Gender equality in an IT security world
Millions around the world marched for gender equality on 21 Jan 2017. I was proud to be one of the hundreds rallying in the Wellington party that kicked off 673 marches worldwide. This day also marked my first public stance for equality.
Holdonasec. Who are you and why are you invading the SafeStack blog?
Let me take a step back.
Hello, I’m Chris. Born in Singapore, knee-high Asian Chinese and newly appointed Minion Hustler for SafeStack. This means you’ll be hearing quite a bit of my voice via SafeStack and Dfend channels. I hope we will get to know each other more over the coming months.
Singapore doesn’t really do marches. So it was interesting when I found a deep sense of satisfaction burn through my initial apprehension as I held my sign high. I marvelled at the diversity of the crowd as, shoulder to shoulder, we almost danced our way from The Beehive to Civic Square.
Then came the startling question.
“Excuse me, I’d like to know your thoughts on how New Zealand could improve its position on gender equality.”
This question. Coming from the first country in which women won the right to vote.
Where 64.6% of women in New Zealand are active in the workforce. (Think that is low? Contrast that with the world average of 50%.)
Where the gender pay gap is the subject of focus, not just the ability for females to access the same opportunities to their male counterparts.
I am thankful for the opportunity to experience living in one of the countries leading in gender equality.
More than that, I’m grateful to be in a company that actively seeks to encourage equality in the workplace.
You see, when I responded to Laura’s call for an IT sales and marketing person three months ago, I held a huge amount of hope. In fact, my email to Laura captioned “Are you the one who restores my faith in IT sales?”. Yet after going through the interview process, the pessimistic side of me still expected some degree of whitewashing.
It’s been barely a week since I’ve joined the SafeStack, but wow am I honoured to be part of this team. We are looking forward to welcoming our 10th SafeStack member in a couple of weeks, which will put us at 5 males and 5 females in an IT security firm. That’s more female security consultants than the entire Bay of Plenty region did in 2013. With a female CEO leading the helm. Just the thought of this makes me swell with pride.
For those who don’t understand the significance of this, I’m just going to run ahead and pull up more stats. I already mentioned that only 64.6% of women in New Zealand are active in the workforce. This is opposed to 75.2% of the men in New Zealand. Contrast this with the dismal stats of women holding management positions. In the tech industry, the number drops to approximately 30% internationally.
New Zealand’s last census in 2013 indicated that 40,014 people identified as IT professionals, with 9,708 of them (24.2%) women. Of the 162 world-weary souls who listed their profession as Security specialists, 30 (18.5%) were women.
For scale, the area of a pedestrian crossing is 36m2. All of New Zealand’s female IT security specialists could cross the road at the same time.
Disclaimer: We would never recommend this as it would be a nightmare for disaster recovery if things went wrong ;)
I spoke with Laura (CEO of SafeStack, for those of you that were wondering).
This 50/50 balance was not an accident.
She knows that this won’t be easy for us to keep this up. The issue of gender imbalance, particularly in the tech industry, stems from education and cultural mindsets.
It’s also more than just gender. It’s about diversity. SafeStack’s mishmash of backgrounds and cultures have generated a collective bubbling pot of perspectives and experiences. Asking “what are you having for lunch?” has never been more entertaining.
Laura also highlighted security’s need for diversity to succeed.
“No two organisations or systems look the same… why wouldn’t we try to make our approaches and people as diverse as our customers and their challenges?”
But an active pursuit for diversity and equality makes all the difference. Embracing these shared values (and quirky personalities) are just some of the things that I have noticed SafeStack rigorously imprint into its DNA.
Thank you, SafeStack, for welcoming me into the family.
P.S.: If you know of an inspiring individual or organization that is trying to make a difference in diversity and/or equality, please write in to chris@safestack.io — I’d love to share your stories!
