Final Paper

Working with the IT Crowd:

A Study of the Relation between Technological Change and Gender Structures in the Information Technology Sector

By: Kyla Espina

Technological innovation has often been associated with the expansion of labour opportunities for North American women in relation to occupations in information technology (IT) through its ability to create mixed skilled positions that combine creativity with technological skills and by introducing women to a unit that can generally be considered as gender neutral (Roan & Whitehouse, 2007, p. 22). However, review of numerous empirical research and analyzing recent experiences from my mother who is an IT manager at a construction company has proven the previous statement otherwise. The following paper will argue that technologic innovation has not been emancipatory for women who work in IT. I will first review the theoretical framework necessary to better understand this phenomenon through taking the perspective of the socialist feminist by focusing on the effects of technological change on women’s employment opportunities, experiences and skills (Wajcman, 2004, p. 24). This will then lead to my suggestion that though there are a number of positive capabilities that come with technologic advancement, such as improving the quality of work and creating more interesting positions (Wajcman, 2004, p. 24), women are generally hindered from reaching the more superior positions in IT companies and often experience a devaluation of their work and skills. This will be further emphasized through looking at a case study of the experiences of my mother who is a current IT manager and connect this to the findings from other researchers. Finally, I will conclude that the field of IT continues to be a site for male domination in the expense of women attempting to take advantage of the positive capabilities associated with technologic innovation.

Various authors have taken a turn in the direction of the liberal feminist approach by focusing on the socialization, aspirations and values of women and how these issues have contributed to the hardships they face when entering a position in IT (Wajcman, 2004, p. 14).  Rather than focusing on external factors such as labour policies designed to create better work life balance and asking institutions to reshape their practices in order to accommodate the woman’s double role as mother and employee, the liberal feminist approach very much focuses on creating equal representations among men and women (Wajcman, 2004, p. 15). There has also been a considerable amount of evidence that women are often forced to adopt masculine qualities and have gone so far as to learn a new social language in order to create a better, more comfortable environment while working in a male dominated occupation (Smith, 2013, p. 597).

This further emphasizes the equal opportunity recommendation that “asks women to exchange major aspects of their gender identity for a masculine version without prescribing a similar ‘degendering’ process for men” (Wajcman, 2004 p. 14). In relation to this, research has also uncovered the various coping strategies successful women in IT have created in order to be fully dedicated to their roles and aspirations as an employee. Some of these coping strategies include working hard, postponing marriage or not marrying at all in order to avoid potentially compromising their familial roles with their responsibilities as an employee (Ecevit, Gündüz-Hosgör & Tokluoglu, 2003; Truman & Baroudi, 1994, p. 83). This particular finding contributes to the idea suggested by Judy Wajcman (2004) that women are often forced to forsake their femininity in order to be welcomed into a world in which technology and the activities related to it are exclusively masculine (p. 15).

However, I would also like to point out that the liberal feminist theory and its goal to create more equal representations of women in more leadership positions may not be sufficient enough to fully address the problems that technologic innovation has created for women in IT. This is where the socialist feminist theory perspective can be applied as it argues to improve the existing organizational structure of the workplace as a whole and focuses on the negative results on women due to the capitalist society’s desire to maximize profit through controlling the labour force (Wajcman, 2004, p. 25). This is done by creating new units of technology that are designed to fragment and deskill labour in the hopes of minimizing costs and reducing the amount of human capital (Wajcman, 2004, p. 25). Wajcman (2004) and Juliet Webster (1995) use the introduction of the QWERTY keyboard as an example of a new technology that was designed to deskill labour. Both authors mention that the QWERTY keyboard was strategically chosen over the traditional linotype keyboard as a way of replacing men with cheaper women workers and as a result abolished the monopoly men previously had over print jobs (Wajcman, 2004, p. 26; Webster, 1995, p. 323). It can then be argued that technology and technologic innovation is linked to the concept of gender as men used the exclusivity of the skill of printing as a way of creating their identities as skilled male workers and also as a source of power over the diffusion and operation of a technology against potential female workers attempting to enter the workforce (Wajcman, 2004, p. 26).

