a leader, Stephanie would have worked extremely hard, moved very fast and made creative decisions. While Steve was job-centered, she would have neglected neither her employees nor their families. Stephanie would have used the same presentation style for launching her Apple products to motivate and instill in her employees, particularly women, the need for achievement, power and affiliation, while meeting the goals of their personal lives. She would have used her CEO position and charismatic leadership style to help her workers identify with her on the emotional level, including sharing her battle with cancer. She would not have dared to be different, and would have made decisions outside the normal rules .

«As a leader, Stephanie would have worked extremely hard, moved very fast and made creative decisions»

In business, as in life, she would have cooperated rather than competed. She would have been very focused and clear in what she wanted, pouring her ideas into her products with passion and intensity. All these would have been part of her perfectionism in creating the most beautiful and highly-sought after consumer products, as well as leading one of the most successful technology companies in the world today.

If Jobs had been a woman, she would have paid more serious attention to her health. After being diagnosed with cancer, she would have stepped away from Apple and devoted her life to her family and charity. She would have developed a Foundation and devoted her talents and genius to solving incurable diseases, environmental problems and human conflicts around the world. If Steve Jobs had been a woman, she would not only made our world more beautiful with iPods, iPads, iTunes, Macintosh and Pixar Movies, but she would have also used her products to make our world a safer place to live in.

ICTs are not synonymous with knowledge society and woman is not synonymous with gender

By Gloria Bonder, Director, Gender, Society and Policies Area, FLACSO Argentina

Women, in Latin America and in most regions, are a minority in technology production, and this is one of the most significant digital gender divides. The research we have carried out from the UNESCO Chair in Women, Science and Technology in Latin America confirms this. However, the results enable us to state that gender inequalities in this field do not only concentrate on this issue. Age, ethnicity, educational and socio-economic level and area of residence (urban/rural) are some of the determinants that have a significant influence on the construction of this techno-cultural environment.

Only an uninformed view would lead us to state that the first step has to be increasing the number of women in technological production. Looking more closely, we realize that change does not start there.

«Creating technology with gender awareness is a first step towards a society that is more receptive to both women and men's ways of thinking and innovating»

Encouraging the interest of more women in technology careers, reversing the stereotypes that associate ICTs with the male world, promoting the full participation of women in technology-based enterprises and encouraging strategic appropriation of ICTs by both women and men, are some of the links of this chain that must be strengthened.

Having (more) women in technological production does not ensure an information/knowledge society that is more inclusive, diverse and attentive to their needs, desires and interests. However, if the person who creates technology (either male or female) does so with gender awareness, we will have taken a first step in overcoming inequalities, and in the construction of an information/knowledge society that is more receptive to everyone's ways of thinking, innovating and transforming, both men and women.

If Steve Jobs had been a woman, perhaps the only difference would be the Apple logo.

Will we welcome a Stephanie Jobs any time soon?

By Juliet Webster, Director, Gender and ICT Programme, IN3-UOC

International Women’s Day is inevitably a time for a gender equality progress review. As the excellent, thoughtful, angry, optimistic, and often witty responses to the question “What if Steve Jobs had been a woman?” show, achieving gender equality in ICT is a very complex project. From the socialisation of kids and the cultural expectations of girls and boys, through to the management cultures of innovators and the employment practices of ICT companies, there are many interlocking reasons why there has to date been no female equivalent of Steve Jobs. This matters enormously: ICT is a site of major employment growth and opportunity in industrialised societies. The people who do this work create the tools which we all carry around, work with, manage our lives with, and perhaps even define who we are.

«When senior politicians and corporate leaders declare women’s role in ICT to be important, women are treated more seriously»

So, if gender equality in computing remains elusive, what is to be done to advance it? Over the past three years in the IN3 Gender and ICT programme, we have analysed a string of initiatives designed to advance and support women in ICT in several countries. Loud and clear from our analysis comes the conclusion that a vital ingredient in the success of these measures is high-level, consistent, sustained, political support with resources to back it up. When senior politicians and corporate leaders declare women’s role in this work to be important, women are treated more seriously. This is not the only factor, but it is a key one.

