Breaking Gender Barriers in the Tech Industry

Hi class, 

As we have learned throughout the course, power relationships have played a central role in terms of helping to create the so-called 'information age' in which many theorists believe we are currently living in today. In the Manuel Castells reading titled 'Power in the Network Society', Castells argues that there are a multiplicity of different factors which reproduce and/or challenge power relationships, including gender relations (p.15). 

That being said, I came across a recent news article that ties together the idea mentioned above with the KW tech sector. The article addresses how Vidyard, a Kitchener-based tech company, became a predominately male workplace and how Vidyard's CEO, Michael Litt, plans to change that. This decision came about after a news reported claimed that women only represent one quarter of high tech workforce in Canada. Litt quickly began to realize he was a key player in this problem since he created a 'bro culture' at Vidyard. Litt explains that by implementing new policies and initiatives, he hopes to recreate a more inclusive environment with a talent pipeline that includes women. Personally, after reading this article, it made me more aware of the struggles that women face in the Canadian tech industry. In addition, I believe the changes that Litt plans on implementing have the possibility of challenging the current power relationships that exist at Vidyard (in a good way).    
 
View the article here: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener-waterloo/vidyard-michael-litt-bro-culture-in-tech-kitchener-1.4531531

What are your thoughts? 

Comments

  1. Chenwei LiMarch 28, 2019 at 9:47 AM

    Hi Cassandra,
    After reading the article and your post, I want to say about the term “horizontal segregation”. Based on this term, it means genders across different occupations. Women and men in different sectors and occupations. In addition, it describes the fact that at the same occupational level men and women have different job tasks. Horizontal segregation is where the workforce of a particular industry or sector is mostly made up of one specific gender. An instance of horizontal segregation can be discovered in construction, where men do the majority of the industry’s workforce, just like the article noted that in the tech industry, whereas caring work is almost exclusively a women occupation. Overall, women should have more opportunities to take part in tech field work and get full equality in job orientation.

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