12 Jun 2020
Did you know that the first programmer ever was a woman in the 19th century? Ada Lovelace, an English mathematician and writer, wrote the first algorithm to be carried out by the Analytical Engine, a mechanical general-purpose computer proposed by Charles Babbage.
With that in mind, also consider that, as of 2016, women only accounted for 25% of all computing-related occupations, and that there has been a steady decline in the number of women in technology since 1991 – much to the dismay of Ada Lovelace, I would assume.
Yet, I’m sure you’re wondering: “why do we even need the input of females in the development of technology? Technology seems to have come far enough without them.” Well, the answer to that lies in simply four words (which collectively form an interesting alliteration as well, so props to that!): bias, blush, business, and benchmark. Let’s explore these 4 Bs in a little more depth.
1. Bias
We all know that artificial intelligence lacks a gender, but does it really lack sexism?
Since 2014, Amazon had been creating an AI-based hiring tool to automate the search of the best talent, in which you would feed 100 resumes and then it would spit out the top 5 of those for the company to hire. However, let’s just say that it wasn’t particularly gender-neutral, as it seemed to discriminate against women for software developers’ jobs and other technical posts.
But, why was this happening? To put it simply, bias – the algorithm was trained to vet and rate potential candidates based on patterns from past successful resumes, but because tech companies are generally male-dominated, promising and preferable candidates were thought majorly to be male by the machine. Now, think – would the software have been biased towards a particular gender, had a healthier balance between the genders been maintained in tech? Probably not.
2. Blush
I know, this B, in isolation, seems slightly less self-explanatory than the others, but you’ll soon understand.
Before the change made in 2019, if you’d verbally abuse Apple’s Siri with sexist comments, Siri, a female-gendered voice assistant, would reply with, “I’d blush if I could,” thus promoting female submissiveness in response to sexist gender abuse. Why may this have emerged? Consider the stereotyping of women in tech due to the lack of women in tech as an answer here.
Yes, I understand that the response by a voice assistant, who most of us would pass off as a travesty, would not seem as significant. However, a report by UNESCO states that such sexist settings could contribute to widening the gender divide even further.
Our technology is a reflection our society, so this coerces us to think: how far have we really come in the battle of gender equality? The “blushes” and blemishes of our technology seem to reveal it all.
3. Business
A study conducted by Boston Consulting Group and the Technical University of Munich has promulgated that the companies with the greatest gender diversity (in which 40% of the managers were female) have seen improved financial performances, as they generated 34% of their revenues from innovative products and services most recently.
Therefore, not only is a greater gender diversity better for products as it eliminates bias, it also gives companies a competitive advantage financially – women in tech is thus a gamble with great returns.
4. Benchmark
Before we delve into this B, I’d want you to take a minute and count about all the pertinent women in tech you can come up with. 1, 2, 3, go!
I’m sure your number would be capped at 5, if not less. Now, I’d want you to repeat the same exercise with men in tech – the mental list for this one must definitely be capped at a higher number than that for women.
Why is this so? For once, I don’t have a definitive answer. Nor are males better than females at computing subjects (“Are Boys Better than Girls at Math?”), and nor has there been am ultimate lack of achievements from women in technology (Grace Hopper, Margaret Hamilton, and Katie Bouman are a few examples of exemplary women in tech).
Nonetheless, I’d peg my (non-definitive) answer to be the lack of benchmarks for female scientists in technology due to the minimal number of women in technology in the first place. If we had more representation, we would naturally have more achievements from the gender, thus more benchmarks. The greater representation and benchmarks of women in tech could also motivate other budding female scientists to venture into tech.
But, what can we do right now to encourage fairer technology? For starters, besides supporting voluntary non-profits like Girls Who Code, you could encourage all those women around you who are interested in tech to pursue their passion and expand the horizons of technology with their skills. Who knows, I may list them as a benchmark when I review this article in the future!