ICT;Beyond Gender?

M.Sc. in Social and Cultural Anthropology Dissertation TITLE ICT; Beyond Gender? AUTHOR Lynda Sarah Berry Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of M.Sc.. in Social and Cultural Anthropology (UCL) of the University of London in 2015 Word Count13,100 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY Note: This dissertation is an unrevised examination copy for consultation only and it should not be quoted or cited without the permission of the Chairman of the Board of Examiners for the M.Sc. in Social Cultural Anthropology (UCL) Table of Contents Abstract and Acknowledgements 3 Quotations 4 Introduction 5 Literature Review 9 Methodology 12 Chapter 1 - Organisational Cultures and Gender: Introduction 15 Theory-Organisational Culture 15 Homosocial Hiring 16 Dealing with sexism in the workplace 18 Highlight unconscious biases/stereotyping 20 Conclusion 22 Chapter 2- Gender- Masculine and Feminine: Introduction 23 Theory-Anthropology of Gender, Beyond the Binary, Haraway’s Cyborg 23 Masculine and Feminine: Attitudes in the Workplace 25 Hard and Soft Skills 26 Programming as beyond Gender and Cyber feminism 28 Conclusion 28 Chapter 3- Gender Performance and Gender Dynamics in the Workplace: Introduction 30 Theory: A Passion for Difference and Gender Performance Theory 30 Gender Performance and the Workplace 31 Conclusion 38 Chapter 4 – Meritocracy: Introduction 40 Meritocracy 40 Conclusion 44 Chapter 5 Final Conclusion 46 Bibliography 47 Abstract This dissertation is based on anthropological fieldwork conducted in three London based ICT companies. I explore the complex issue of gender and culture in regards to under representation of women in the ICT industry. I discuss the argument that the ICT industry is meritocratic due to the nature of programming being either 'right or wrong', whether this frees women in the working environment to be 'free from gender'. I argue this is a problematic standpoint through examining the perceptions of gender, and gender performances of the employees, as well as their organisational cultures and how they relate to gender. Acknowledgments I would like to thank all my informants, gatekeepers, and everyone who made my fieldwork possible and pleasurable experience. I am grateful for the time people took out of a working day to speak to me about 'gender'. I learnt a tremendous amount, professionally and personally, than I can ever fully relate in one dissertation. Thank you to all those who took an interested in my research, gave me support and kept me going through the 'impossible times' of fieldwork and dissertation writing. I want to especially thank my engineering cousin, Caroline, who came through for me at the 'darkest hour,' and gave an engineer's touch to the dissertation. Thank you to my friends Bryony and Chris who knew what this masters degree meant to me and supported me from the start to the end. Thanks to course-mate Eva, who kept believing in me. Thanks to all my friends who got me through all this, far too many to name. I want to thank my supervisor Dr Alison MacDonald, whose never ending encouragement and guidance was instrumental to this project. And thanks to Dr Caroline Garaway. I would also like thank the Washington Public House, for all their support during the writing process. Quotations At the centre of my ironic faith, my blasphemy, is the image of the cyborg.- Donna Haraway “That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show.” -Ada Lovelace - 19th Mathematician (inventor of computer code). M83-"Wait" Send your dreams Where nobody hides Give your tears To the tide No time No time There is no end There is no goodbye Disappear With the night No time No time No time No time No time ICT industry; Beyond Gender? Introduction ANTHGS99_HHVG8 My dissertation is on the persistent question of gender within the ICT work place. It would at first appear contradictory to ask the question whether ICT is beyond gender, considering the industry's reputation as male dominated. Research conducted in October 2013 by 'Digital Agenda For Europe' found that out of the 7 million people (across Europe) working in the ICT industry, only 30% were women (Digital Agenda for Europe: 2015). There was a shortage of women across all sectors of ICT, especially in decision-making. They estimate that by 2020 there will be a shortage of 900,000 of skilled ICT employees (Digital Agenda For Europe: 2015). In the UK, BCS and e-skills reported that only 16% of the ICT work force was female, and predicted a future skill shortages in the sector (Government Equalities Office: 2014). More than ever ICT needs to diversify its work force to meet the challenges of the future, but what is holding women back from the industry? According to Georgiadou, who conducted a survey on college students and their potential career choices, culturally related reasons were the main reason they avoided ICT careers, and not lack of natural ability (2009:286). Georgiadou argues that the stereotype persists that science and technology are male-dominated, and 'people orientated' and caring professions are female dominated. Even for women who make it through the cultural boundaries into the ICT industry, large numbers of women leave the ICT industry mid career. Griffiths and Moore cite that organisational culture, inflexible working, and work place sexism and hostility are major factors, which deter women from continuing in the ICT sector (2010:103). In this dissertation I explore the complex issue of culture and gender within the context of three ICT companies, referred to as Company A, B and C. The first company was a Fintech start up (a new business,), and the second a larger digital music company and third another start up concerned with working in security. One of the early interviews, a manager with technical expertise, from company C, told me almost straight away that the ICT industry was not sexist, but meritocratic. She supported her argument was that programming was either right or wrong, and it was less dependent, if at all dependent on conformity to gender norms from wider society. Her assertion was as simple and uncomplicated, as it was surprising. I traced this question, 'is the ICT industry meritocratic?'. Through successive interviews, interested to discover if ICT was more gender impartial than I had previously anticipated. I discuss this argument that ICT is meritocratic because of the 'right and wrong nature' of coding, in relation to cyber feminism, which holds a vision of the future, where women are liberated from the constraints of gender through the new technologies. Donna Haraway envisioned in a Cyborg manifesto a world were 'western essentialism' is rejected and the boundary between human, animal and machine are lost (Drajojlov 2006:24). This 'genderless cyborg; with a 'fluid nature' exists with he 'consensual hallucination of the computer matrix which is neither 'male or female', and frees women from 'gendered stereotypes' and opening the world to both sexes, and allowing them to develop as 'individuals (Drajojlov 2006:24).' Are these women working in a meritocratic ICT manifesting Haraway's Cyborg? I argue that it takes more than technology alone to manifest Haraway's Cyborg, but social change alongside technological advances. To support further this argument, I found women who claimed to feel themselves and felt judged for their work, but also comfortable within the work place, partly because they worked on their organisational culture. Therefore, I argue, that it is a combination of the 'right and wrong' and non-physical, nature of programming, the lack of a requirement for women to play a gendered role, as well as an organisational culture which is aware of itself in terms of gender, which supports these women in the work place. For women who make it through cultural pressures to test their skills in the ICT meritocracy. Though women may be judged on their ability due to the neutrality of coding, in the work place, they will still confront the realities of gender, and, unless organisations manage their policies and cultures to be 'inclusive', gender and culture are still pressing issues. It is from this point of argument that I place my dissertation within the context of the Anthropology of Organisations. However there has been little in terms of the Anthropology of Organisations which links gender to organisational culture since 1994 and the book Anthropology of Organisations edited by Susan Wright. This dissertation is a contribution to this apparent gap in the literature. Though in Anthropology there is not unified definition of culture, in terms of the work place, culture can be found in the espoused values of organisational leadership, the observable artefacts, and the basic assumptions either conscious or unconscious of employees, including thought process and actions.' (Bruce undated:4). In the context of gender and how it influences organisational culture, Organisational studies and Sociology have readily filled this gap. Alesson, the management scholar, argues that gender relations, as important social phenomenon, form a fundamental functioning of an organisation (2009:117).' The inside internal workings of an organisation are therefore not separate from the wider social order of gender. To highlight this I will use Butler's gender performance theory to examine the gender expressions and dynamics of the work places I researched, and how women are effected by a male dominated environment. I will also discuss employee’s perceptions of masculine and feminine, and how in the context of these companies gender discourses are downplayed, not proscribing a role for either male or females. I will also examine how though it is difficult for my informants to escape the 'gender binary', and in terms of hard and soft skills, though they are not 'filtered' through gender stereotypes of men as more technical, and therefore more valuable, and women as naturally better communicators. This issue of skills is raised by some of my informants, and some feminists as a way to bring women into ICT, however, I will highlight the