By Rysha Sultania
I had my economics exam recently and while absentmindedly flipping through my frayed book, I came across this one sentence that really stuck with me; “With the development in technology even women are being involved in the industry at a growing rate.” This enraged me. Excuse me, EVEN women? I’d like to point out that the first modern software engineers were women and society “welcoming” them back isn’t really an achievement considering they never should have been forced to leave in the first place.
Malice aside, gender equality has really started progressing albeit at a very slow rate but change is coming and that’s what counts. A huge hand in this transformation in the power dynamic is that of technology. Whether women’s participation in tech or the by-products of tech lead to this shift we’ll never know but it’s sure that the virtual world has changed the real one quite a bit.
Female Advocates and the World of Tech
Ximena Hartsock is the co-founder and president of Phone2Action, a DC-based startup that enables citizens to connect with policymakers via email, Twitter and Facebook using their mobile phones. “True change begins when people’s voices are heard, and some of the largest women’s movements today, including #MeToo and the Women’s March, have been launched and executed using digital advocacy platforms,” she says.
Through the shrinking of the world and awareness created about what’s going on everywhere, surveys and petitions pop up instantly demanding justice as soon as the women inequality siren starts blaring. The ones silenced at home now finally have a voice, that’s audible, piercing and revolutionary!
Tech for the Women in the Workforce:
Though women make up half the global economic potential, their representation in the workforce and the rules that govern these workplaces are dismal, discriminatory being an understatement. With the problem of the wage gap, poor employee provisions and sexual harassment, it comes as no surprise that we have a long way to go. However the digital fairy has blessed us once again making recruitment processes and other nitty gritties a lot more inclusive.
Carisa Miklusak, CEO of tilr, an algorithmic hiring solution, has been on the forefront of creating a new workforce that understands and accommodates the challenges it is to be a working woman in today’s society. She says, “At tilr, we match on skills, not titles – so even if a woman has never had a specific title, if she has the amalgamated skills to do the job, tilr will send her the job and then measure the efficiency of the output, or the job performance, as stated by both the woman and her new employers, thus eliminating bias.”
Tech in Women’s Education:
There has been remarkable progress in the education of girls and gender inclusive skill development both on the legal and personal front. Like it does with all spheres, technology is not one to discriminate and thus has an active role in bettering the status of participation of girls in schools and beyond.
“Diversity and inclusion are at the heart of our mission, and as a result, it seemed logical to think of an application that was blind and unbiased. It is fully automated and applicants are not asked about gender, background, ethnicity, GPA, zip code, etcetera,” says Julien Barbier, co-founder and CEO of Holberton School which aims to ensure women applicants are not ignored.
In Conclusion:
Now these initiatives are just some examples but the main point is that technology is playing a great role in improving the lives of women and allowing them to mould the world of tomorrow in the way they so rightly deserve. Here’s hoping that things only improve!
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