Women in computing: We’re here to stay.
“Computing is too important to be left to men”: this was the motto followed by Karen Sparck-Jones, a pioneer in information retrieval and natural language processing.
With the growing demand in tech fields, society requires the contributions of women as well as men to computing. The statistics put forward by leading IT companies to show us the current situation of the presence of women. TCS says more than a third of its 390K workforce are women while Cognizant recently celebrated 100K women milestone out of its 280K member workforce.
According to Nasscom’s India’s Tech Industry: Women for the Techade report published in 2019, around 35% of India’s tech workforce is Women.
While the total share of Women in Tech workforces seems to be on the rise, there are concerns about a drop in the ratio of women at senior management roles. The M-M-M problem continues to trouble Women and their Careers.
M- Mobility, M- Marriage, M- Motherhood
Men do not face these issues, which leads to them bagging most of the crucial high-level roles in companies.
Small minds do exist who think that women are not biologically suited for computing careers. An infamous example is the Manifesto published by a male employee of Google that went viral in 2017 — claims that women have higher anxiety and lower stress tolerance, which makes it hard for them to survive in technical fields. How can this be true? Women have been working with computers since the very beginning. In 1842, Ada Lovel wrote the first algorithm, and even though a computer wasn’t built in her lifetime, her work laid the basis for making it.
When we look at the number of women pursuing computer science, we see the growing decline that persists. Gender stereotyping at the root level brings down confidence in women and this, in turn, prevents them from pursuing higher roles in tech. Only a quarter of the workforce in STEM today are women.
Stereotyping still does exist in the 21st century but, understanding the benefits of inclusion of women is the way forward to reducing it. Increasing the inclusion of women will provide a sound business strategy. A study by Deloitte showed that women’s choices account for up to 85% of buying decisions! This study indicates that the integration of women in project teams would only lead to higher revenues and a better understanding of the consumer market. Women should be encouraged to pursue careers in computers since it has one of the smallest pay gaps between male and female professionals.
While companies are playing their part by increasing the inclusion of women, starting at the initial stages is necessary. Many educational systems and organizations are taking the initiative to make this happen. We’ve seen explosive growth among non-profit groups, like ACM-W, TechGirlz, and many others, dedicated to closing the gender gap in technology. ACM-W globally recognizes, celebrates, and encourages women’s full inclusion in all areas of computing and provides a wide range of programs to its members.
Despite these advancements, some women still face discrimination and prejudice in the tech world every day. We will not rest till we get our seat at the table where we belong.
