Gender and Info Networks
One week behind me in this new job, and I found myself talking about diversity with several people (e.g., Aliisa, Tuomo, and Lauri). Mainly we talked about the male-dominant culture in Aalto (née TKK) but especially in the Information Networks programme.
Monday was the launch of Social Media (CS-E5610) and among the many phenomena in social media we spent few minutes talking about gender. I presented the facts that young women and teenage girls seem to have more stress, depression and other mental issues due to the ubiquity of social media use.
When I asked the room why this is so, surprisingly, none of the women in the room shared their views. Two (brave?) men did.
This got me thinking, and please help me understand this:
Is there subtle pressure for women in Aalto/Info to be silent about their gender? Is it within the comfort zone to be “one of the guys” and not to remind others that at the end of the day, there is this gender thing? Not to rock the boat?
Diversity and gender issues are very important to me professionally and personally. So I want to be very transparent about the fact that my agenda is to address these topics and issues head-on. My objectives are to
a) educate, make aware, and teach students about the gender (and other) inequalities surrounding us (especially about tech and tech culture), and
b) do my best to make Information Networks a programme of diversity and gender equality, and
c) show that diversity is in the core of the values, thinking, and skills of future information technology professionals.
Therefore, I’m really happy that gender issues have popped up already during my first weeks at work. And it made me count few statistics about the work I’m directly involved in:
In the Social Media course our visiting lecturers are 5 women, 4 men (participants estimated 40% women).
And in Digital Service Design we have 11 women and 9 men taking the course. I believe this is the first time that we have more women than men.
I can’t remember the exact numbers of men & women in Info 1st year students (Markus, do you have the stats?), but there seemed to be a good balance.
All in all, please let me know your views and opinions. Please make gender and diversity the topics of your work and studies (course exercises, thesis topics etc). Please contribute in making Information Network the flagship program in Aalto where gender equality and diversity are in the oxygen we breathe.
P.S. One big move towards diversity has been ARTS in theVäre building. Go and walk around Väre and enjoy the diversity in architecture, people, services, student work etc.
P.P.S. …and by diversity I mean not only different genders but also diversity in ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, background, education, cultural heritage, and so on.
P.P.S. …and I just got data about gender diversity in the CS department. The percentage of women in CS dept: 11% bachelor students, 25% doctoral students, 18% postdocs, 0% professors. Lauri, the head of CS pointed out that this is a very important problem for us to solve.