problematic nature of this discourse, which perpetuates the binary of men as naturally technical, and women as naturally communicative, and the risks this poses for potential future of the Information Age. These continued attitudes also demonstrate that gender comes into the work place, even if programming is 'neutral' and 'genderless.' ICT can not be fully free from gender bias until the culture of the wider society is free from such bias. Until then, organisations have to account for their organisational cultures to maintain a 'gender free' and supportive environment for their female employees. From this perspective, the future enters into my argument, in the sense that ICT could potentially be beyond gender, and because of the nature of computer programming as either right or wrong, and as a mental activity which is beyond the physical. Literature Review In 'Women's ICT Career Choices: four cross- cultural case studies Georgiadou states that the areas of computing and engineering are well known to be traditionally 'male-dominated' '(2009: 280), alongside the stereotypical view that women are more suited for caring professions. Georgiadou argues that this idea of a superior and inferior gender has prevented half the population from taking up opportunities (2009: 280). Though Georgiadou states these two ideas as facts without supporting evidence, Georgiadou firmly points towards a 'cultural' and stereotypical reasons for women being in the minority in ICT. Arisidis and Kordaki report findings of male students out numbering female students three to one, there was no significant differences in terms of actually ability, and female students complete their studies earlier than their male counterparts, at Tertiary level of education in Computer Science and Engineering in the University of Patras Greece (Georgiadou 2009:280). Though it is not disclosed what exactly was the 'data' in this study was, the highlighting that there was no significant difference in actual ability between man and women at ICT points towards other potential factors for female exclusion from the industry. Despite the continued male domination of the ICT industry, working in computing does not require physical strength. It requires intellect, the acquisition, application, synthesis, and creation of knowledge (2009:282). To add statistical evidence to Georgiadou assertion that culture is a key factor, Georgiadou, carried out a survey on students from the UK, Greece, Malaysia, 29 college students from the UK, indicated strongly that culturally related reasons were the main reason they avoided ICT careers. It was not a feminine job (63.2%), there were too few females on the course (57.1%), too mathematical (56.5%), too many males on the course (35.3%), fifth nerd image (33.3%), not to be expected by males on the course (29.4%) (2009:286). More than ever this highlights that Gender and culture cannot be ignored when it comes to diversifying the ICT work force. In terms of the future, there are discourses within the ICT industry which look forward to a time when women will be more incorporated into the field, because of their 'natural soft skills. In Gendered Futures? Women, the ICT Workplace and Stories of the Future, Moore et al, explore the conflicted relationship between feminism and technological advances, and how this relates to supposedly 'feminine skills'. Wajcman writes ‘Feminism has long been conflicted about the impact of technology on women, torn between utopian and dystopian visions of what the future may hold’ (2004: 3). A utopian feminist view of the expansion of the 'information-intensive service sector means that women can utilise their 'feminine aptitudes for communication and social skills' (Wajcman 2004: 5). In the present day, the changing nature of the work place, and the growing need for soft skills, typically characterised as feminine, such as empathy, are becoming more important in the technological world (Moore et al 2008;529). Woodfield notes that confronted with a 'maturing ICT community, whose relationship with the providers was becoming more 'knowledgeable,' IT organisations understood that: 'What was needed was a major shift in the personnel profile of the industry, from workers who only held specialist technical skills to those who also possessed social and communication skills, or 'hybrid/bridger' workers (2002:120). From this perspective, the 'hybrid/bridger work' is a clear opening for women in ICT (Moore et al:530). In the organisations that Woodfield studied, the common discourse is that the women were the best hybrid/bridge worker (2002:123) but the damaging counter discourse was that women naturally had soft skills and therefore were not given credit for them. It was also widely held that men were more technical than women, and 'technical' skills were widely held to be more important than 'soft skills' because technical skills get the job done (Woodfield 2002:129). Again this demonstrates the power of 'cultural perceptions' and stereotypes that women are naturally more inclined towards soft skills which even effect a 'utopian vision' of women coming into the ICT industry. Perhaps it is difficult for anyone to completely envision a future without being influenced by our present day values. This shift towards the feminine skills, though talked about optimistically, historically speaking many occupations have seen a shift between masculine and feminine, and as a consequence their value has declined (Woodfield 2000: 58). In the field I encountered this vision of the future, though not in the form of the hybrid worker. It was more a pragmatic position that the only way to get women into ICT, considering the wider culture which biases women away from computing, was to employ them in support roles and for their 'soft skills.' Such a point of view avoided perpetuating the stereotype that women naturally had soft skills, but were not given the same opportunity to learn technical skills. My field work aligns itself with the argument that to assume that women naturally have soft skills is to fall into damaging gender stereotyping. In the words of Wajcman: 'What has been missing from much of the debate about getting women into techno science is that their under-representation profoundly affects how the world is made. Every aspect of our lives is touched by sociotechnical systems, and unless women are in the engine rooms of technological production, we cannot get our hands on the levers of power.’ (2004:111) Unless women move beyond the binary of hard and soft skills, and develop technical skills, women can not influence the 'sociotechnical world,' and ultimately get their hands on power. For in dystopian versions of the future of women in ICT feminists suggest that in the post-industrial capitalist world women with their soft skills will become flexible and cheap labour, the 'pool' from which the knowledge economy finds and maintains 'capital gains' (Wajcman 2004:5). Wajcman suggests 'this future can also be depicted as a proliferation of flexible, temporary, and contingent jobs for women...typified by call centres and fast food establishments (2004:5) Methodology My fieldwork was carried out in three different companies, which will be referred to as company A, B and C, and took place over three weeks from June to July 2015. My participants from all the companies ranged in age between their early twenties to late thirties. They were from a number of nationalities including British, American, Italian, and South East Asia, as well as Indian. I took the diversity of nationalities to be reflective of the multicultural, melting pot of London. However, overwhelmingly the employees in my companies were white and male, just not necessarily British, a fact my informants were self-conscious. My informants in both companies were interested in bringing women into the IT work place, and were frustrated by the lack of high quality female applications for technical roles. In company B, I was informed that their company was probably not typical of the IT industry, and their management made an effort to be careful with the company culture to make it inclusive. The implication being that not all companies in the ICT industry made this effort to be inclusive to the degree of the company, which is a claim upheld by Gifffith and Moore, that may ICT companies in fact struggle to make their work place culture accessible to women (2010:103). Though it was not a 'typical ICT company' it was relevant to study a company where there was active awareness of 'the gender question', and to ask questions about how the company tried to bring about greater sensitivity to these issues. It is harder to draw conclusions about company C as I was unable to complete participant observations because of security reasons, but did managed to interview a female technical manager and her female subordinate. I anticipated that it would be difficult to get people to be interviewed in the workplace, as time is ever pressing finite resource. This was more the case in company A than B, which was smaller and was still struggling to succeed. It was also harder to carry out participant observations and be able to 'ask people' what they were doing whilst in the office in company A, because there was a rule on silence in the office. My field work became a lot easier in regards to participant observations in company B, as I was more able to move around the office, and speak freely with employees. This was largely due to a very different atmosphere in the office of company B, and because there were more employees, and less risk in giving me time. In regards to the interviews, I carried out semi structured interviews with employees from all three companies. All of the interviews were fully transcribed. In company A, I interviewed two women and three men. I carried out interviews and participant observation in company B. I interviewed four women, and two men. I interviewed two women from company C. Their job roles varied from support roles such as HR, marketing, product management, to technical roles which were almost entirely software developers. Company