Recognizing Injustice in Tech with Dr. Sarah Saska
A recap of our podcast conversation with the CEO & Co-Founder of Feminuity
It was one study that acted as the awakening for Dr. Sarah Saska as she worked towards her PhD. We learned through the recent episode of the First Name Basis podcast that Sarah isn’t the type to ignore a glaring issue. And setting upon that issue to catalyze positive change is simply her second nature.
Our CEO Sheetal Jaitly joined Dr. Sarah Saska to discuss the inequity and inequality existing in the tech world, and how her company Feminuity is working towards positive change.
“We need to call BS on the Canadian tech sector for their diversity tout,” Sarah says. Just because we’re a diverse population, the mentality is that Canadians don’t need to work towards change:
Back to the study — Sarah was working towards her PhD when she discovered that automotive companies still use car crash safety tests designed during the Second World War when those behind the wheel were predominately males. “There is a deep-seated gender related bias,” she says about these crash tests. The study was about how car accidents are the leading death related to maternal trauma. Even in disruptive, forward-thinking auto brands, these tests still use a 180-pound physical frame. This means anyone under that height and weight are left out — namely, pregnant women. Hear the clip below:
Sarah paused her studies because she had to ask herself “who is solving for this?” There wasn’t anyone. This research became her inspiration.
Feminuity consults with companies to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion into the core of everything they do. That means building diverse teams, equitable processes, inclusive products, and company cultures where everyone belongs. Of course, when the pandemic hit, this service was needed ten fold, but in many cases companies were not prioritizing this critical consulting.
“The last 6 to 7 months have not been for the faint of heart,” Sarah tells Sheetal. But luckily, Feminuity is still working diligently, day by day, to improve companies from the inside out by working to make them more inclusive, even during these financially unstable months.
The conversation weaves from the topic of being at odds at using technology to solve diversity, equity and inclusion challenges in tech, to the irony of Sarah being called a luddite for turning down an offer to build a platform, to the biases existing in HR tech.
“We need to think about ethics and injustice when we design and build tech,” she says. “There are issues with attempting to solve the pay equity issue with HR tech because of algorithms that operate on biases and hiring objectivity.”
The main takeaways from Dr. Sarah Saska are that of changing our perspective and committing to action — the right way. “We need to get beyond the gender conversation. There are so many missing from the table, the more diverse you can make you team, the better. Another app will not correct for years of systemic inequities and the way people are hurting. We need to view this AI [the tech being used to work on rectifying equity and equality injustices, like in hiring technology] as very much in its infancy. Tech and innovation will only be powerful when everyone is actually empowered by it. And we’re a long way from that right now.”
Listen to the full conversation with Dr. Sarah Saska below or anywhere you listen to podcasts: Apple, Spotify, YouTube, Google Podcasts.
Check out Feminuity here.
Access Feminuity diversity & inclusion resources for companies here.
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