Navigating the gender structure in information technology: How does this affect the experiences and behaviours of women?

Abstract

How do women, outnumbered and outranked, navigate work and careers in information technology? Only one in six information technology (IT) specialists in the UK is female. Such extreme male dominance potentially gives rise to a gender structure that affects women’s experiences of IT work. Using data from interviews with 57 technically skilled female IT professionals, we examine how women orient this gender structure and how they make sense of their gender identities as women working in IT. Our findings elucidate how the IT gender structure shapes women’s careers in this field of work. They reveal how women use their agency to assert notions of femininity into technical careers, disentangle narratives around whether women have unique and different (but less technically focused) strengths in IT and interface with ‘geek’ and ‘nerd’ identities to achieve successful IT careers. In doing so, they provide insight into how technical women continue careers within a structure that externalises them through gender norms. This understanding can be used to aid efforts to retain women within IT as well as other fields facing similar challenges.

Mapping the implications and competencies for Industry 4.0 to hard and soft total quality management

“…For example, a shift in technological culture is obtained to accommodate diversity through scholarly and policy attention (Hardey, 2020). Those women were managing the technological gender structure strategically by using their agency to assert notions of femininity into technical careers (Kenny and Donnelly, 2020). Little evidence that embodies masculine personality characteristics are rewarded in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors and careers (Simon et al , 2017).…”

El rol del audiovisual en la activación de la memoria autobiográfica en víctimas de violencia de género=The role of audiovisual in the activation of autobiographical memory in victims of gender violence

“…Sin embargo, recientes estudios de Feminist Technoscience Studies (FTS) observaron que las tecnologías digitales y la IA están sesgadas en términos de género, sexo, trabajo, clase, etnia, (dis)capacidad (Wajcman, 2010;Sumartojo et al 2016;Hicks, 2017;Leavy, 2018;Kenny y Donnelly, 2020), lo que conlleva que se debe hacer un nuevo planteamiento de los audiovisuales que se están empleando en estas bases de datos con el objeto de poder enseñar a las máquinas las especificidades de la violencia de género.…”

Cooperativismo de plataforma: Análisis de las cualidades democráticas del cooperativismo como alternativa económica en entornos digitales

“…Por otro lado, la economía de plataforma extractivista presenta desafíos para la igualdad de género. Diferentes autores sostienen que este modelo reproduce jerarquías y sesgos de género, raza y clase (Edelman & Luca, 2014;Schor, 2016;Schor et al, 2016), agregando que los algoritmos también reproducen estereotipos de género (Kenny & Donnelly, 2020). De hecho, esto se confirmó en la gran mayoría de las organizaciones entrevistadas teniendo en cuenta que, en cinco de las trece, se constata que hay equidad de género entre las personas que utilizan la plataforma, en dos de las trece respecto a las personas que trabajan en ella y en ninguna respecto a la propiedad de la plataforma.…”