A, was an all-male start up which only until only very recently had only one woman in a technical role. The start-up was still very new, only a few years old, and was carving its way through in the Fintech sector. Fintech is a 'line of business’, which provides software for financial services. The atmosphere was serious, silent, but the staff when they interacted were dynamic and excited about the work they were doing. The offices were situated in a world famous organisation, which support start-ups, surrounded by other emerging and new companies in Fintech. There were 13 employees in all, with 2 female support staff. Company B was a larger company in the digital music streaming industry and radio services platform and committed to providing high quality listening experiences. The company over all had 49 female to male ratio of employees. In total there were 7 female software developers to 34 male developers. Company C was also a mostly all male start up and which was in the security sector. I was not allowed access to the company for security reasons, which meant I could not carry out participant observations. I came to technology with no previous experience, my background being in teaching and humanities. This played in my favour as I 'played ignorant' and asked as many questions from my informants as I could. I also spent time socialising in the lunch room of company A, and had 'Friday drinks; with company C. I spent time in the social areas with my informants to get more a of a feel for the company culture in informal settings, I also wanted to observe if there were gender themes to the socials and clues to company culture, which might be missed if I just watched people in the office sending emails or coding. I tried to get actively involved in as many team meetings, as I could, in order to observe the gender dynamic and interactions. I familiarised myself with the daily routines of the various work places I studied, to try and get as much of an idea of the organisational culture and the day to day working lives as possible. I decided to interview both men and women, though, I was warned against talking to men about gender in case they did not care as much as women, but I was determined that I wanted as much as possible to have a balanced sense of gender in the work place. After all gender includes both men and women, not just women. I was aware of my own position as a woman, and wondered how honest men would be with me. I found some awkwardness around talking about gender when it came to my male informants, and often they reported not really experiencing anything at all in regards to their gender in the work place. If in the course of the chapters I refer to a informant more than once, I give them a name in order for them to be easily identified in terms of the thesis. All personal details have been changed and data is confidential. Chapter 1- Organisational Cultures and Gender Introduction In this chapter I will examine the attitudes and values of the employees in the three companys and how this contributes to organisational culture. The main discourses in the company cultures, I received and observed in my field sites related to how the organisational culture of especially company B was working to curb the influences of gender stereotyping from the wider culture in the work place, and did not actively, or consciously, enforce any gender roles upon its female staff. Though these were organisations could be largely defined as homogeneously male and white, male colleagues demonstrated awareness of this reality and in various ways attempted to develop a working culture which was 'diverse and inclusive'. Theory - Organisational Culture In the introduction to the section on gender in the, 'Anthropology of Organisations,' Michael Roper states that 'organisational logic is gendered' and 'how gender is embedded into organisations (1994:88). At the time of writing this, 1994, even after a quarter of a century of reforms, power within organisations was still male (1994:87). Roper continues that the pervasive myth of 'bureaucratic rationality', organisational theory, tended to disregard the 'private sphere' of household and family (1994:89), and liberal feminists, concerned with classical theory ignored the wider social contexts and the 'gendered order' (1994:89). Contrary to organisational theory and 'bureaucratic rationality' (as stated in 1994) over the course of the last decades organisational scholars have 'noticed the prevalence of organisational discourses and social practices which characterise appropriate roles for men and women (Leister 2008: 278).' As stated in the introduction, Alesson argues that gender relations, as important social phenomena form a fundamental part of the functioning of an organisation. In their own words, 'men and women' are not being examined as 'fixed' but as 'discourses of masculine and feminine' which are also constructed by the work place (Leidner 1991:170). Organisations can therefore be seen as constructing gender, or downplaying gender, where policies such as equal opportunities are present (Alvesson 2009: 117).' Homosocial Hiring On of my first days doing field work in company B, my gate keeper, one of the team leaders in his early thirties, told me about 'homosocial' hiring and we had a long and detailed conversation about trying to use this in the process of recruitment. The term homosocial is most closely related to 'Rosabeth Moss Kanter' whose seminal work, Men and Women of the Cooperation, noted how manages tended to be 'socially similar' , and this they theorised served two functions in an organisations: easy of communication and trust because of social and cultural similarity (Smith 2013: 376). It has a large role in reproducing organisational inequality, and keeping minorities and women out of managerial positions (Smith 2013:376). Though it is unclear to what extent all of the management of Company B were actively working against homosocial hiring, it was clear that an effort was being made to make the work place culture inclusive and to bring in people of differing backgrounds. A male informant, another team leader, who came from a duel heritage ethnic minority background discussed the company culture and references homosocial hiring: Informant: One of the things I like about this company there is actual, I can't think of very many examples of sexism... ??? and that is in contrast with the finance sector where there were some people who were misogynistic..I didn't pick up on it because it was early in my career, but this is how finance is, this is high pressure, the 'real world'..phone..high pressure job...you have to be tough enough to survive it, and my impression was that this was that was the prevailing attitude in that sector. Technology can be like that. This is the 3rd technology company I have worked at..better thought out culture...although however if you hire people who are exactly like you and you do have to risk having your own monoculture....at least they are actively trying to do it...whereas in other places the hiring manager, says they like that sort of person because that person is similar to me, and have similar interest to me, rather than abilities, who are a good cultural fit, shall we say. His past experiences of working in the monocultural financial sector, highlighted the diverse and inclusive culture of his present company. Though in relate to other technology companies he worked for company B had the best thought out culture in terms of diversity. This indicates that though technology as a whole may not be as high pressure or misogynistic as the finance company, company B stands out as having made an effort to be more inclusive by comparison to both sectors. In company A the awareness that the staff were mostly male and white (though from diverse nationalities) sparked a team meeting where they discussed the lack of female applications. Though as a start-up they struggled to promote diversity under the high pressure to succeed as a company, they were aware of the issues as my informant, a young man in his early twenties in a technical role detailed to me. Interviewer: How does your company promote gender equality Informant: I don't know I don't think it actively does. How can we attract more diverse candidates, outside of that, there is so much on our plate, we are just trying to be successful, not as much head space to think about nicer things like that, ...conversation about it...two week sprints meeting, talks about all the stuff on our plate, hiring is always on our plate not so diverse, some ideas...rework it..it wasn't one hundred percent focused on gender equality, looking at websites, see people who are interested in start ups, cool blog post, comparing two different job ads super testeronie, we crush it and we want people who are fierce, and a lot of super charged words and the other one was more it said the same hiring’s but in a different way, that the author was saying it was more gender neutral and more appealing to women, not appealing to women, but less put offing.' Though my informant classes 'diversity as nicer things', which implies in a sense that it was a luxury they do not currently have time for, there was an effort to look into how to make job adverts more the company more attractive to women, or just more 'gender neutral'. Whereas company B was larger and could perhaps spend more time on diversity, company A was smaller and had less time. This point highlights the pressure that small companies can find themselves under which may prevent them from finding female applicants and points towards changes in the wider culture to help women develop technical skills and move into the technology sector. No matter how well meaning an organisation maybe, if the applications are not there, the applications are not there, and women cannot even be discriminated against, if they are not even there to begin with. Dealing with Sexism in the workplace But not only in hiring were these companies aware of being aware of the problems of gender, but in the work place itself, especially in company