Unfortunately, in an economic crisis, the ‘trickiness’ of doing gender equality becomes a reason for retreating from it. Decision makers, who remain primarily male, are too inclined to treat gender equality as an option. The retreat from a commitment to equality has been evident, for example, in the resources and priority it is receiving in the framing of the European Union Horizon 2020 programme¹. As the strategy for European research, science and technological development for the next seven years, it is a vital mechanism for ensuring that gender equality is fundamental to such activities, indeed to all knowledge creation. It has been remarkably silent on this question.

«Action on gender equality becomes even more urgent during a crisis. How are we going to recover any kind of social or economic capacity, if we do not build new social arrangements?»

If anything, action on gender equality becomes even more urgent during a crisis. How else are we going to recover any kind of social or economic capacity, if we do not build new social arrangements? The existing social ― and gender ― relations have so shamefully destroyed so many lives. But we need political support to help us shift the social and cultural framework within which we all live and work ― to transform the provision of education, to support working women, to hold employing organisations to account on equal pay, training, and career progression. If we cannot achieve these changes, then the ‘hyper-masculine’ domination of the computing world ― indeed, the world as a whole ― will take much longer to undo.

To take this challenge forward on our own patch, the Gender and ICT Programme at the IN3 will soon start work as the leader of a substantial EU project. This project will build a new community of global activists and practitioners working in the field of gender equality in science, technology and innovation ― activities which will be vital for our individual and collective futures. GenPORT, as our project will be known, will allow people to share their knowledge and resources, develop gender equality tools together, learn from one another, and build pressure for change. This blog will give you more news, and when we begin work, we invite you to join us.

1 European Commission 2012, Enhancing and focusing EU international cooperation in research and innovation: a strategic approach (COM 2012) 497.

Doll heads materials or the different ways of addressing challenges

By Henry Jenkins, Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education, University of Southern California

In her book, Made to Play House: Dolls and the Commercialization of American Girlhood, the social historian Miriam Formanek-Brunnell tells a fascinating story. At the turn of the 20th century, doll manufacturers were confronting a problem: previous dolls heads had been made of china or bisque. For some, this was a feature, since it forced young girls to play with them gently and to thus acquire what were then seen as feminine skills and graces. But, for others, this was a liability since they easily shattered and so designers set out to design a doll's head that would absolutely not break.

Thomas Alva Edison confronted this as a purely technical challenge, seeking advice from the men in his lab, and seeing an opportunity to develop a potential new market for his phonograph to create talking dolls. What the boys in the lab came back with was the use of industrial level materials. They made the cast iron baby doll, which would not break under any circumstances, though we might predict that it would break a few jaws if young children then played with it as aggressively as kids today might. Meanwhile, there were some smaller companies, which were run by female entrepreneurs during this period, which had on-site daycare facilities. They sought to solve the problem by observing how young girls played with dolls, and they came back with the idea of using Indian Rubber, a material much more apt to respond appropriately to human touch than cast iron.

«Many of today's software projects are a bit like cast iron baby dolls: offering solutions that are not grounded in the human life world and expecting we will bend our practices to their demands»

I am telling this story in part because Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, has often been described as the modern equivalent of Thomas Edison: an industrial leader who runs a large research team and seeks to figure out how to solve problems primarily on a technical basis. We may not know what would have happened if Gates was a woman, and it is a hard question to answer without falling into essentialist traps. But, we do know the difference between how Edison and his female counterparts addressed this particular challenge.

Many of today's software projects are a bit like cast iron baby dolls: offering industrial strength solutions that are not grounded in the human life world and expecting that we will bend our practices to their demands rather than seeking to understand what role these products play in the context of our everyday experiences. Would a female Bill Gates have approached the problem differently? We can only speculate.

What will it take to bring about change?

By Gillian Shapiro, Managing Director, Shapiro Consulting Ltd

Is there a difference in the relationship that my son aged 5 and my daughter aged 10 have with technology? They both, of course, love to play games on the computer and Moshi Monsters are the big craze at the moment. But it is my daughter that is leading the way in all of this. Her interest in games, writing stories, searching on-line ―albeit for pictures of cute puppies― is what is firing up his urge to also get on-line. He is following her, guided by her, learning from her. She is his role model.