Much of the research that has been included in this paper continuously shows gender as an important factor in shaping the organization of work as a result of technologic change. Gender differences in technical work can be seen as something that is socially constructed and are therefore highly resistant to change (Roan &Whitehouse, 2007). Because of this, it would be difficult to create effective policies and solutions that would solve the current sex segregation and the privileging of men’s skills. Amanda Roan and Gillian Whitehouse (2007) suggest that the ongoing segregation can be seen as a result of the perceived idea that women lack the aptitude, abilities or suitability for IT positions (p. 23). Furthermore, Louisa Smith (2013) states that “despite more than 30 years of equity strategies in a range of male-dominated occupations, including manual trades and IT, political correctness and quotas have done little to change the underlying gender relations in organisations and occupations” (p. 593). It can therefore be concluded that the liberal feminist perspective is insufficient due to the fact that even if more women were present in leadership positions, this would not completely change the hegemonic masculine norms that permeate positions in IT due to the fact that gender plays such an integral role in creating unequal hierarchical structures in the workplace. In addition, women who were able to break the barriers into being accepted into the male dominated environment of IT expressed common experiences of being devalued of their skills and as a result were being paid substantially lower than their male counterparts (Webster, 1994; Smith, 2013). Considering that the studies conducted by Webster (1994) and Smith (2013) were about nineteen years apart and yet managed to uncover similar data regarding the devaluation of women’s work solely due to their gender, it is evident that this trend has not changed and that these practices have been resistant to any technological change that has occurred since the preceding study emerged.

            Though much of the research does argue that technologic change has not been emancipatory for women working in IT, many have argued for the positive capabilities technology may have for women entering the labour force. Many believed that the advent of new technologies would increase the amount of mixed skilled positions that are able to merge technical and creative skills (Roan & Whitehouse, 2007, p. 24). For instance, designers would be able to take part in the programming and constructing of storyboards on computer-based prototypes; therefore, blurring the line between artistic work and technical knowledge (Roan & Whitehouse, 2007, p. 24). However, this scenario can be seen as one that accepts, rather than challenges, perceived gender differences in skills and job preferences between men and women (Roan & Whitehouse, 2007, p. 23). This is done by making the more masculine technical positions become more attractive for women who have attained the more feminine artistic and interpersonal skills (Roan & Whitehouse, 2007, p. 23). Conversely, this strategy of creating more mixed skilled positions can be deemed unsuccessful due to the deadline driven and multiple project based environment commonly attributed to the field of IT that generally makes these jobs unattractive for women who must balance their familial responsibilities with their duties at work.  

            In relation to these mixed skilled positions, Roan and Whitehouse (2007) researched a collection of organisational case studies conducted in 2003-2004 in order to discover the typical activities of four specialised IT companies. Among the studied IT organizations, there existed positions that were purely technical as well as those that were considered mixed skilled (Roan & Whitehouse, 2007, p. 27). However, this research found that the most prestigious positions were considered to be ones that involved a great amount of technical work, such as the development of software, that were rarely occupied by women and instead women were often located in mixed skilled positions (Roan & Whitehouse, 2007, p. 27). This study further promotes the idea that there continues to exist a sex segregation between the masculine technical roles in which men held a greater amount of prestige and power over women who occupied mixed skilled positions even with the advent of women obtaining greater knowledge of computer skills.

The next question that we must ask here is the reason for this division in a situation in which the spread of technology and its usage is growing amongst both males and females. At often times, men will acquire more work experience, formal training, skills and fewer career interruptions in comparison to women (Truman & Baroudi, 1994, p. 132). George E. Truman and Jack J. Baroudi (1994) attribute this phenomenon to the historic assumption that women must bear the child-rearing responsibilities of the household and thereby forcing them to forego taking part in activities that may reinforce their human capital or ways in which they can be seen as more attractive to employers (p. 132). As a result, women will incur lower wages, fewer promotions and therefore occupy lower job levels than men (Truman & Baroudi, 1994, p. 132).