B, which was larger and had more staff, the issue of gender bias sexism, came up, and was actively dealt with. An another male informant in a technical role from company B, who I will refer to as Tim, mentioned how there was more awareness of gendered situations and an openness to deal with them if there were any problems: Interviewer: Do you need to behave in a particular way to succeed? Tim: Umm…no not really. Its not, you have to act a certain way towards different people just. Here its is merit based verses other, there is quite a few people on the tech team who are quite aware of gendered situations and stuff that would help if there were any problems. Interviewer: Can you go into more detail about? Tim: How they are aware of gendered situations? I guess there are a lot of developers here who talk about these things more…raise things up if there is a potential issue. I have been in meetings before, social, I was a part of , talking about events I feel it was more people are aware of it. I can recall situations where people have done things that are pretty bone headed. I feel it is a little more at the fore front culture wise. Gender and sexism, the ‘bone headed’ things that sometimes happened, was an issue that was open for discussion within the organisational culture of company B, and something that certain individuals had an awareness of and were willing to deal with, and confront the issue when it came up. Tim told me of how during a company social someone ordered a stripper cake by mistake, this was an issue that raised concern, and the mistake not repeated. This demonstrates an awareness of how gender is embedded in organisational culture and, rather than ignored, has to be actively engaged with in order to produce an environment which is meritocratic and to a certain extent, though not entirely, suspends gender. In contrast my informant from Company C has a very different experience of her working environment. Unlike Company A or B, Company C (which I could not observe because of security reasons), seem to have a degree of 'laddish behaviour' which made the informant uncomfortable, but these were the attitudes and behaviours of male co workers who were not in the tech section. My informant continued that there were incidents, especially outside the professionalism of the work place where sexism and being singled out for being one of the few women in the room: Interviewer: Do you feel conscious of your gender at work? Informant: Yes, umm, well, I have been too events outside of work but related to technical events, umm, where you go after work and learn things, and I went to the toilet and this guy shouted at me, you don’t look like a developer, but it really bothered me, you don’t looked like you belong here. Interviewer: Do you feel that way at work? Informant: Um no, work with people long enough they accept you for who you are. Interviewer: So it is just in the wider community Though some of the behaviour of her male colleagues at work, on the whole this informant felt that she could be herself at work. Whether the behaviour of her male colleagues was toned down because of the restrictions of work, is another question, which is hard to answer, because I was not able to do participant observations on her company because of security restrictions to cross check this informants observations. She also told me about a time when the women of the organisation became upset when one manager referred to 'girlie' in a negative sense, and they actively complained about the situation, raising awareness of 'unconscious bias' which will be the subject of the next section of this chapter. Highlighting unconscious biases/stereotyping One of the ways company B tried to maintain an open and inclusive working environment was to be vigilant concerning unconscious bias. Bridget, who spent a lot of time working with a charity, which aimed to help encourage young girls into coding, told me about how she is very aware of gender issues in the wider tech industry, and highlights small things, like biased use of gendered language, to her colleagues. In her own words: Interview: Do you ever talk about gender in the work place? Bridget: Yeah I nag my colleagues about it all the time. I talk to them a lot about issues about women in tech and feminism in general and over the time I have been here I have really noticed them. ...slowly finding a girl speaker for this, and pay a bit more attention. …. (laughter) Interviewer: Do you feel conscious of your gender at work? Bridget: Yeah, probably because I read so much about it, women and tech, our internal messaging is a bit where you can create custom emojis,... some of them are pictures, and some of the are people, and they are all blokes, …. I usually correct them on the internal messaging as well, when they say like ‘yeah don’t be like that guy’, and I usually say ‘or girl’ even if that could be noticed like that. I usually correct them in conversation as well. The reason why I do that is because … I went through google subconscious bias training, and I took it to heart, I was ..they have not data or evidence whatsoever, to suggest it works, but how do you measure something like that? the only metrics they had was how many women they employed, they don’t have the women applying anyway, significant impact. But they say if you find a subconscious bias make it conscious, so if you find yourself saying, ‘don’t be that guy,’ like out loud, don’t be that girl, even I do it, so if you say that, so they will be conscious about it, they will correct themselves. Though this quote highlights the process of raising awareness of gender issues in the work place, and dealing with even what seems like a small issue like the emojis in internal company social media and chat. The emojis, icons used to represent emotion on social media, were all male scientists, and reflected a homogeneous male culture, rather than a desired inclusive culture. This subtle omission of female scientists is another reflection of how gender biases in the outside culture filter into organisational culture, un noticed, unless someone makes an effort to raise awareness of it. The fact that these companies, and individuals within these companies, have to make the effort to push against 'unconscious bias' and the tendency to choose someone like ourselves to hire, gives the indication that the work place is 'constructed'. It is a push and pull between the influences of the outside culture and 'gender stereotyping' and sexism, on one hand, and the desire to make the work space, more inclusive and diverse. This is in keeping with the theory that gender is embedded into organisations and needs to be actively engaged with to produce a 'inclusive' company culture to support meritocracy. Conclusion It is the maintenance of these workplace values which keeps women working for these companies. In Disappearing Women: A Study of Women who left the UK ICT Sector, Marie Griffiths and Karenza Moore, conclude that the 'ongoing and 'escalating issue of women leaving the ICT sector' can be found in 'workload, long hours, ostracizing and hostilities which included sexism, harassment and bullying, ageism, being unable to juggle the dual roles of work and parent hood, and/or undesired relocation (Griffiths and Moore 2010: 103). Griffiths and Moore argue that a shift in organisational culture is necessary for women to be retained in the ICT work force. It is not enough for policy makes to 'devise strategies to increase women in the ICT workplace, without addressing diversity needs (Griffiths and Moore 2010: 103). In the case of my organisations, when I asked about the company's policies on maternity, and flexible working, I found both company A and B to be accounting of the 'work-life' balance of its employees. I was told that there was no 'long hour’s culture', and as I have demonstrated in this chapter, there was no open hostility towards female workers, that was immediately apparent or reported to me during the interviews. In the next chapter I will examine, how my informants I will demonstrate how gender and gender binaries are not only embedded in organisations but also people's minds. My informants struggled to define gender beyond the typical binaries of western culture, further demonstrating how much people influenced by the wider culture and bring this into the work place. Despite this, there was no discourse that female skills were less valuable than male skills or a hierarchy of gendered skills, despite the male dominated and homogenous nature of the companies I researched. Chapter 2 Gender- Masculine and Feminine Introduction In this chapter I will argue that my informants struggled to define masculine and feminine beyond stereotypical traits from wider society, and this indicates strongly that attitudes from the wider culture are coming into the organisational space. This supports the theory that gender is fundamental to organisations, which the work place does not entirely suspended, even if it is considered meritocratic. Though the western gender binary (as defined in the theory section to this chapter) still existed in my informant's thinking, there was no discourse that feminine soft was less valuable than masculine hard, or that women naturally had soft skills and these were somehow valued less. ICT may provide an opening for women in the future, as the soft skills are required, but recognition that it is the binary of the wider culture which prevents women developing technical skills. I will also explore programming as beyond the gender binary and relate this to cyber feminist arguments for a utopian vision of women going beyond their physical boundaries. For the purposes of this dissertation, masculine and feminine are defined as the presentation of gender, and it's expression for the purposes of this dissertation. Theory: Anthropology of Gender, Beyond the binary, Haraway's Cyborg In Anthropology, Levi Strauss and the structuralists held that all human thought exists in terms of binary and this is the same in all cultures (Winthrop 1991:100). These opposites include 'hot-cold', 