Role models for women in technology, science and engineering are, of course, incredibly important. Because they are few in number, they send out a strong message that it is possible for women to excel in this field. Would it have made a difference if Steve Jobs had been a woman? Yes! How could having a woman as the head of such a major innovative organisation, not make a positive difference. The value of Stevie Jobs as a role model is enormous.

«Role models for women in technology, science and engineering are incredibly important. Because they are few in number, they send out a strong message that it is possible for women to excel in this field»

But it wasn't Stevie, it was Steve. And we know that, statistically speaking, my son is unlikely to follow female role models into technology and my daughter is unlikely to be one. So where and why does it all go so wrong?

My question, of course, is not new. It has been asked by many researchers and policy makers for many years. The barriers and causes of few women entering into and developing careers in science, engineering and technology jobs cited are repeated, study after study. Some of the work to address the barriers and causes is innovative and impactful. But overall the change achieved is slow and patchy.

«The mere hint of a threat of a quota for women on Boards in the UK has led to a movement of leaders intent on change»

What will make the step change needed to bridge the female gender gap in science, engineering and technology? Does it need to be a Stevie Jobs?

The mere hint of a threat of a quota for women on Boards in the UK has led to a movement of leaders intent on change. After years of very little change in the representation of women on Boards, following the Lord Davies Review and recommendation for at least 25% of Board positions to be occupied by women, their representation in FTSE 100 companies has increased from 12.5% to 16.7% in a year.

What would motivate the Chairmen, the CEOs and other leaders, male and female, working in technology jobs, the media and education from being bold and bringing their power, influence, experience and leadership to bear in changing once and for all this imbalance?

ICTs and a new opportunity for women's empowerment

By Lindsey Nefesh-Clarke, founder and managing director of Women's WorldWide Web (W4)

During her recent visit to Barcelona (Spain), Nefesh-Clarke kindly agreed to answer live and in front of the camera the heading question of this blog. She was one of the guest speakers at TEDxBarcelonaWomen event, celebrated on December 1^st 2012. We would like to thank the organisers for this contribution.

«We have an unprecedented opportunity to make a new wave of women's empowerment: a strong movement of community-driven collaborative change»

Genius is gendered: what would happen if Steve Jobs had been a woman?

By Gillian Marcelle, Associate Professor, Wits Business School

The invitation to write this blog on what would happen or have been different if Steve Jobs had been a woman proved to be too enticing to turn down. This despite the fact that I had left off my serious work on gender and ICTs for nearly a decade. Different themes emerged as I played with the idea of gender transformation and Steve Jobs. I am not sure whether I can cover all these themes here and so perhaps this invitation will lead to future work on the subject.

From the point of view of development studies, I would argue that we need more people like Steve Jobs, and it really does not matter if they are male or female, except if there are biases, whether structural, institutional or psychosocial that stand in the way of the emergence of female Jobs like figures. The point is that Steve Jobs stands at one level as a standard bearer for successful entrepreneurship and transformation and he has become the touchstone for success.

«A woman with a similar balance of negative and positive personality traits was very unlikely to have succeeded in formal business settings»

This then leads to my take on Jobs from a management science perspective. Steve Jobs’s approach to steering a company and its innovative process includes: single-minded dedication to “specification”, ruthlessness, setting standards very high and not compromising about how these were achieved, being unaccepting of industry standards and setting out to be disruptive. He is characterised by enormous self belief, arrogance and a spectacular willingness to take risks. Steve on all accounts is legendary for is attention to detail, keen observational skills and an ability to improve new possibility outside what currently exists. This latter feature has been hailed as him having a reality-distorting ability and this applied to the product features and design of Apple products and services.

From all accounts these “positive” qualities and characteristics were wrapped up in personal attitude that made Steve Jobs an exceptionally challenging human being, in both his personal and professional lives. It is his personality and human characteristics that have meant that he is revered and loathed with great intensity. Before his death, the negative and challenging aspects of his personality were spoken of in hushed whispers. Jobs the mythical path breaker occupied much more airtime than the man who insisted on a paternity test for his first child, refused to reconcile with his biological father, and regularly reduced managers and employees meeting with him at Apple to tears and even attempted suicide. Since his death, the accounts and reports have become more revealing and dare I say insightful. There have been many analyses attempting to reconcile the positive and negative aspects of his personality and to understand the implications for practice.

