Advancing Women in Technology by Caroline Simard
February 7, 2010
03:04 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
A few weeks ago I attended a policy speech by Secretary Clinton at the Newseum in Washington DC. For those of you who didn’t read the coverage, here is the speech and the video.
As we all know, the internet, has shifted the way that information is spread. But the speech reminded me that its impact is particularly profound for the many countries around the world where information is restricted for a variety of reason. Today, there are more ways to spread information than ever before, which can support the rights of all individual by providing connection and information. . But these tools are also being exploited to undermine human rights. There is a spike in threats of free flow of information in places such as Vietnam, China Uzbekistan, and Tunisia. In Egypt, bloggers were recently detained, because of their news coverage. One of them was released a few days later, and was present at Secretary Clinton’s speech.
From the speech
On their own, new technologies do not take sides in the struggle for freedom and progress. But the United States does. We stand for a single internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas. And we recognize that the world's information infrastructure will become what we and others make of it.
One of the most important assertions of her speech was that the United States believes in a single internet. Franklin Roosevelt talked about four freedoms in 1941
Roosevelt’s four freedoms are
Freedom of Expression
Freedom to Worship
Freedom from Want
To this, Secretary Clinton added
Freedom to Connect
She asserted that ALL people have certain rights to seek, receive and impart ideas. However, there are countries working hard to get rid of information.
She believes that the internet can promote economic development, in that it provides people with knowledge. It provides significant yields for modest investment. Cell phones are becoming the platform of choice around the world.
One World Bank study found that in a typical developing country, a 10% increase in the penetration rate for mobile phones led to an almost one percent annual increase in per capita GDP. To put that in perspective, for India, that would translate into almost $10 billion a year
After the speech, there was a discussion which included Natalia Morari from Moldova.
Natalia talked about a spontaneous uprising in Moldova. On April 6th, she and friends got together for coffee after an election that was stolen. They sent out a short message to come to the center plaza of Moldova the next day, and light a candle. They expected around 300, but in fact 10,000 showed up. The government blocked the social network, the messages moved to twitter, and social unrest followed. Ultimately this led to new elections.
Another example of the impact of technology and the internet is in Iran, where it continues to be remarkable in the sustained character of protests. The government has no mechanism to stop the tools used for loosely organized uprising. The protests have continued for a year. The government shuts down one network, and another one springs to life.
For me the speech was a reminder of the importance of the tie between technology and social impact. In listening to Secretary Clinton, I understood the importance of technology to the positive changes in social fabrics of many nations. I was reminded of the importance of the second half of ABI’s mission – to increase the positive impact of technology on the world’s women.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
January 29, 2010
01:53 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
I thought I’d write a bit about policy this week, since the State of the Union is the talk of the town and everyone is busy analyzing every presidential remark. Some would argue that the country is too busy fighting wars and economic crises, but I didn’t hear anything about gender equity last night being a part of the national agenda.
I have written here and elsewhere that the representation of women at the highest ranks of companies isn’t increasing rapidly enough. The proportion of women on Board of Directors of Fortune 500 companies is dismal at 15.8% according to the most recent census by Catalyst. There has been no improvement on this front in years. In 2008, there were 12 women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. The numbers are going down rather then up. Women still earn 77 cents on the dollar.
What would it take to drastically change this picture and not have it take a century? Consider the following statistic: Norway has 44% women on boards. Surely, whatever this country is doing is paying off in terms of gender representation – what is this miracle intervention? The answer: policy. And the most controversial kind of policy, at that. Dare I say it? Quotas.
Norway’s proportion of women has gone from single digits to 44% in a few years, spurred by a law that was passed in 2002 giving companies until 2005 to reach parity in the board room (set at 40%). When companies failed to achieve this by 2005, the government of Norway gave them until 2008 to achieve the quota or face sanctions (a case study of the Norway example can be found here). This was not a process without controversy – even for a country that has a history of pushing the boundaries of progressive politics. Some predicted a complete meltdown of Norwegian companies, while others called this move decidedly anti-feminist, because it would keep women out of the meritocratic process and would amount to discrimination – putting them on boards because of their gender rather than their qualifications. Still, the sea change happened, and it turns out that the women who are now on the boards of these publicly traded Norwegian companies have equivalent qualifications as male directors – what was keeping them out of the boardroom in the first place was not, it turns out, a lack of qualifications.