'male-female, culture-nature, and these are represented in various 'cultural institutions (Lett 1987:80). However, to quote Mary Douglas: 'Binary distinctions are an analytical procedure but their usefulness does not guarantee that existence divides like that. We should look with suspicion on anyone who declared that there are two kinds of people and two kinds of reality or process (Douglas 1978: 161). ' Douglas points towards a reality which is not a static as oppositional binaries, but in fact fluid. Existence does not divide in quite the way our analytical processes may be desired (and may be difficult to think beyond and grasp), and the realities of gender may not fall neatly into a gender binary. Donna Haraway also challenges 'binaries' and considers them problematic. Haraway criticises western traditions like patriarchy, colonial, essentialism and naturalism, and argues these traditions form 'taxonomies' and 'antagonistic dualism (Haraway 1991:155).' These dualisms are systems of 'domination of women, people of colour and nature, workers, and animals' (Harway 1991:155). Haraway's cyborg theory proposes a fusion of animal, human and machine (Harway 1991:150). This non-gendered symbol of the future is at the heart of cyber feminism. In the Manifesto, Harway shows how the 'unclear boundary between the physical and nonphysical has started to become in the 'age of new technology, and how the cyborg uproots categories of a single identity, especially identities based on one identity for women based on sex, before gender. In its hybrid and 'transgendered body' allows for the surpassing of all dualities are surpassed. Technology is not placed as male on one side, natural as female on the other, all dualities are left behind, even contradictions embraced, in search of higher unity(Harway 1991:155). In this vision of the future women are men are free to develop as individuals beyond gender stereotypes and constraints. Anthropologists have documented cultures who have systems of gender outside of the western binary. According to Lavenda and Schultz, 'there are a number of societies were 'supernumerary gender roles developed that had nothing to do with morphological sex anomalies (2012:368).' Many examples of this come from indigenous America which often had a 'third-gender, took on roles appropriate to the other gender and did not necessarily cross dress (Antrosio 2015:1). The concept that gender maybe a 'fluid experience', rather than fitting into two strict binaries, is a current challenge to present day western society. According to the charity Gender Spectrum, the terms 'gender' and 'sex' are 'interchangeable, but this is incorrect (Gender Spectrum 2015). As defined in this essay, sex is biological, whereas gender is a culturally constructed and complex. The 'complex interrelationships between an 'individual's sex, internal sense of self (gender identity), and outward presentation (gender expression), and 'gender role', all feed into the construct of gender (Gender Spectrum 2015). Western culture tends towards viewing gender as 'binary concept' with two options, either male or female, but this fails to relate the 'rich diversity of gender possible.' The array of potential variations of biological sex alone demonstrates that gender is more complex than the binary. Gender Spectrum argue that a spectrum of genders presents us with a more 'authentically human model of gender. Masculine and Feminine: Attitudes in the Workplace Across all the companies I research, my informants generally struggled to define masculine and feminine beyond the binary and the concepts of 'power and strength' for men, and 'weakness' and 'softness' for women. Even informants from different cultural backgrounds still held to a similar model of gender. One of my female informants a female programmer in their mid to late thirties from Asia country defined masculine and feminine in these terms: Interviewer: How do you define masculine and feminine? Informant: Mmm..yeah ummm…it’s a changing term now, ..they way the ?? word feminism. Softer in a way…a little bit strange ummm…in a sense yeah…masculinity as ummm, I don’t know. It is so ingrained that masculinity is equal to strength power and all that but it is so far from it now….umm yeah..women in the working environment has kind of change things a bit yeah ummm…I wouldn’t know how to describe it apart from the stereotype way, masculinity which power whatever it is, and femininity is just softness in general, but that is not longer the case. Yeah, I would think those terms are not quite as relevant anymore. My informant struggled to define masculine and feminine beyond the binaries. It is so 'ingrained' that masculinity equal 'strength and power', and femininity represents 'softness'. But she noted how, those terms were becoming less relevant. Later in the interview, she made reference to how society in general was opening to up to same sex marriage, and transsexuality, and other alternative models of gender. However, in my informant's opinion it was still necessary for the individual to do a good job, and be the 'right person for the 'job', irrespective of gender. Ben an older man working in a support role in company A described masculine and feminine along similar lines, of women being more cautious, and men being more assertive. However, despite there being ascribed difference between the genders along 'traditional lines', He recognised in his working experience in one of his previous female bosses, the ability to be completely a woman and totally the ‘man about the office’. Though he still used the phrase 'man about the office', which sill associates confidence with masculinity, he related then that ‘confidence’ is not necessarily a male trait, but actually one that is possessed by both genders, but is more stereotypically possessed by men. In the next section of this chapter, I will explore attitudes towards hard and soft skills and how this relates to concepts of masculine and feminine in the attitudes of my informants. Hard/Soft Skills Referring back to, in Gendered Futures, Moore et al, argue that soft skills are becoming more important in ICT, as a 'real world interface with a maturing ICT customer base is expanding, and this offers a clear opportunity for women to enter into the ICT work place. Though Woodfield puts this in terms of women's 'natural' abilities'. This new worker, called the hybrid/bridger worker', someone who not only held 'specialist technical skills, but also had social skills (Woodfield 2002:129). In respect to my own field work, none of my informants talked about a hybrid worker, but there was mention of a future for women to come into ICT through soft skills, but only because this was the only means by which they could be viably employed. Only once did any of my informants mention her job role in terms of masculine and feminine skills. Interviewer: Do you feel your work encourages you to be more masculine or feminine? Bridget:What my work here? Yeah…bits of both, umm, I think, so the stuff I am doing today, is probably would associate with masculine stuff. Configure to serve our customers, but in different data ...around the world, huge network, ...performance and power, and big beefy machines, and that is probably quite, could be, abstract idea, all data at the end of the day. Pretty masculine, but in actual fact, we try to do some thing called shielding on it, but it did not work, so the feminine side of it, you can look at all this code, and these configurations, but 90% of the time if you go over, and talk to the person and ask them the right questions, social skills, which are seen as more feminine, you get what has actually happened, and you can save yourself so much time, with good communication, and if people, if you have a good relationship with people, which is usually feminine traits, then you can get, there is some more that can help you … so there are two sides to it, there are all the big beefy machines, and the power, and then you got actually sitting down and having a chat, and saying ‘what the hell did you do? Umm and getting that information out of them, and I think people do not usually know about the second side, that it is usually quite social able job, you have to work with people. Though clearly Bridget is referring to binaries of masculine as powerful and feminine as soft and communicative, Bridget does not devalue feminine skills, but she unconsciously defines communication as feminine. This demonstrates just how difficult it is to not define feminine in terms of communication skills, underlining how powerful and persist the sterotype continues to be. Programming as beyond Gender and Cyber feminism A male informant, Tim, a software developer from company B, offered an alternative way of looking at programming- rather than as hard technical masculine skill- but as a mental ability that either gender could pick up. In this way my informant offered a way of viewing that was 'beyond the discourse of the binaries of masculine and feminine, and avoided 'filtering skills through a gendered stereotype.' Interviewer: How do you think men and women are similar? Tim: Umm...I think we are similar we are all – analytically mind, mentally, physical capabilities. I think mentally we are all quite similar, some who are much smarter, umm, yeah, like the way a lot of women developers I have worked with its not like they approach it differently or anything. Interviewer: Do you think the differences between men and women are over emphasised. Tim: Umm..to an extend yeah, especially in our society these days, we tend to do more mental activities, than physical exertion is just sport, and not working in the farms or factories much anymore, the differences are not much anymore. This comment relates, perhaps unconsciously to a idea that if our physical differences between men and women can be over come through a focusing on 'mental' activities such as 'programming', which is one of the main tenents of cyberfeminism. In Dvagojilov's essay Cyberfeminism(s): Origins, Definitions and Overview, who suggests that in our 'technologically advanced