The Advantages of Women in Technology

CYBR650 - Week 10

"When you put the helmet on, it doesn't matter if you are woman or man: your mission is to compete to win.  The important thing is your ability, your intelligence and your determination." 
Milka Duno, race car driver

“Recognize and embrace your uniqueness.  I don’t think the ratios are going to change anytime soon.  But I don’t think it has to be a disadvantage.  Being a black woman, being a woman in general, on a team of all men, means that you are going to have a unique voice.  It’s important to embrace that.”
 Erin Teague, Yahoo director of Product Management

While 57 percent of occupations in the workforce are held by women, in computing occupations that figure is only 25 percent.  This disparity is apparently getting worse, as fewer women are graduating from college with computer science degrees than there were in the 1980’s.  What is the impact of fewer women in technology jobs? 

Women are needed in technology fields

Current research indicates gender diversity has many benefits.  Diverse teams –not all male or all female -- tend to be more productive and have better team dynamics.  Interestingly, technology work teams stay on schedule and under budget when they are gender diverse.  These teams are more likely to experiment, are more likely to share knowledge and to complete tasks.  On the organizational level, when diversity is actively encouraged and facilitated in the workplace, it’s beneficial, but if ignored, there are more communication issues and weaker cohesion in work teams.

Time magazine reported that the gender gap in cybersecurity makes everyone less safe.  This is partly driven by the fact that there are fewer people available to work in cybersecurity when only half of the population are seeking jobs in the field.  Women only comprise 10 percent of the information security workforce.  Another significant factor is that security solutions aren’t developed with half the population in mind.  Since women experience the world differently, they also come up with different solutions to security issues.  In general, women are more sensitive to privacy issues than men, most likely because they are more affected by attacks on privacy.  One factor in this disparity could be due to the military and industrial roots of the field.  Terminology such as 'cyberwar' tend to discourage women from being interested. 

So what can be done to improve the situation?  Time suggests cybersecurity job postings should emphasize communal, mission oriented, human-centered impact, instead of corporate mission and defense.  But women need to be interested and trained long before the job posting.  Audrey MacLean, former CEO and financier for numerous successful tech start-ups, says the key is to interest girls in computing in grade school, with games that don’t involve violence, but offer challenges they find interesting.  My own experience with a daughter who became an industrial engineer, is that she found the teamwork, problem solving and product development interesting during college and loves the data analysis work she’s doing now.  But what peaked her interest in middle school, was a Disney website that discussed careers for their amusement parks. 

Whatever the solution, it may be too late for the technology demands in the next 10 to 15 years.  The tech sector is already short on college graduates who can fill IT jobs.