OK, but surely Norway is an anomaly? This couldn’t possibly work in other countries, right? I mean, this is the country of progressive politics, and, some would argue, “anti-business” policies. Some have called Obama a “socialist”, but I think Norway is more used to this label than are US politicians.
It turns out that the Norway example is being followed by unlikely countries in Europe. Quotas, like cooties, are contagious: Spain passed a similar law in 2007 in the wake of the Norwegian success, giving Spanish companies until 2015 to meet the quota. France followed suit in 2009 with submitting a proposed legislation to mandate 50/50 gender representation for public companies in France by 2015, and 40% within the next 4 years. Much like the Norwegian example, the controversy over there is raging.
If more countries follow suit, this European sea-change will change the face of global business in significant ways, eradicating the underrepresentation of women in board rooms in Europe.
While I can’t wait to see how this new policy changes the face of business in Europe, I can’t imagine a similar law ever standing a chance in the US. The reason why I don’t think this will ever happen here has little to do with the controversy about women being picked for their gender as opposed to merit. As an organizational researcher, I know that it is not merit that is keeping US women out of the boardroom. Research repeatedly refutes the argument that if women only managed to meet the same achievement standards as men they would be recruited to these positions. There is no dearth of qualified women for board positions in the US. What is keeping them out is much more complicated than their resume – it’s a combination of social networks, unconscious bias and stereotyping, and a strong club effect at the upper levels of the corporate food chain.
The reason why I don’t think the US will ever pass such a law is that the US has a strong history of not wanting the government meddling in corporate life (with a good economic track record to show for it), and tends to be culturally opposed to sweeping government intervention to fix social problems. Have you checked the state of this new healthcare legislation lately? Enough said. Frankly, in the absence of legislation providing paid maternity leave, which one could consider a baby step down the policy road for gender equity, there is no way one can imagine quotas ever making the agenda of a US president. By the way, the US is the only industrialized country with no paid maternity/paternity leave, but that is a conversation for another blog post
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
January 21, 2010
05:19 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
In our work with companies, we often work with executives who are looking to change the presence and impact of women in their organization. However, one of the unfortunate truths is that employees often leave managers, not companies. This is particularly true for women. For a young women coming out of school, this is typically their first job. Their managers (mostly male) are often trying on their first management job, and are learning their own limitations and biases. Many women leave without ever telling anyone else at the company how bad it is. But, it is also true that a manager, both male and female, can make an incredible difference in retaining women.
For most employees’ right out of school, the most important characteristic a manager can provide is confidence, confidence that their employee can do the job. I’ve had many mediocre managers, but the ones that stand out are the ones that went out of their way to make sure that I knew that I could do my job. At one company I worked at, they hired a new Vice President of Engineering. From the beginning, he made sure that I knew that he believed in the job I could do. We spent time ensuring that the engineering department was on track, but what really mattered, and why I stayed, was his confidence in me.
As another example, one of my colleagues worked at a large successful company in a technical role, and was about ready to leave. She brought a customer focused attitude to the development team, and was constantly criticized by her manager for not following the rules, although when they followed the rules the resulting product was often overly complicated and did not meet the customer needs. Another group within the same organization reached out to her and created a position for user centered design in their group. She transitioned to this new group a few years ago, and has been happy ever since. In her new role, her manager believed in her, and recognized her strengths, rather than working around them.
The best managers are also looking to grow the capabilities of their staff. In my business, there is always too much to do, and it is easy to get focused on getting the tasks at hand completed. But an important part of a manager’s job is to understand not only what an employee is good at, but also to provide them with objectives that give them opportunities to stretch. For example, many women are intimated by the idea of giving a presentation; it is outside of their comfort zone, especially to outside audiences. One of my colleagues regularly asked his employees, including two women, to present to the executive staff. Initially he would ask them to prepare a short presentation – five minutes – and would practice the presentation with his team first. Although one of the women hated it, and would have said no given a choice, he required her to present. Gradually over the course of a year, her resistance diminished, and finally she became more comfortable with the role. Giving a quality presentation is a skill; skills can be developed with practice,
Managers can make all the difference in retention of employees. Ensuring that your employees know that you have confidence in them, recognizing their strengths, and developing their skills allows them to grow and can make such a difference to your organization.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
January 8, 2010
12:57 am | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
It’s only a few days in January, and I’ve heard from a lot of people on their resolutions: lose weight, be more organized, exercise more, get more sleep, and the quintessential Silicon Valley resolution, “break the blackberry habit” or “check email less often in the evenings.”