society' we want to believe that the internet has 'opened' the space for women to be free from subordination by men. The internet has been lorded as an space which is liberating, democratic, and open (Davgojilov undated: 23). It is without gender and an uncharted territory (Davgojilov undated: 23). The cyber feminist movement believes that the new age has formed new opportunities for women, to surpass their physical limitations, like Haraway's cyborg. Could programming, though not a new technology, with its' right and wrong' nature provide a similar means for women to transcend the physical through the nonphysical, the gendered, to the genderless and 'meritocratic? Would removing the 'physical', level the playing field between the genders making old gender norms obsolete? Certainly, in the minds of my informants in technical roles, this was a present reality. Conclusion To conclude this chapter, though my informants struggled to define gender beyond the binary, nowhere did I find a stereotypical view of women as specialised in soft skills, and men naturally better at technical skills. My informants are not necessarily 'beyond gender' as they still are within the 'two gender binary system', but they are beginning to conceive of masculine and feminine as less relevant, and perhaps more fluid. None of my informants considered women better at soft skills than men, or women less capable of technical skills, and therefore in this sense the 'polarisation of the gender binary' and the reinforcement of 'male skills' as being more important was absent from their thinking. In the next chapter, I will explore how, despite a lack of clearly defined modes of masculinity or femininity to conform to in the organisational cultures of my field sites, women still have to perform gender in order to cope with a male dominated work place. This highlights how, despite the genderless nature of programming, men and women encountering each other in physical form still produces a 'dynamic', and therefore an organisation is not gender neutral. Chapter 3- Gender Performance and Gender Dynamics in the Workplace Introduction In this chapter I will discuss, how gender is 'performed' in the ICT work place. I will use gender performance theory to highlight how women in male dominated working environments do at times have to enact behaviours which are consider to be more masculine, such appearing to be assertive, and confident, 'banging the table to be noticed, and not asking for help,' in case this is perceived as feminine. However, in the context of a supportive working cultural environment, women may also feel themselves, or not experience great complication of their gender identity. Theory: A Passion For Difference and Gender Performance Theory In her introduction to A Passion for Difference, states that ‘difference exerts an uncanny fascination for us all (Morre 1994: 1).’ These differences form group boundaries (Moore 1994:1). The notion of the performance of gender is not ‘revolutionary’, because for anthropologists gender was based on roles ‘what men and women do’ rather than on their anatomy (Moore 1994:24). Moore continues that ethnographic accounts may contain descriptions of people’s lived experience of their gender identities and how differences between the genders are sustained through work and nature of ‘social relationships’. ‘Gender performance is of course, all about gender relations. (Moore 1994: 25). For Judith Butler, gender is socially constructed ‘category,' which is created during performances (Leister 2008:282). This was in reaction to gender norms, Butler contests that these feminine or masculine performances are the bases of the ‘ideology of gender’ (Leister 2008: 283). Gender therefore only has a ‘reality’ in so much that it exists in performance. According to Butler, ‘perform, produce, and sustain discrete and polar genders as cultural fictions ... the construction 'compels' our belief in its necessity and naturalness" (Butler 1990: 178). In this sense the notion of a gender norm is an illusion. Gender is not based on ‘biological fact’ or ‘functionalist conceptions (Leister 2008:283).’ Therefore, an individual’s gender identity is formed through discourse, it is an effect rather than a cause and therefore does not exist ‘behind the performance.’ I will use performance theory to explore how gendered social practices are present in the workplace despite the lack of an organisational discourse of 'gender roles' or 'gender norms'. Gender performance becomes more an unconscious and unspoken expectation that workers fulfil or feel they have to adapt their behaviour, too. Gender Performance in the Work Place In company A, I found two clear examples to gender performances in the work place. A female informant in support role in company A who I refer to as Jenny, who told me that she definitely felt she had to perform gendered behaviours, especially at the beginning of her time working with the company. It was not safe to not know something: Interviewer: Do you feel you need to behave in a particular way to succeed, in a gendered way? Jenny: You need to look confident, you need to speak with a loud voice, that sometimes helps, I really feel they, if I am not sure about something, it is not good, they won’t listen to me, so I had to learn to do that. Interviewer: Do you think that is male? Jenny: If I hear, sometimes, if he was a man and he had a loud voice, I would probably hire him….I shouldn’t say… No, no keep going. Um, men are more assertive and confident, probably is easier to hire a man rather than a woman. I need to be assertive and confident. She went on to mention that her colleagues would find it easier to hire a confident man, because men are more likely to be confident and assertive, implying that it is these qualities that these men value and expect all workers to conform to despite their gender. It is said directly that it is harder to hire a woman because she is less likely to be 'confident', or to demonstrate confidence in a way that is recognised in these male dominated environments. However, it was noted in my observations that Jenny had a quiet personality, and perhaps the performance of being 'confident' can be related to personality issues, not only gender. But even though Jenny is expected to behave in a confident manner, she also reported that she felt encouraged to be herself. Interviewer: So in your work do you feel encouraged to be more masculine or feminine? Jenny: Good questions At the moment, I am encouraged to be myself, I wear more masculine clothes, I can feel really myself in this job. Interviewer:Is that because of the start-up, Jenny:Yes and my role as well, in different departments, different tasks. I think, the fact it is a start-up there is a lot of freedom, and my department and role allows me to be more free as well, I can really manage, as I want, Interviewer:Yeah so you don’t feel like there is any particular gender role you are fulfilling, you are just being you, and you don’t feel that is male or female at times. Jenny:I must say at the beginning when I started Um, I had a fear that my male colleagues took me for a secretary. I think I struggle sometimes to, not struggle, but make clear, that wasn’t their secretary. Umm…what can I say, maybe they told that, they didn’t treat me as a secretary, and make sure they did not even think that. Because I was the only female, and I would be a secretary, but my role was different. Interviewer: Did anyone make you feel that way? Jenny: Umm, I don’t know if they did on purpose….ummm I don’t think they did it on purpose to make me feel like a secretary. There were things that were unintentional ummm please book a room, please, they didn’t ask me for coffee..(laughter)..or if I made the coffee once, the next time it would be someone else, so I try as well as I am really lucky because I can give a shape to the culture of the company. Jenny actively discouraged any potential to be treated as a secretary, or a stereotypical female role of organiser, and 'maker of coffee', or in other words a female care taking role. There may have been some 'unconscious' or unintended behaviour on the part of her male colleagues to place her in that role. She fought against the performance, and though had to behave assertively to be taken seriously, she was ultimately performing herself in the workspace. However, this could be partly put down to 'start- up' culture which encourages workers to be themselves and is free from uniformity in the work place because of self motivation (Douglas Mc Gregor 1960). Another employee from company A who reported behaviour which can less ambiguously could be term 'gender performance', was Ben, who was also in a non technical role. Ben believed that women had to be more masculine in the work place, because that was the 'game in town'. His comment implied that for Ben, women had to obey 'societal norms' in the work place which were 'masculine in nature', at least in terms of a male dominated company, where male behaviours are likely to dominant. In general, this informant felt himself to be balanced gender wise. He told me that he believed that if I talked to younger men, they would be less comfortable with their gender identity and hence would not report any gendered behaviour (or want to even talk about the issue). In this sense, his balanced nature was something he had come to with time. He expressed that he had a female side, but it was something that he expressed at home, and that he was definitely male in the working environment, apart from actually being male. If there was any female aspect to him at work, he described it as knowing when to step away from a situation, and by implication be more cautious. He was also the only informant to talk about himself as more female in private, home space (no women reported being more female in private), than in the work place, though this did not suggest a conflict with his gendered identity in a way in the way a woman having a completely readapt to a male work place would potentially experience (and I refer to later more detail). He regarded this