This is where the gender issues are stark. My sense is that a woman with a similar balance of negative and positive personality traits was very unlikely to have succeeded in formal business settings, let alone to have been celebrated and venerated as a management icon. She would be more likely to have been burnt at the stake! Reality-distorting women who buck traditions, set their own standards and insist on dragging followers on the path they have set out for them and have that confidence of conviction more on grounds of personal self belief and branding that norms and moral standards.

«Is society reproducing female and male Steve Jobs clones rather than developing alternatives?»

I don’t know whether we will even be able to test the hypothesis that a female Steve Jobs would not have been allowed to survive as against the counter hypothesis that a female leader in the ICT sector world is unlikely to have the same balance of “offensive” and positive personality traits. I certainly cannot think of a female powerful figure who is associated with single handedly setting new benchmarks for an industry, hero worshipped and venerated. These are some reflections on Steve the man.

As far as the products produced by Steve Jobs and Apple, I wonder about whether a woman of a similar age, cultural, racial and political background would have produced a set of technologies that had the same characteristics.

Industry domination, lock-in effects, propriety standards are central to the Apple success story. This is a technological leader model per excellence. If we are to separate out particular personality traits, we still have to ask the question whether the propensity to adopt strategies with these features is gendered. Do female leaders eschew strategies with these characteristics and do they have a high propensity to adopt alternatives? We don’t have any evidence to answer this question. Are female leaders, whether they pursue paths of business diversification and growth that differ from that pursued by Apple likely to be as successful? This would also need to be answered in the future. In considering these issues, it may be helpful to ask whether female executives operating in these settings actually have definitions of success and power that are fundamentally different from their male counterparts. Do put this differently, would a white, educated, middle class female in a wealthy country have either the option or desire to manage success and power in a way that differed significantly from Steve Jobs. Do we have processes of selection in place that effectively means that a female computer science or business student hoping to catch the eye of a mentor or to climb the ladder of success is more likely to perform management in a Steve Jobs like fashion than not. Is society then reproducing female and male Steve Jobs clones rather than developing alternatives? The recent opting-out and missing generation debates in the US suggest that these issues and questions are not that farfetched.

I want to also make some comments relating to design and functionality. If a Steve Jobs like character in female form were to emerge and survive would she make design and be successful by products that sought to have seamless integration across data from personal/private and professional aspects of life. Personally, I find the aspect of the Apple i-range of products quite irritating and somewhat disturbing. While I love the convenience of the i-Pad and the i-Phone for network connectivity, posh email features, I resist quite strongly the possibility and practice of blending/merging any aspect of life in one device. I am not certain that this is inherently female, especially since we are supposed to be so much better off multitasking than men but I do not regard that blurring of boundaries as healthy and/or desirable.

«Steve as icon not only sets the standard but has probably set back feminist advocacy in this field for many decades to come»

Finally, I want to tackle the politics of the situation. In my work as a gender equality advocate with a focus on the ICT sector, I argued that unless a critical political analysis was made of the integration of social, political, institutional and structural processes that led to patterns of gender inequality, the situation would continue. The advocacy positions of the groups with which I was associated called for concerted efforts within the ICT sector and in the policy space to end exclusion and inequitable access to and control of ICT systems and industries on a gendered basis.

Several years on, although I am not as familiar with the academic, policy or civil society work in this area, I certainly have the impression that there has been no major breakthrough in terms of wrestling into these issues and making transformational changes.

And in that sense, Steve Jobs’s success at Pixar and Apple, his wealth creation, his bad behaviour, and hyper-masculinity means that he is the robber baronesque figure of the 21st century. Steve as icon not only sets the standard but has probably set back feminist advocacy in this field for many decades to come. By contrast, Bill Gates is a mild-mannered, happily married, philanthropy inclined, not particularly macho man, who is very wealthy. But he has not attracted the same love-hate reaction (except in Open Source circles).

If there was a level playing field and the world had really become a fundamentally different place, perhaps a warm-hearted, fuzzy, female leader with a heart of gold and on her best behaviour would have emerged to lead a firm that was concerned about triple bottom line issues, making useful ICT product and services in collaboration with users and competitors that addressed human needs as well as advanced private motives.

Until then we have Steve...