These are laudable goals, made by very driven people. What is surprising, though, is that most people’s resolutions rarely have anything to do with work, where those who are employed spend at least half of their waking time. Here are a few simple and easily attainable goals for managers who wish to enhance their ability to recruit, retain, and advance talent, leading to greater organizational success.
- Mentor others
This does not involve a very large time commitment. It can be done in a monthly meeting, a quarterly meeting, or even through email. The benefits of mentoring for your company will be greater employee satisfaction, engagement, and advancement. For you, the benefit will be cross-functional collaborative networks, access to new talent and new ideas in the organization, and enhanced performance in your team. Your modeling the behavior will also encourage your direct reports to seek a mentor and to mentor others and each other. Try to mentor someone who is not exactly like you and you will learn more in the process. Women and minorities are less likely to already have access to mentors, and reaching out to minority talent in mentoring is critical to their retention and advancement.
- Model workplace sanity
2009 was The Year of The Downturn (and for many, “The Year of The Layoff”). Those who are still employed ended the year battered, bruised, and exhausted, with unprecedented workloads. In a previous post, I discussed the research showing that there past economic downturns have led to talent flights, and how this flight risk is especially high for women. This one will be no exception. One study found that workplace overload is the second predictor of turnover after financial rewards -- and let’s face it, despite signs of recovery, most companies can’t count on keeping talent by throwing money at the problem these days. Modeling workplace sanity means, first and foremost, giving employees adequate resources to achieve their goals – this 2006 article in the Ivey Business Journal says it well: “not giving people the knowledge and tools to be successful is unethical and demotivating.” In the wake of the economic downturn, many employees have felt like flexibility, sick time, vacation, and adequate resources to meet expanded deliverables have become a rare commodity. This leads to disengagement and ultimately turnover. Bonus: this resolution can be merged easily with the ones regarding health, sleep, and breaking the blackberry/email habits.
- Listen.
This resolution is both very easy to implement and very hard to keep going. On the plus side, it’s measurable – you know when you are doing it (how many times have you deliberately shut up today?). On the down side, the high-tech work cultures many managers live in reward assertiveness and speaking up above all else – I have written extensively on this blog and elsewhere about the “Type A,” assertive culture of many high-tech organizations and how it can alienate diverse talent and hinder innovation. The word “soft skills” is the object of smirks in many organizational cultures, and yet, the ability to listen to employees and foster diverse communication styles within your group is critical to extracting the best ideas from your team and for employee retention. Listen to employees consistently. Seek out opinions from employees who do not speak as often and may shy away from expressing diverging opinions. Here’s another plus: listening involves putting a stop to multi-tasking in meetings and helps you meet the resolution of breaking the blackberry/constant email checking habit. As Stanford Professor Bob Sutton says on his blog, “Saying smart things and giving smart answers are important. Learning to listen to others and to ask smart questions is more important.”
- Recognize
Employee recognition has never been more important – it’s a powerful currency in an economic environment where cash incentives are rare. Organizations and managers focus too much on the negative, especially in an environment where people feel like they are playing a layoff survivor game. In a high-tech culture, recognition for one’s contributions is one of the most important currencies for retention. A report by Blessing White on Managing Technical Professionals found that getting appropriately recognized for accomplishments and successes was of foremost importance for technical employees.
- Acknowledge your power and the importance of your role.
The more I read about human capital, diversity, innovation, and high-performing organizations, the more I am convinced that good people management is perhaps both the most underrated and most important skill for the 21st century. I have talked to countless technology employees, especially technical women, who said that “having a manager who ‘gets it’ was the most important difference between a fantastic work experience and a hellish one. “Getting it” means understanding what your employees need to be successful, and how these needs vary for different employees. It also involves being aware of your own limitations and biases and striving to establish a fair work environment. A past report by the Level Playing Field Institute found that women and underrepresented minorities were less likely to be experiencing their workplace as fair, and were less likely to feel like their immediate supervisors were doing a good job in creating a fair work environment. A manager’s role, as Jeff Pfeffer puts it, is to build a sustainable organization – from a human perspective.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
December 18, 2009
05:44 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
At the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI), 2009 has been an inspiring year as we grew in organizational size, in program participation, in online community participation, as well as increasing our impact on the community we serve. Here are some of our results from 2009.