ability to be in touch, and ‘gender balanced’ to be a hallmark of a more mature man. As a man, with his sense of balance, he could move between masculine and feminine, and used these different discourses to his advantage depending on context and the ‘space’ he was in. In terms of gender performance theory, his informant, perhaps without realising, demonstrates the fluid and changeable nature of gender, though not in a way that is experienced as stressful or something that he is pressured into doing in the work place. He is in touch with the masculine and feminine traits within his own gender identity and has integrated them, though he recognises himself as a 'man', and can perform each in contexts he imagines to be suitable. He is in essence being fully himself in terms of the work place and in private. In company B, when I asked the question do you feel your work encourages you to be more masculine or feminine to informants Hilder responded: Interviewer: How do you experience gender at work? Hilder: Usually I don't experience it much at all. I am in a tricky situation where I am quite new to the whole tech sort of thing so basically I am fine with that, and I know that I do not know much now. ...I am in a position where I depend on other people, and I am fine with that. Some people in the company don't ...because they are women if they depend too much on other people, it is a gender thing going on. As Hilder relates, she does not experience her gender a great deal at work, but sometimes her female colleagues hesitate to ask for help, in case they are perceived as depending too much on other people. In this sense women were 'performing' this behaviour of trying not to ask for too much help in case of there being a 'gender thing going on', which associates asking for help with being female and somehow inappropriate to the work place if over done. However Hilder pointed out the tendency of male colleagues to work in such a way that it would take longer because they did not ask for help: Interviewer: Do you feel your work encourages you to be more masculine or feminine? ....repeat question Hilde: So I think on the surface, neither of those things, I guess there is one aspect that is um, culturally,...?? going on, not sure how to do something, you try to figure it out yourself, masculine pride, and I sort of feel like that is encouraged to an extent. Asking someone is quicker, but if I do that a lot, someone might just go 'god just figure it out for yourself.' I don't think that is strictly speaking gendered, but it maybe slightly gendered. HIlde: I dunno...the different ways people work, so of the guys, can go a long way trying to figure this out themselves Hilde mentions that there possibly is a 'cultural' 'gendered' aspect to this tendency for male colleagues to try and figure things out for themselves, and women felt they needed to conform to this behaviour. Though Hilde, as a junior software developer and does not feel the pressure to not ask for help in quite the same way. It is anticipated and expected she will ask for help. Bridget, on the other hand, had spent more time in the ICT industry, and had a different experience of gender performance in the work place. She related how she had to sometimes 'bang' the table to get heard in the office. She also worked doubly hard to get noticed in the early days of her time working to be accepted, though she attributed some of this to being a younger member of the team. In her own words: Interviewer: Do you need to behave in a particular way to succeed? Bridget: I used to especially when the guys … they um…not very nice to me. So I was quieter because I ended up getting interrupted and stuff, umm, and I convinced myself that I would be quiet in meetings, unless I had something to say, and it ended up that I never said anything, and I just people, you get less listened to, I stopped caring, and I had something to say, and I thought it was that important, then a good smack on the desk, would get people’s attention, that works, that is gendered, would be seen as quite aggressive. Interviewer: Do you feel there are any gender dynamics? Bridget: Yeah, I think, the vast majority of employees don’t care. I think most were surprised when I got here that I was a bit more knowledgeable than they thought I was. I don’t know why that is. You do have to prove yourself a little bit. It got easier as I got older. ….explaining really simple stuff. So I rewrote one of their projects from scratch in one day with the tests and everything, and then people were like, ok, started speaking to me like I was on the same level. And realising that if I did not understand something, I was quite capable, of understanding. Though it is clear Bridget had to 'perform' more aggressive behaviours to be noticed, she did not have to construct a gendered persona in conflict with her natural gender identity, at least not working in company B. However, the words of this female non technical informant summed up the 'feel' of this particular male office environment: Interviewer: So in your day to day working life, so you ever talk about gender? Informant: Not really, umm, trying to think of, might have been, here I don’t really feel, still quite male, I don’t feel its particularly dominant in that aspect, not saying I think the men here are feminine but it does not feel overly dominating …and pretty forward thinking and not treating anyone any differently, I wouldn’t work here if they did. From my own experience of the environment and feel of company B's office, it was open and inclusive and there was no sense that you were entering a 'male dominated' and segregated space. The only examples of gender performance, which Bridget had to perform, presented a challenge to the integrity of her gendered identity, were outside the work place, and provide an interesting comparison to the Bridget's experiences inside of company B. Bridget told me of her university experience and how the expression of her gender was attacked at this time. She turned up for her first day of lectures wearing a pink dress and make up, and all the eyes of the room were on her in an all-male class room. From that day forward, she did not wear makeup at all to lectures, and she was more careful over her dress. Bridget: I didn’t get a degree, it was hard, I went in with no programming experience. I walked in on my first day, in this little pink dress, and make up, and I walked in and a hundred eyes were …. I never wore make up to lectures after that. I once wore a skirt and knee high boots, this guy in the lecturer…started taking them off. Bridget: They were arseholes to me. She told me how in one lecture she wore knee high boots and someone actually stripped them off her. She could no longer express her version of a feminine identity and wear makeup or high heeled boots and she never wore a pink dress or make up to lecture again. This experience of a 'hostile' male dominated environment, and being victimised for female dress strongly resonates with Leister case study of a female wielder, who, on the first day of work, was humiliated by her 'highly masculine' students for wearing a skirt (Leister 2008: 292). The wielder never wore a skirt to class again, and had to adopt a stern persona, and prove to her students her skills as superior wielder before her mostly male dominated class rooms would take her seriously (Leister 2008:292). By comparison, and to underline the point that women were still having to behave in 'gendered' ways in an all-male environment, two of my male informants reported working in female dominated environments, but did not necessarily report differences to their gendered performances. One male informant from company B reported that he felt lonely and isolated, but that was not only gender but also age, which kept him apart whilst working in the IT department for several primary schools. No male informant reported having to perform his gender, which suggests that it is females who are adapting to a male-dominated environment. Conclusion To conclude this chapter, most of my informants in their day to day working lives, were not focusing on performing a gender (or at least not consciously aware of it), but were focusing on completing their tasks. In company A, Jenny as one of the only women, felt some pressure to 'be confident', and this was potentially linked to being more 'masculine'. However, on the whole she felt able to be herself, partly because of the start up culture. In company B, though, as Hilde reports, the organisational culture is inclusive and diverse, this working environment was not entirely free from women feeling some pressure to perform in more masculine behaviours, but ultimately it was certainly was a space where women felt judged upon their out put, and on the whole, felt themselves at work. In neither company did any male informant report gender performance, apart from Ben, who more made use of male and female traits to be effective in the work place. In the next chapter I will discuss my informants perceptions of ICT as meritocratic, question to what extent can the ICT industry be said to be meritocratic in the present day. Chapter 4- Meritocracy Introduction In this chapter, I will discuss my informants perceptions of ICT as a meritocratic industry. I will discuss my informant's perception that 'gendering' something more relevant in the wider organisation and in other industries such as finance, which my informants compare their current company unfavourably too. Are these technological women present day Haraway cyborgs liberated by the objective and mental nature of their work? Meritocracy Returning to the interview mentioned in the introduction, whom I will refer to as Sally, and how I was shocked to learn that she believed that ICT was not a sexist industry. I understand that my informants were defining meritocratic in terms of being judged by the quality of work rather than on gender. As the nature programming is either 'right or wrong', it in this sense works as a objective measure which is beyond 'cultural gendering.' She was not the only informant who