Males highly dominate the field of information technology (IT)

Males highly dominate the field of information technology (IT)

Males highly dominate the field of information technology (IT). Males invented most of the famous IT inventions. During IT projects, it is common to find one or no woman in the teamwork. It is even worse when considering leadership in the IT department because women are incredibly lowly represented. Cultural perspectives have greatly been used to explain why women are not dominant in the field of IT. This paper presents my opinion on cultural histories and gender identity expectations in IS and ICT professions.

Culturally, there are jobs that are traditionally thought to be masculine or feminine. Women are more associated with soft professions such as nursing, front office, and secretarial. On the other hand, men are associated with careers that are challenging and need a lot of creativity. Such professions include math, engineering, IS, and ICT. Women were believed to be unsuccessful in masculine careers, which highly discouraged them from taking the courses in the studies. This can explain why historically, there has been low enrolment of females in IT-related courses.

The few women who find themselves in ICT careers experience high levels of discrimination, which furthermore discourage them from achieving more in the field. Moore et al. note that women in the ICT profession highly experience bias when assigning leadership roles in leading teams and projects. This is based on the belief that males are more successful than women in leadership. Additionally, males are thought to be more creative and productive in masculine careers than women. Typically, nobody wants to work in a career in which he or she will be unable to progress or facing many criticisms.

The women working in male-dominated fields must fit both physically and mentally in the culture of men. The main idea behind this is to become acceptable to the team a person is working for. In the study by Adam et al., women working in ICT fields find themselves acting like males. The study noted that the females’ dress was manlier. Xena, a participant, concluded that while working in the ICT field, you have to be tough and more arrogant to fit in the career. In my opinion, I agree with this statement, because the more you perceive yourself as a woman, the more you experience workplace stresses. This results from continuous thinking that you don’t fit in the career.

I strongly agree these are valid points about the past and present experiences of women in the ICT workplace. Due to the hardships females face in ICT workplaces like gender discrimination, most of them end up being unsuccessful in their careers. I have observed females who were competent in the field, leaving their jobs and starting separate career paths. All these rare contributed by the fact that they are perceived to be culturally unfit for the profession. However, the promotion of equality in the workplace is nowadays encouraging many women to have better experiences in the workplace.

In conclusion, women have difficult experiences in ICT workplaces. This may be the reason why most females have little interest in joining careers associated with ICT. ICT workplace gender challenges result from cultural perspectives. Culturally, women are discouraged from entering professions perceived to be masculine; ICT is one of them. In conclusion, I believe having equal opportunities in the workplace will help increase the number of females in the ICT sector.