Showcase Technical Women
Some of the most important work we do at ABI is showcasing amazing women. There is a lot of research about how role models can influence a person’s career and life decision. I know how important hearing from women who I admired was to me as I began my technology journey. Here are a few videos of women who today, are changing the face of technology.
In October we released a video called I am a Technical Women that has become viral. Each and every time I watch this three-minute video, I am inspired.
I am a Technical Woman
The 2009 Women of Vision event featured an inspiring talk from the CTO of Cisco, Padmasree Warrior. I’ve included links to the talk on YouTube (for reasons that I don’t fully understand, the YouTube videos are fixed size, so there are three links). What is hard to describe in words is her visible impact on the students, industry women, and other attendees, who lined up to speak to her at the end of the event. She waited to speak to each and every one of them, complete with hugs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEfZSad_2J8&feature=PlayList&p=879E5215179979AF&index=3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sED8zw4SGw&feature=PlayList&p=879E5215179979AF&index=4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y0J0a_N8S0&feature=PlayList&p=879E5215179979AF&index=5
The three Women of Vision winners
Innovation - Yuqing Gao
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IwWE83kpzg&feature=PlayList&p=879E5215179979AF&index=0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNijdD3qkjE&feature=PlayList&p=879E5215179979AF&index=6
Leadership - Mitchell Baker
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZGDjTlf434&feature=PlayList&p=879E5215179979AF&index=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZpBXX4Cab4&feature=PlayList&p=879E5215179979AF&index=8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m_iKWUxsBk&feature=PlayList&p=879E5215179979AF&index=9
Social Impact - Jan Cuny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4lbkfP1rL0&feature=PlayList&p=879E5215179979AF&index=2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DFc_SnhpMc&feature=PlayList&p=879E5215179979AF&index=7
The Grace Hopper Conference site features video’s of extraordinary women.
http://www.youtube.com/group/ghc09
In particular, the Ed & Ashley videos are interviews with women speaking on topics like community and how to get a job. Here is one of my favorite short videos with Rebecca Norlander from Microsoft, discussing how to be a person of influence.
http://www.youtube.com/group/ghc09#p/a/6/puc6GFyZe88
Develop Technical Leadership
For technical women, developing leadership skills such as asking for what you want or understanding how to influence, is important to understanding how to be a leader. This last year, we featured a well attended and well received workshop by Jo Miller on how to become a person of influence.
http://gracehopper.org/2009/conference/jo-miller-workshop/
I know that I have referenced my notes from this workshop many times since I attended, to better understand how to achieve my desired results.
At the 2009 Grace Hopper Conference, 1571 people attended from Industry, Academia and Government. To understand how the conference impact the attendees leadership, it makes sense to hear from them
…. Learning about how to publish, listening from successful women
about their valuable experiences of the struggles and tips to develop and improve themselves, and dancing with all great women scientists and fostering the common thought that we can do better and contribute impact to the society.
Getting advice on launching my career from people who have "been there, done that".
The enthusiasm and energy of both the attendees and organizers/presenters of the conference, the fun and excitement to be a part of an organized conference dedicated to the advancement of technology.
Through comments and suggestions at various technical sessions, as well as simply being surrounded by so many women who are working to succeed, and looking to me for inspiration, I felt a renewed hope for and plans for myself, as well as garnered some suggestions on how to break my "stalemate".
Before the conference, bloggers posted advice on how to make the most of the exhibits and recruiters, on what to pack, on networking. The blog allows for sharing of personal perspective, and bloggers shared why they feel GHC is so important, how GHC has affected their life, and what they hope to get out of the conference. Organizers also blogged to share some of the behind the scenes work done at the conference
I really enjoyed the Jo Miller session on Becoming a Person of Influence.
In the evaluation, many attendees expressed the lessons they took back to their lives and their organizations. Many discussed how attending the conference in previous years has impacted their current role as a technical leader.
Change the Culture of Technology
This year, ABI once again held the Technical Executive Forum, where 61 senior technical executives convened to learn from our research, and from each other.
