For some, the struggle of women in the workplace is an outdated issue. However, according to Employment and Social Development Canada, there is still a wide disparity in employment rates of men compared to women.
In 2012, according to Statistics Canda the employment rate of women was 57.9 per cent, a difference of nearly eight per cent, compared with the 65.8-per-cent employment rate of men.
The largest gap in gender imbalance is within the technology sector according to the report.
Getting young women involved in the technology sector is a much needed and critical move towards gender equality in the workplace.
One of the most prominent organizations in this field is Women in Communications and Technology, based in Centretown.
WCT works to help advance women in the communications and technology sector, to the benefit of their 200-plus members in Ottawa and beyond.
The national executive director of WCT, Joanne Stanley, says the lack of women in the technology industry is due to the overall culture of the field. Technology-based university degrees are directed at men and these male-dominated fields create a difficult atmosphere for women to work in, she says.
WCT Ottawa’s chair, Nilufer Erdebil, says due to the collaborative nature of women, the isolated nature of the technology field is not appealing.
For Erdebil, juggling a career in the field and having a family is a onerous reality.
“Sometimes the jobs in technology are more intense. Some of the positions are working overtime and weekends and that’s very difficult to do with a family,” she says.
Toni Bailetti is the director of Carleton University’s technology innovation management program. He recently released a business accelerator model designed to perk young girls interests in technology entrepreneurship.
Forty-five girls between the ages of 12 and 18 are involved in the 12-week program. The program, called “Technovation,” started in California in 2009, requires the women to pitch monthly business ideas to a panel of three to four experts.
Competing against each other, the best teams will have an opportunity to compete in California against teams from 45 different countries. The winning team is awarded $10,000.
Education programs like this, with monetary incentives, are a proactive way to start getting young women interested in a career in the technology industry.
Bailetti says businesses should be focusing on getting women to pursue careers in the technology field. “When you don’t do that, you miss out on 50 per cent of the talent that is out there,” he says.
Bailetti’s new business accelerator focuses on inspiring young women to view technology as an attractive industry to be in.
In order to get more women involved in the technology industry, the whole atmosphere has to change, says Bailetti, adding that technology has a reputation and stigma surrounding it of being a boring and isolated field.
Andre Richards, the chief technology officer at MicroMetrics, a Centretown-based technology start-up company, and volunteers with Ladies Learning Code, a not-for-profit organization aimed at teaching women and youth technical skills.
“Ottawa may not be at the forefront of the push for gender equality in the tech industry but it is definitely progressing,” says Richards.
Programs encouraging female participation are a good start, but gender equality in the technology field is only going to come with time.
Ottawa is on its way to reaching this goal.