answered in this way, and I started to try and press all my informants on this issue about whether ICT was meritocratic: Interviewer: Do you feel work encourages you to be more masculine/feminine?? Sally: Technology is merit based- in the wider company might be influenced by gender The implication of this displacement of gender onto the wider culture, is to suggest that it prevents meritocracy in some sense. Gender is cultural baggage in opposition to objective meritocracy. (more detail) Sally's subordinate reflected a similar sentiment, but related to me what some of this gender influence was in the wider company. Interview Do you get that feeling that they see your output rather than your gender? Informant: I think so, because in programming it is very apparent when you have done your job. Sort of, I guess we are talking about the wider company, not just about software engineers. That maybe is slightly, culture is more than just... I am talking about the wider team. My team, is less laddish than the rest of the teams. This is a direct reference to gender being more of an issue outside of technical teams, who happen to be less 'laddish' than the other teams. This implies that there was more 'gendering going on in general When I asked Bridget, whether ICT was meritocratic Bridget told me that she had a radically different point of view. She told me she believed it was who ever could shout the loudest. Do you think that technology is more meritocratic because it is coding? What is meritocratic? … It is who can shout the loudest, absolutely not, like the concept, called ten x programmers, who can get ten times for than your average programmer done. We have a few ten x programmers here, and there will be someone who will be, I will build this thing, and I am going to build it in two weeks. For example, …ten x programmer, and then he then left the company, dashboard, the software he used for that, he made an account and not given us the password. So we couldn’t change the screen we were stuck, poor communication and poor design.. tech tasher, programme to remove unnecessary data from songs, so her wrote this and I came to add something to it, and I found something wrong with it, and everyone was shouting, he was going to be amazing, he is going to be a CTO all these things, he had not even followed the most basic software engineering protocols. So it was in objective orientated...(technical information). Everybody has a really high opinion of him, he shouts a lot he goes to meet ups.. And typically they move on before they have to clean up their mess. So the amount of programming weeks we have to spend cleaning up after ten x….mumbling… (chatting) Bridget’s comments are very revealing, though this does not directly relate to gender, but the very existence of a ten X programmer who claims to work miracles, demonstrates the fragility of meritocracy. It also demonstrates the importance of 'image' and 'ego' which convince people you are doing a good job, rather than always looking for the hard evidence'. Relating back to her experiences of having to work hard to be accepted on equal terms with other male software programmers, and sometimes the need to use more 'aggressive' behaviour, though programming may have an objective out come, the perceptions of colleagues can still present a challenge to being accepted on equal terms for a person's work, at least initially. Hilder perhaps had the most insightful comment when I asked her whether ICT was meritocratic: Interviewer: Do you think that coding is more meritocratic, because the work is based on what you can actually do, it is easy to see a result rather than a…hence less sexist? Hilder: It is….mmmmmmmm….answer is both yes and no, for those that have actually made it into the room and being able to prove their skills to one another, this small group is meritocratic, probably quite a bit meritocratic, I would say, because it doesn’t really work in software development, it does not quite work to boss people around, and you work your way up that way, if you are a craft developer you are a craft developer sort of thing. By way of be it, sort of cultural stereotypes, or social economic disadvantages, stuff like that, that minorities don’t even make it into the room to prove themselves. Not a lot of minority people present, to participate in the meritocracy. Some people are structurally support by default, and some people do have the economic means to even study 34.3 …so in that sense it is not one because some people are being excluded, by default, just by way of them not having the economic means to even study. Programming …seen as something as ummm…a lot of people hiring, for someone with computer science degree and a lot of experience… hard to come by for someone with other struggles umm… As Hilde highlights, meritocratic for whom? Few minorities make it to the table to have the opportunity to be judged by their skills, and some people are structurally supported by default. This is an important point to my argument highlighted by my informant. Meritocratic for whom? Programming alone does not provide the social support needed for women and minorities to enter the ICT work force in greater numbers. However, despite this reality, Hilde previous mentioned that 'gendering if it went on, happened in the wider organisation and not in the tech teams. She also makes an interesting link to social dominance, and how software programming does not require you to boss people around, and in another sense, programming is absent form the social dynamic and gender dynamic. Referring to the cyber feminist hope that new technologies would liberate women from the constraints of gender, it does appear that once these women got through the door, there were fewer expectations to play a 'gendered role', though and the general perception was that gender was something that was outside the technical teams: Hilde: Ummm…it is really weird, because, I have not worked in other companies, in the IT industry, that is why, I feel that our company, I feel quite lucky, ….from what you read in the news, genderally on the internet, our company is sort of a bit better and a bit more friendly and inclusive than other companies. Just from what I know, I would say that it is a paradoxical one, it feels more inclusive than other industries in the sense that umm…for I feel less like, I feel like I am more measured, and included, or excluded based on my work, rather than how I perform as a woman, or my gender, less expected. I think in um business, in client operations, there is more expectation from clients, of how people behave, there is a really important client coming, I should wear a dress and make them coffee, and again, that might not be something the company expects but that might be something in my mind also, and this culture where women are expected to be such and such, and there is an important client, and they are all male, so maybe they expect that too, and I can go between ignoring it or feeling weird for upsetting clients, or trying to find a balance, and this whole conflict does not even exist, not exist in the tech team at all, there is no gender thing going on at all, but on the other hand, in business, umm, in the non tech side of things you so have a better ration to men to women so its (me) ironic This quotation makes an important point about the main argument, though it maybe stated that programming has no gender, Hilde felt the connection between feeling accepted for herself and judged by her work in Company B because of the organisational culture. She felt lucky her organisation was more friendly and inclusive than other companies, and compared to her past experiences she did not have to 'perform' her gender. Conclusion In conclusion, though programming maybe gender free, my informants cannot be said to be examples of Haraways' cyborgs, freed from the physical and the binary by virtue of technology, and the loss of boundary between human and machine. Nonetheless, these women are still freer to be themselves and not be constrained by society’s stereotypes of male and female by the sensitive organisational cultures. Awareness, as well as hard physical evidence of good skills and the genderless nature of good work, allows these men and women to start exploring a society potentially beginning to develop beyond the gender binary of western culture. ICT, though struggling with retaining women, has this potential to be truly meritocratic, as a space where the suspension of the influences of the wider culture and gender roles can occur through awareness and technology. However, the ‘gendering’ that goes on in the wider ICT organisation points towards how gender stereotypes may persist. It is clear that technology alone will not provide full meritocracy until the gender issues of the wider culture have been addressed. Chapter 5 - Final Conclusion The ICT industry maybe meritocratic because of the objective nature of coding, as I have demonstrated, gender is not absent from the organisational culture, and female employees occasionally have to be more aggressive or more assertive to deal with the male dominated environment. However, the companies I have researched make an effort to make certain their organisational culture is inclusive, and this allows its employees a greater sense of acceptance and being judged by their work alone, rather than gender stereotype. Though computer programming, may have the potential to move women beyond the constraints of a gender polarised society, as a physical presence in the work place, men and women cannot avoid interacting and creating a dynamic, which is influenced by wider society, as my analysis of gender performance in the work place demonstrates. In the present day, I argue that only women, who can make it through the wider society’s tendency to enforce the gender binary, can make it to the table to prove their skills. However, in the future, ICT has the potential to be more fully meritocratic and supportive of diversity, if it is able to tackle its organisational cultures. 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