The results of this Seminar, can be found in the report on the 2009 Technical Executive Forum, The Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement of Technical Women: Breaking Barriers to Cultural Change in Corporations, found on our research page
http://anitaborg.org/news/research/
As always, the inspiration and learnings comes from the stories of the individuals who attend. One male executive told me afterwards that for the first time he understood the importance of developing unbiased metrics for evaluating the success of their high potential technical leaders, especially the women. He had been very ambivalent about attending this workshop, but had been asked to attend by his leadership. His entire attitude had changed.
As we reach the end of 2009, I am proud of the impact ABI has had on the world, and on the technical communities we serve. I look forward to next year, and the promise of a future where women are seated at the table, creating the technology that will change our lives.
Happy Holidays to all of you!!
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
December 10, 2009
02:38 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
In 2009, the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology convened high-technology executives at the Technical Executive Forum. The topic: what should executives change in technical organizations in order to improve the recruitment, retention, and advancement of technical women? We just released a synthesis of the barriers and solutions discussed by the executives at: http://anitaborg.org/files/breaking-barriers-to-cultural-change-in-corps.pdf
One of the cultural attributes that was discussed extensively is the “Hero Culture” of many high-tech companies or departments, also known as “firefighting” or “diving catch”. You know the scenario: a project is put on a timeline that is overly aggressive and ill-resourced, and it starts looking like the deadline won’t be met… at the 11th hour, someone steps in and saves the day with 24/7 work cycles, lots of pizza eaten at the office, and the occasional sleeping in the cube.
What does that have to do with women you say? And why shouldn’t an organization reward those heroes?
- A manager I was discussing this with recently lamented that, “we are often rewarding the arsonist who started the fire.” That is, companies sometimes send the message that preventing problems from happening in the first place (say, by proposing a realistic timeline and managing resource allocation effectively) is not as valued as solving problems at the last minute. Not the best message to send if you want a learning organization, because people will figure out that they should start fires for the explicit purpose of extinguishing them to get recognition.
- This “firefighting” also rewards a certain type of employee – the one who has no family responsibilities, can work 18 hour days and is likely young and not disabled (you have to have a certain kind of physical resilience to live on pizza and Red Bull). In the cases where these employees have families, those with stay-at-home spouses are more likely to be seen engaging in this hero behavior. Over half of the technical men in our study said their partners had primary responsibility for the household and children – technical women, by contrast, were overwhelmingly in dual-career couples.
- The price to pay for failure to perform this “diving catch” is higher for women. In The Athena Factor, Silvia Ann Hewlett and her colleagues document that the diving catch, if unsuccessful, has greater negative consequence for women, because they are in a minority and their competence and belonging are already being questioned – as a result, failure for them is much more visible (this is the tokenism phenomenon documented by Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business School).
- Finally, there is some machismo attached with this firefighting behavior that sends a decidedly gendered message. One of my colleagues interviewed for a high tech startup and the founder showed her the cots where they regularly slept because of frequent “emergencies”. He went on to say “this is the kind of commitment we expect – we are in this to win.” Frankly, interviewing a middle-aged woman and expecting her to be looking forward to sleeping on the floor with a bunch of guys on Red Bull is simply unprofessional.
I want to end by pointing out that this isn’t just about gender. This kind of culture actually doesn’t increase performance – it perpetrates a sense that putting out fires is more valued than preventing them and encourages people to start fires. It also fosters a reactive, short term focus and detracts leaders from engaging in strategic thinking.
Have you been in chronic fire fighting, “diving catch”, hero cultures in high tech? Did you find them effective? I am interested in hearing your thoughts.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
November 30, 2009
01:44 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
At the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, the companies we work with regularly express deep concern about their ability to keep their best talent. Many executives are surprised when they research differences in retention rates between men and women at their own company - women leave at a higher rate. Here are two examples of how to keep your best and brightest.
For many engineers right out of school, their first job provides them with their only experience of job and corporate culture. Unfortunately, their experience is often tied to young managers that are also developing their skills of people development, and often suffer from their own unconscious biases. As an example, Martha is a young engineer whose passion for software development for the web product of her company, was strong when she started in her new job four years ago. Three years later she was ready to return to graduate school in Psychology, eagerly leaving ALL engineering behind. Fortunately she ended up talking to a male colleague of her sister who had a twenty year career in Engineering. As he listened to her describe her situation, and described his own experience, she realized that in fact she was returning to school to run away from her work situation, where she did not feel like she was contributing, did not like her manager, and didn’t feel that the team was working together. She applied for a transfer, after talking to a manager in a different division who she really liked (female). She has now been in her new job for a year, loves the team, and loves the work. Women, more commonly than men, don’t have confidence in their abilities, and will leave the job at a higher rate without realizing that they have choices.
