Digital should be used to level the playing field, not exclude women from the game altogether
First Women Exclusives · August 30, 2016
Dame Kelly Holmes described it as the greatest moment of the games and many women took to social media to proclaim they were taking up a sport. As the nation reacted to the historic gold medal win by Team GB’s women’s hockey team during the Olympics, I couldn’t help but think about how such a moment could have an even bigger impact. The Dutch team’s ambition to win their third consecutive Olympic title certainly made it a nail biting final, but the British women came, they dominated and they showed them all. It is almost the perfect analogy – how can women in business do the same?
We are living through an era of almost unprecedented disruption and change, driven by technological innovation. In addition to all the opportunities, a great deal has been said about the challenges this presents, and one thing that is clear throughout is that businesses need to field their best team in order to succeed. This means they need to be able to draw on a wide and diverse pool of talent.
Take a closer look at that pool and you discover that women are almost absent from the STEM revolution that is touching every aspect of our lives. If science teaches us one thing, it is a healthy respect for the facts, and the figures are dire indeed: the number of women in STEM industries begins to drop from a young age. It starts at A-Level where only one in six students taking physics are girls. By the time it reaches degree level 12,800 boys study engineering, compared to only 400 girls.
We need more people who understand and can innovate, not just within the fields of STEM, but at the top of technology organisations. Without those role models, the problem evolves into a self-fulfilling issue; women look at an organisation, see a female void and draw the conclusion that their ‘type’ cannot succeed there.
Digital fluency is pivotal to changing the prospects of women
Research from Accenture highlights that more men than women are taking advantage of digital advances, but when women and men have the same level of digital proficiency, they are better at using those skills to gain more education and find work. Digital fluency acts as an accelerant in every stage of an individual’s career lifecycle – education, employment and advancement – particularly among women.
Significantly, if government and business can double the pace at which women become digitally fluent, gender equality could be achieved in 25 years in a developed economy like ours, versus 50 years at the current pace.
If we look at the barriers that make it hard for women to engage in, let alone succeed in the workplace, digital provides the capacity to overcome them. For example, digital can have a positive impact through flexible working via changes to working patterns, access to childcare, access to training, remote learning, crowd funding, low cost of entry to markets and so on.
Simply put, our research shows that end-to-end (education to advancement) the changes that come with a digital economy can enfranchise women at an exponential pace. We found that 63 per cent of women and 50 per cent of men were confident that digital has the power to level the playing field for women.
If this is true, then more women need to be actively involved in developing solutions because this can lead to remarkable outcomes. Take Facebook for example, two of its most popular features – the inclusion of photography and the newsfeed – were concepts created by women. Technology is increasingly more about communications – me to you, business to business, machine to machine, and so on. As digital continues to takeover all aspects of our lives, from our homes and social lives, to shopping habits and work, women need to be a part of the group shaping how those communications come about, and how they are conducted. As it is in sport, it is our responsibility to counter any perceptions that all women, young and old, may have that technology isn’t for them.
By Emma McGuigan, managing director for Technology, Accenture
You might also like to read:
- Trinity College to establish annual women’s STEMM event
- Women possess all the ingredients required to be charismatic leaders
- A-level results show that gap between best-performing girls and boys has narrowed