            Continuing from the study conducted by Truman and Baroudi (1994) regarding the activities of four IT companies, it was found that there was a disproportionate number of male managers over that of females (p. 138). The data indicated that “while women and men with similar human capital value may be given comparable positions within the organizational hierarchy, the salaries of women will be significantly less than their male counterparts (Truman & Baroudi, 1994, p. 135). A possible reason for this may be that women were not being given the more critical or crucial tasks needed to succeed in the functioning of the organization and, as a result, women were being valued less (Truman & Baroudi, 1994, p. 135). Consequently, women in this particular study were “hitting a glass ceiling” as they were unable to reach the more superior managerial roles or tasks that were largely dominated by males (Truman & Baroudi, 1994, p. 138).

This reflected results from research done by Roan and Whitehouse (2007) who found from their own case study investigation that women were also encountering a glass ceiling that kept them at a project level and barred them from being entitled to positions in the upper management level (p. 28). It can also be assumed that simply adding more women to IT and introducing them to a major in Computer Science may not be sufficient enough to solve the ongoing sex segregation as characterized by IT companies due to the fact that the organizational nature may continue to devalue the work of women in comparison to men by giving them unequal economic treatment or lower salaries than male employees of the same ranking. Krista Scott-Dixon (2004) also found in her interviews with women working in IT that although women accounted for a quarter of employees in IT organizations, women were not equally represented in managerial roles or salaries, regardless of their similar qualifications and credentials (p. 51). When she asked her subjects how high someone in their field could go, many of them were stumped and had reached the highest level in their career level at their mid-thirties (Scott-Dixon, 2004, p. 51). “The more likely an occupation within a workplace was to be female-dominated, the less likely it was that there was a good chance of promotion” (Scott-Dixon, 2004, p. 51).

Let us again consider the timing of the data from these three pieces of research (1994, 2004 and 2007), the idea that both studies are thirteen years apart and are still finding that women are hitting a metaphorical glass ceiling suggests that the gender division in IT has not changed radically even when also considering the rate of technological advancements since 1994. This phenomenon can be attributed to the previously mentioned traditional assumption that women should be the one responsible for bearing the child caring and household duties as opposed to the male (Truman & Baroudi, 1994, p. 132). Because of this, women may be incurring a relatively lower amount of experience because they are either unwilling or they are attending to their personal priorities not pertaining to their career (Truman & Baroudi, 1994, p. 138). It is also important to consider that women do the bulk of the caregiving and house work as the household is often seen as the domain of the woman (Scott-Dixon, 2004, p. 52; Cockburn, 1997, p. 362). However, this type of unpaid labour is often seen as unproductive even though much of the tasks performed by women are highly important for the proper functioning for the members of the household such as feeding, cleaning and having a decent place to live (Scott-Dixon, 2004, p. 52).

While considering that women have a greater amount of household responsibilities than males, Truman & Baroudi (1994) state that organizations have not been sensitive to the to the family care needs of both male and female employees (p. 138). This may be due to the fact that the domain of the household is generally considered as feminine and consequently given less importance or attention than activities that revolve around technologies perceived as masculine, such as video games or computers (Cockburn, 1997, p. 362). “The social construction of home and household as relatively nontechnological is implicated in a wider pattern of meanings involving a relative devaluation of the domestic sphere” (Cockburn, 1997, p. 361). Perhaps this may be a factor in an organization’s potential insensitivity towards the familial needs of their employees represented in their maternity leave or vacation pay policies. Women, however, continue to struggle balancing their responsibilities of the household with work even with the advancements of technology allowing women to work at home and create a more flexible work schedule. Female workers may encounter a struggle in finding a balance between their “domestic space” and workspace” because they must attend to their personal work practices as well as the expectations of others (Scott-Dixon, 2004, p. 39).

The negotiation that these women must face between their responsibilities proves against the idea that working at home is an easy and stress free ordeal and those advancements in technology have improved the lives of working women with families.  The interviews conducted by Scott-Dixon (2004) found that many women had agreed that they enjoyed the freedom and comfort that came with working at home; however, the participants also reflected on the idea that their work was often placed at a different value than the work that was being conducted in a formal workplace (p. 40). Optimists had previously assumed that occupations in IT would bring about a more gender neutral environment as computers were seen as non-gendered in nature (Roan & Whitehouse, 1994, p. 22). The optimist arguments also perceived that due to the newness of IT and the technologies used, IT work would be absent of a long history of skill definition, status and gender stereotyping (Roan & Whitehouse, 1994, p. 22).

However, the following research by Scott-Dixon (2004) of the experiences of women doing IT work at home is an example of the traditional problem of the devaluation of women’s paid and unpaid work due to the idea that housework was routinely considered as having no value (p. 40). The men who did choose to work at home were perceived as being exceptional employees due to their advanced skills that allowed them to work from home rather than a formal workplace (Scott-Dixon, 2004, p. 40). On the other hand, the women who worked at home were perceived as being housewives, which consequently devalued their work and forced them to receive lower pay than their male counterparts despite producing the same level of work (Scott-Dixon, 2004, p. 40). This notion suggests that work in the IT field is not gender blind and that the assumption that new technologies would create new forms of work that would disrupt established career structures and gender hierarchies as questionable.

In contrast, a study done by Yildiz Ecevit, Ayse Gündüz-Hosgör, Ceylan Tokluoglu, (2003) of professional women in Turkey with computer related high status jobs found a more positive outlook on the representation of women in higher level positions (p. 79). They found that women constituted 39 percent of system analysts and 44 per cent of computer programmers in Turkey (Ecevit et al., 2003, p. 79). In contrast, the USA saw women making up only 34 percent of system programmers and 36 percent of computer programmers which can be seen as a surprising feat due to the fact that women in the USA are systematically encouraged to choose computer sciences through scholarships and affirmative action programmes that are not available in Turkey (Ecevit et al., 2003, p. 79). However, the women who were successful in this sector had developed various coping strategies in order to balance their professional and marital roles (Ecevit et al., 2003, p. 79). Married women who experienced a conflict between their roles at home and in their career may be forced to choose to either keep their roles separate or to eliminate roles entirely that are negatively associated with job satisfaction (Ecevit et al., 2003, p. 83).

            The most notable coping strategies found in this study by Ecevit et al. (2003) were working hard, postponing marriage or not marrying at all (p. 83). The first strategy, working hard, goes back to a study conducted by Smith (2013) in which fifteen women were interviewed from IT occupations. One interviewee found that her position as being the first female developer came with the need to prove herself in her work and as a woman (Smith, 2013, p. 596). This need to prove themselves by working harder was a result from being observed more intently by their peers simply due to their visibility as women (Smith, 2013, p. 596). “Being a woman in these settings was a burden which required women to work harder, more precisely and more accountably” (Smith, 2013, p. 596). This again shows the unequal experiences of men and women in the field of IT; mainly, that women must work harder and make greater sacrifices to achieve the successes that men are able to reach in a less volatile environment.

Of these sacrifices made by women to get ahead in their careers is that of their marital roles. Results from the study of professional women in Turkey by Ecevit et al. (2003) indicate that “only 21 (32.8 per cent) of the women are married whereas seven of them (10.9 per cent) are divorced, one of them is separated, one of them is widowed and 32 of them (50 percent) are single (never married)” (p. 84). In this case, only 6.3 percent of the professional women in Turkey who were able to achieve high status positions in IT were still married (Ecevit et al., 2003, p. 84). This study also found a high incidence of divorce and separation among married women and high percentage of never married women who found it difficult to manage a demanding work life in IT with marital responsibilities (Ecevit et al., 2003, p. 84). Therefore, it can be concluded that the majority of women were able to be successful in this field because they did not need to compromise their marital and career roles due to the fact that they were single, divorced, separated or widowed. This particular finding contributes to the idea suggested by Wajcman (2004) that women are often forced to forsake their femininity in order to be welcomed into a world in which technology and the activities related to it are exclusively masculine (p. 15).

Data gathered from the included authors and researchers have very much reflected the experiences of my mother, an IT manager at a construction firm in Vancouver. Perhaps this is the reason why I gravitated towards this topic as an individual who witnessed the experiences of a woman working in IT as well as being the daughter of that same woman. I often like to use my parents as an example as both of them are the same age, race, graduated from the same university with the same degree and worked for the same company for many years when we had previously lived in Asia. Consequently, the one thing that tells them apart when they search for a job is their gender. Upon arriving to Canada in 2004, both my parents were forced to begin their journey up the corporate ladder once again as experience and education acquired in Indonesia and the Philippines were not recognized here. Scott-Dixon (2004) refers to social location as “the complex interactions between our gender, race/ethnicity, age, ability, sexuality and socio-economic class” (p. 32). In this case, my parents could not escape their social location that recognized them as foreign individuals due to the country named on their passports, dark hair and tan complexion. How this affected them was through their inability to acquire the same positions that they had once had while living in Asia and as a result, their social location greatly shaped not only their immigration experience but also their entire life thereafter.

What I observed from watching my parents struggle from climbing this corporate ladder was that my father had been able to restore his previous position much faster than my mother. While in just a few months my father was able to find a position similar to the one he had had in Asia, my mother on the other hand felt that she was stuck being overqualified in her current position for many years. It can also be stated that the effort and persistence that my mom had to endure while being excluded from related IT occupations was in itself devalued as she must deal with rejection arguably based on her gender (Smith, 2013). This reflects the idea of a gender division present in the field of IT due to the fact that the only factor that separated my parents was their social location as either male or female which then prevented my mother from receiving the same economic treatment as my father.

Recently, my mother was just promoted from being an accounting assistant to becoming the IT manager at her organization after she had helped build the new software program for the company. However, when this promotion had been announced in her company, an angry male colleague of hers instantly went to their boss’ office to question why my mother had been given the position instead of him disregarding her previous credentials and her large role in building the software. This case is another example in which a woman’s office work becomes devalued simply due to the fact that it is a woman who is performing it (Webster, 1995, p. 319). This further emphasizes the idea that simply adding more women to leadership positions in IT and introducing them to the field of computer science at a young age does not necessarily end the devaluation of the work of women exclusively because of their gender. Though my mother was able to break the barriers and obtain a leadership position, she must endure the resistance of her male colleagues as well as the difficulty itself to re-enter a position in IT.

 In conclusion, technological innovation has not proven to be emancipatory for women working in IT organizations or positions. The optimistic perspective would argue that new information technologies and its ability to be non-gendered would create new forms of work for women, such as the creation of mixed skilled positions, and give women the option to work from home (Roan & Whitehouse, 1994, p. 22). Though many women did occupy these new mixed skilled occupations, the purely technical jobs and tasks were often seen as more prestigious and were rarely occupied by women (Roan & Whitehouse, 2007, p. 27). Furthermore, there was often a stigma in the workplace that labeled women who work at home as ‘housewives’ and men who worked at home as that much more talented (Scott-Dixon, 2004, p. 40). It can then be assumed that technologies and the field of IT were not gender neutral as women were often greatly visible for their gender which largely came with negative implications. This is an important problem to address as research in this arena has proven that there has been little change or improvement in the experiences of women working in IT since the earliest research appeared in 1994. Meaning, the current implementations put in place in hopes of adding more women to these positions have not proven to be effective in creating a non-gendered environment and creating a space in which individuals are measured based on their experience or credentials rather than gender.

It can therefore be determined that the liberal feminist perspective is insufficient in solving the problems related to women and the field of IT as it neglects the social division that has been proven to be imminent in these positions through the devaluation of women’s work, skills or qualifications. The experiences as presented from my mother and those provided by various authors have showed that technologies have been proven not to be gender neutral as at many times women were being devalued for their work simply due to their gender. It is because of the fluidity of gender and its ability to largely go unnoticed that it will be difficult to find solutions in regards to policies or introducing more women to computer science (Smith, 2013, p. 593). Rather, I would call for more research that not only investigates but goes beyond simply adding more women to the computer science and leadership positions in IT. This may mean tackling the socialization process, otherwise known as the time when “women’s’ attitudes about appropriate job roles are formed” (Truman & Baroudi, 1994, p. 130) in the earlier stages of academic education and understanding how these attitudes are formed and potential ways in which to alter them. After being able to have a better understanding of this, it may be more possible create more effective solutions that will conquer gender discriminatory practices in IT.