Another example is a talented Principal Engineer at a Semiconductor company. After thriving in her career for many years, she decided to have children. The company allowed her to move to a 32 hour week, rather than full time, without removing her from the technical career path – she was still considered for promotions, and her manager regularly discussed her technical contributions. She stayed at the company, because they did not put her on the “mommy track”.
These two examples illustrate two important points about retaining technical women:
- Women feel isolated and alone at a higher frequency than men. It is really important to provide them with access to role models and support for career decisions
Job flexibility is still important for keeping technical women, while still providing employees a road map for their technical contributions.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
November 16, 2009
06:26 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
Have you heard? The recession is over. Really? Despite the encouraging signs in macro-economic data, the reality for most technology employees is still one of layoffs, cost cutting, and doing more with less. But if you think you don’t have to worry about turnover in this environment and of losing women in technology, think again.
Research shows that people leave their companies in droves after a recession. The Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology recently released “Retaining a diverse technical pipeline during and after a recession” a report which reviews the research on the effects of the most common responses to economic hardship that companies implement.
We find that if the previous recessions are any indicator, companies are in for a difficult time in retention once an employment recovery occurs. A spike in turnover has systematically followed past recessions – a phenomenon that Deloitte dubs a “Resume Tsunami” in a recent report on the topic.
Technical women are especially at risk.
- Employee skepticism is at an all time high, due to painful layoffs and cost cutting actions. These practices have hurt employee engagement, a key predictor of turnover. Technical women, who are often isolated and suffer from additional barriers to retention and advancement, were already more at risk of turnover, and the recession has further affected their engagement.
- Faced with a fear of layoff, budget cuts and the pressure to do more with less, work-life practices are out the window for many – women in technology, who are significantly more likely to be in dual-career family situations, are more likely to be further affected.
- Practices focused on employee development, such as training, conference attendance, networking, or leadership classes have been cut or put on hold. These practices are significantly more likely to be important to technical women.
What can companies do at this point? We argue for a renewed focus on the practices that matter for technical employees and technical women – employee development, flexibility, and establishing a mentoring culture. Stanford Professor Bob Sutton said it well in his blog: “companies that have treated people well during the downturn will have an advantage in keeping and retaining the best people --and those that have not damn well better change their ways or will face the prospect of their best people running for the exits in concert with the inability to attract the best people.”
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
November 12, 2009
09:19 pm | 0 recommendations | Be the first to comment
The Anita Borg Change Agent Award recognizes three experienced women from around the world whose work goes to the heart of the Anita Borg Institute's mission: to increase the impact of women on all aspects of technology, and to increase the positive impact of technology on the world's women. These three women are funded to attend the Grace Hopper Conference, and have the chance to both speak to the conference attendees, but also meet with other leaders who attend.
Leaders from Brazil, Turkey, India, Georgia (the country not the state) have attended. Many of these leaders have taken ideas back to their country, and I remain in touch with many of them today.
This year, for the first time, all of the three Change Agent Award Winners at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing were from Africa. One was from Kenya and two were from Nigeria. All three have a great deal in common. They share a similar focus, training women in their countries on how to use technology. We often talk at the Anita Borg Institute about increasing the impact women have on technology but equally important is the impact that technology can have on the world’s women. The work our Change Agents are doing is literally improving the lives of women by giving them access to technology which is enabling them to find careers, establish businesses and connect with other women to create support networks. In one case their work has been shown to reduce divorces in a region because the women are now bringing incomes into their homes. Between them they have positively impacted the lives of 1000’s of women.
Meet the 2009 Anita Borg Change Agent Award Winners
Halima Ibrahim, from Nigeria is the Director of Mu’assassatul Mar’aatus Saliha Women’s Skill Acquisition Centre. The center provides ICT & Handcrafts Skills Training for underprivileged women.
Halima has since single handedly driven change in Bauchi and other communities in the North East of Nigeria by empowering underprivileged women and girls. Her initiative, the Mu’assassatul
Acquisition Centre, is the biggest initiative that has emerged from the Community Technology Skills
Program in Nigeria over the last three years. It has so far empowered over a 1000 other women in ICT
and Handcraft skills whilst fostering local innovation and creating jobs and opportunities for people.
