Answer to Question #187246 in Sociology for Paa Kwesi

Question

1.     Though the Information Technology (I.T) sector provides a viable avenue for securing high earning employment, few women are attracted to this sector. The concept of user-actor gender gap suggests that women are mostly represented as users but not engaged as active members or participants in the development of technological tools.

Examine two (2) reasons for this and suggest three (3) ways to encourage women to be active participants in the field of I.T.  

Answer 1

Some of the reasons women do not actively take part in the development of tools for technology can allude to the effects of the glass ceiling. There are social barriers around the social misconception that hinder women's abilities to take part in information technology actively. Glass ceiling in society restricts women from advancing past the levels of their occupations regardless of their outstanding qualifications and skills. Secondly, the non-exclusive workplace environments of most companies do not offer women better terms, making them feel like outsiders. Women, therefore, lose job satisfaction that limits their potential.

However, there are also strategies to encourage women to take active roles in information technology. Firstly initiatives to build the network of women that are found most conducive in a working environment. Any individual with a leadership position is in the frontline to encourage women in IT by inviting them, encouraging, praising, and recognizing women’s effort to create an accommodative work environment for women. Finally, companies’ should encourage women by not restricting positions to specific gender by advertising vacancies with anonymous candidates.