While women around the world celebrate the annual International Women’s Day, Ayodeji Ake writes about challenges faced by the gender in the tech industry
Since 1975, International Women’s Day (IWD), has been celebrated all over the world annually on March 8. It is meant to honour women and create awareness about oppression, inequality and discrimination against women. Women’s Day is a global event organised by United Nations (UN) women to promote gender equality and economic inclusion for women and girls.
The 2024 IWD theme, ‘Invest in Women, Accelerate Progress’, is a reflection of the event to close the huge gap of annual deficit spending on gender equality measures by 2030.
In Nigeria, the annual celebration has also been specially designed to encourage women and address challenges faced by women and advocate inclusion. Women in tech are not exempted from these challenges.
In a conversation with User Experience Designer (UX) expert, Mrs. Oyindamola Ogunsola, revealed that women have an increased urge to perform excellently in the tech sector but are given limited chances as some tech employers and organisation prefer the opposite gender. This, she stressed results to alarming gender discrimination in the sector.
According to her, while some organisations prefer employing unmarried ladies and lay them off when they are married, especially during childbearing stage, she also revealed that Nigeria has a low record of tech engineers due to the perception that women do not have the strength to handle heavy materials and may not function better than men.
“Some organisations prefer employing single ladies and later the fear of her getting married becomes a problem. They believe when a lady gets married, gets pregnant and goes on maternity leave, there will be changes.
“In most cases, some organisations prefer men because they assume even when they get married nothing changes. Even when his wife is pregnant, he is not the one carrying the child.
“In other areas of tech like the network engineers, men are mostly employed because it’s a general belief that women can’t handle heavy materials like the cables which is not true. They assume the jobs are meant for men and not women. There are still areas in tech that women face discrimination,” she said.
The UX Design expert also spoke about sexual harassment in the workplace. According to her, although both genders face sexual harassment in the workplace, it is more rampart to see women exit the industry for refusal to yield.
“Again, there are cases of sexual harassment at workplaces. The females are the ones who face this more than the males. Some employees give job offers in exchange for what they can offer and not based on their skills and experience. Sexual harassment is also in the tech industry,” she said.
In order to address the challenges, aside from policies to protect women, Ogunsola called for a change in the mindset of employers, leaders and decision-makers. She believed there should be increased education about the values women contribute to development, which will help in changing the mindset.
She also advocated that there should be jobs that would be created for women only. This, according to her, would encourage women and also promote inclusion.
She said: “Talking about how to address these challenges, it has to start with the mindset. If leaders of organisations can change their mindset exposing it to the facts that a woman is fragile but skillful and of rich experience to get a job done, half of the problem is solved.
“Then we can start talking about education. Massive education about the importance of women in every organisation and society at large would help change their mindset. Just because we are women doesn’t mean we will do less, or that men will do better.
“Some organisations are doing so well creating rooms for women and young ladies into the industry. They are given more opportunities than men. I discovered recently that women are always scrutinised more than men during interviews. These should be residue to give women opportunities. And again, it will be fair if there are jobs designed specifically for women.
“On maternity leave and conditions, employers and organisations should understand that they are natural unavoidable situations that are attached to women. It’s not a genuine reason to choose men over women but should be about the value the women bring to the organisation and what they can deliver.
“The government too always has a role to play in policy development to support women. Policies condemning discrimination against women will be helpful. And if there are existing policies, execution and monitoring should be done to do justice to policies made.”
Furthermore, she made a call on men to be good support system for women.
“For married women, the support of the husband is essential. The husband needs to understand how much effort the woman has to put into getting results on her job. It’s simply one of the ways to encourage women. Having a supportive husband, he should understand the quantity and quality of time the wife would be on her personal computer and to get work done and should assist to make the environment relaxing and workable for her,” she said.
In conclusion, Ogunsola spoke on the need to train young girls in tech and groom them for the future as the only recipe for getting more women in tech. “One way to get more females in tech is to catch them young. Programs should be held at school to introduce young people into the field, school curriculums should adopt subjects in the field. School trips to tech festivals and talks would expose them to the available areas in the field and pick their interests,” she said.
Also lending her voice to the challenges faced by women in tech, the Founder of Women Entrepreneurs and Executives in Tech (WEET Foundation), Mrs. Ugochi Emmanuel, highlighted the gender pay gap and under-representation of women in leadership in both the private and public sectors.
In the same vein, she also lamented gender discrimination and sexual harassment.
She said: “The International Women’s Day is an annual event. The annual event is a call to action for accelerating gender equality globally. It is also an advocacy and setting agenda to advance the lives of women. Also highlighting the changes faced by women globally.
“Gender-based discrimination is one of the problems women face globally. Women because of their gender in some communities still get denied access to education and employment opportunities.
“For example, in some Arabic communities, they still believe that women should remain at home and not be sent to school for employment. They also believe men should be given employment opportunities while women stay back at home. “Despite advancement in gender equality, there is still a huge gap when it comes to pay between men and women. Even though they are doing the same job, there is still a disparity between both genders.
“Speaking about gender-based violence, women are mostly affected by various forms of violence. Domestic violence, sexual harassment and trafficking. These are the issues that require changes and support for women. It will shock you to know that some women are still going through all of these mentioned.
“Also, it’s important that we talk about underrepresentation in leadership roles, especially in politics. Women also face the challenge of self-expression.”
Speaking on the support system for women, Emmanuel stressed that husband and organisation also have roles to play.
While husbands try to understand their wives and work together for the family, organisations should also emulate the style of establishing a creche system that would enable women drop their children in the morning and pick them up after work without having divided attention at work for maximum productivity.
“Mothers trying to strike a balance between work and family, it’s left for the woman to manage her home properly and a good husband as a support system.
“An understanding husband who shares in the big dream of his wife goes a long way to help push the woman to achieve her aim while she balances both. But when the husband is not supportive, it becomes a very difficult task for the woman.
“On the part of the organisation, every organisation must understand that childbearing requires special attention and leave should be granted to the women, and also when she resumes, she should be allowed to close early.
“Husbands and wives need to plan together to meet up expectations and demands at home. And good enough some organisations are already running creche also to assist mothers. When they get to work in the morning, they take their children to the Creche and pick them up after work, making work easier. If all organisations can emulate this style, it helps women to perform better at work instead of having divided attention,’ she advised.
According to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Women’s rights are fundamental as enshrined by the United Nations for every human being on the planet.
These include rights to live free from violence, slavery and discrimination, to be educated, to own property, to political participation, health, and dignity, and to earn fair and equal wages.
Factors responsible for women’s rights infringement include inherent discrimination- women do not enjoy equality with men in society; unequal access of women and girls to education; harmful traditional practices; inadequate access to economic resources, unequal access to political participation, various forms of violence experienced specifically by women and girls (SGBV) amongst others.
From the foregoing, all have been called to unite to end traditions, practices and laws that harm women and do not give them equal opportunities like men.