Anne Ikiara-Kabaara, from Kenya, is the General Manager of Nairobits Trust, an organization dealing with youth/women empowerment through ICT, where she also serves as a gender and HIV/AIDS focal person. Anne has been with Nairobits for six years. Within this time, hundreds of women/girls from non formal settlements have gained ICT skills that have improved their lives economically, socially, culturally and politically. Most notable is the entry of women/ girls from disadvantaged communities to the formal ICT economy. Through her leadership, the Nairobits concept has grown in Kenya and has been replicated in the non formal settlements of Nairobi with five training and information centers being opened. Through the training and exposure of these girls/women to ICT, lives of other women in their localities have significantly improved and positive ripple effects are being felt in these localities.
.
Oreoluwa Somolu, from Nigeria, is the Executive Director of the Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC), a non-profit based in Nigeria working to encourage Nigerian women to use technology to empower themselves socially and economically. W.TEC’s work is carried out through projects which build technology skills among women, technology literacy workshops, research, career counseling and mentoring. Notable among these is the Girls Technology Camp, which seeks to help girls develop an early interest in computers and other information and communication technology.
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
October 23, 2009
02:59 pm | 0 recommendations | 1 comment
I don’t know about you, but I’m confused. There has been a lot of media attention on research on women’s issues recently (most notably in Time Magazine, covered again on NPR’s Talk of the Nation), which is a great thing, considering that only two generations ago women didn’t factor in research agendas.
However, as I read all the coverage, I am getting some serious mixed messages:
- Women have made it! They will outnumber men in the workforce by the end of the year, a statistic widely reported in the news! Time Magazine finds that 60% of men believe there are no longer barriers to women’s advancement in the workplace. So, finally, parity has been reached! …. But wait, women still earn 77 cents on the dollar and are all but absent from the executive suite. Oops.
- Attitudes have changed! Time reported that 89% of men are comfortable with women earning more money than men in the household. And, 76% say that it’s a positive trend that women are half the workforce. Hurray! Wait a minute… 65% view the fact that children are bring raised with no stay-at-home-parent has negative impacts on society, and 57% of men say it’s better for the family if the father works and the mother takes care of the kids. What? Are we saying that it’s great that women are in the workforce as long as they aren’t mothers?
- Gender roles and stereotypes are gone! Women are astronauts, truck drivers, doctors, lawyers, politicians… you name it, we have done it, and we are not bound by gender stereotypical roles of nurturing and cleaning. Yay! Equality and freedom has been reached! Oh wait… 70% of women still report bearing the brunt of child rearing and household chores, and only 26% of women can claim a 50/50 split in household responsibilities. The NYTimes published a piece recently highlighting the myth of “choice” for women when it comes to having a career and a family (http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/08/the-opt-out-myth/ink).
- OK, so it’s not perfect. But we finally have it all! Surely we are happier? Not. It turns out study after study shows women’s happiness has been steadily declining since the 1970s.
So which is it? Have we made real progress or not? Like most complex social issues, the answer is, it’s relative.
When I interviewed scored of technical women for ABI’s research, I heard from the more senior ones that things have significantly improved – say, the overt hostility and sexual harassment that they had to go through at the beginning of their careers are no longer rampant in today’s environment. On the other hand, progress seems at times tenuous and painfully slow – in 2007, we had 25 women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. In 2008, we were down to 12. It seems like the numbers are still so small that it’s all too easy to turn back progress.
The answer to the question of whether things are looking up for women is an issue I struggle with, both as a researcher of women’s issues and as a mother. The research tells me that deeply rooted stereotypical assumptions and inequality in organizations and society at large still exist. But the mother in me wants to agree with my daughter, who at 12 years old insists on telling me that “things are equal now” and that I don’t need to focus my work on this issue anymore. Wouldn’t it be great if I could look at her and say “you are right, by the time you grow up you won’t get paid less than your male colleagues, you will have the same chances for advancement, and you won’t feel guilty for having a career and a family. I want to.
I would love to hear your thoughts on how far the issue of gender equality has come, and what remaining barriers you see in the workplace and in society in general. Is gender equality fact or fiction? Comment here, or email me at info@anitaborg.org
Recommend This If you liked this, let others know:
