In December of 2008, while forming the SWAT team (Students Working to Advance Technology) at B. W. Harris School, I emphasized the need to make the team diverse. This was an effort to create a gender balance as well as include students from several grade levels. The goal was to encourage young female Liberian students to engage in other aspects of Information Technology other than the clerical aspects, they have traditionally dominated.
While I managed to achieve my goal of balancing the SWAT team, the issue of gender imbalance in ICT – and in many other professions — is shockingly a major one, not only locally, but globally.
What follows is a modest attempt to create awareness for gender disparity in the Liberian ICT community and hopefully proffer some ideas that could help bridge this chasm in Liberian society.
In Liberia, the relative balance of gender in government and other sectors of the society quintessentially indicate that we have the capacity to create a balance in the area of ICT as well. Creating this balance, of course, requires role-modeling and overwhelming support on the part of our authorities. On the other hand, women in Liberia need to be motivated, determined, and willing to explore areas other than the traditional occupations or careers that everyone seems to embark upon because they feel they have limited employment options.
The problem, as I see it, with gender disparity in ICT in Liberia is that Liberian women are not given the encouragement or motivation to embark upon careers in ICT or in the sciences. Liberian girls ignore careers in ICT because of the lack of support from role models, persistent stereotyped views that ICT is better suited to men, and the lack of understanding about types of ICT jobs available and what they entail. What’s interesting is that females generally like and enjoy using ICT and more often become competent users of computers and the Internet. An example of this is the frequency with which, many Liberian girls use social networks like Facebook and hi-5. A lot more Liberia girls or women have a Yahoo! email account which they use proficiently to communicate with relatives and friends locally and abroad.
No doubt, there has been much progress in the area of gender equality in the workplace globally. Even Liberia has made relatively significant progress in gender balance, although there is still a lot of work to be done to in this area. The Ministery of Gender, the national machinery for promoting gender equality, is doing a great job at encouraging gender balance; but there is still lot it can do to encourage Liberian women in the area of ICT. The Ministry needs to initiate programs and activities that empower women to engage in ICT as a way of supporting the Poverty Reduction Strategy.
Policies that favor girls must be put in place to ensure that Liberia achieves a high percentage of ICT manpower 10 years from now. If we fail to do so now, future mothers and daughters will be further marginalized from the mainstream of the global community. This is why all stakeholders have to be fully committed to this initiative. There is hope of course, as the recent National ICT Policy draft that was put out by the Ministry of Postal and Telecommunications Affairs addresses the issue of women’s access to ICT. The document acknowledges the marginalization of women in ICT and illustrates government’s willingness to address that issue.
In December of 2008 during our “hands-on” Computer Hardware training at B. W. Harris School, one of the female students grabbed a screw and began to disassemble a computer as I had instructed. Just then, a male student yelled, “what are you doing? That’s not a woman’s job; women are only supposed to use computers to type letters.” Ignoring those comments, the female student proceeded to open the computer without hesitation. Before the male student could say another word, I interrupted and gestured him toward a photo that I had accessed online through my Palm Pilot; it was the photo of Barbara Desoer, Global Technology and Operations Executive at Bank of America. Then I mentioned the name of Heather Jackson, CIO (Chief Information Officer) of Halifax Bank of Scotland.
But before I went further to mention another foreign name, I mentioned the name of Ciata Victor, who is the webmaster of TLCAfrica.com – a Liberian, a female, and one with quite an IT background. I informed him that ICT is not a gender thing, that I had had two females as my managers in my ICT career and that they were the smartest programmers that I had ever worked with. I also told him that there are also a lot of Liberia female ICT professionals here in the United States and around the world who, upon return to Liberia, will play a significant role in the rebuilding process.
Many people stereotype ICT professionals or professionals in the computing field as a certain unique and weird type of people who are exceptionally smart and geeky. Others see ICT as a profession fit for men only. This is not true! Women have the potential to be just as good at ICT professions as men. In fact, from my experience working with ICT women, they are often smarter than their male counterparts. Also, during my academic and even in professional life, I had many female classmates and colleagues who were all smart girls capable of writing code as well as any one of us (guys) on my teams.
The absence of women in ICT in Liberia represents a double talent loss; not only for the ICT sector, which is already faced with a shortage of skills, but for women themselves who miss further opportunities to enter the labor market. This gender gap will not be closed until Liberian stakeholders do more to educate, support and encourage young women in Liberia to explore careers in ICT. This means public-private partnership and collaboration will play a major role in changing perceptions about industry by giving access to more realistic and authentic information about ICT and ICT careers. Closer cooperation between institutions of learning and the Ministry of Education, what currently constitutes the ICT sector, those of us in the Diaspora, as well as NGOs and other donor agencies, are needed to ensure accurate information about ICT is available to teachers, students and parents.
Liberian schools also have a major role to play in this effort. They must integrate ICT in their curricula and include girls in all ICT-related activities so as to encourage them to pursue studies in ICT. Liberia’s future depends on the capacity of Liberians in areas such as ICT. While it is quite understandable that not all schools in Liberia have a technology program, schools should use any available means of getting information out to students. That includes pulling up-to-date resources from the Internet through an Internet café (if the school does not have access), videos on ICT, and so on. They should also set up field trips and allow female students to visit NGOs, public and private corporations, USAID, or any entity that shows ICT in action. It would be even more beneficial if they were to visit places where women work in ICT. This would encourage young girls to aspire for careers other than those traditional careers which they explore because they feel they have no other choice.
Finally, the 16-year civil war was a phenomenal setback for Liberians. But as my father once penned, “EVERY SETBACK IS A SETUP FOR A GREATER COMEBACK!” That setback has set the stage for a greater comeback through the current recovery process. We see this in the progress that is being made in the area of gender equality. Today we have a Ministry of Gender as well as other organizations that advocate gender equality.
That being said, Liberian gender advocates must redouble their efforts to ensure gender equality in the area of ICT as well as leverage its transformative potential to benefit women. Women in Liberia must also take the initiative of engaging in ICT now so that they will be able to enjoy the benefits of the modernization and economic development that it brings. Gender balance in ICT is a crucial issue that needs to be addressed early in order to bridge the gap between genders in ICT before widens further. Globally, there is an absence of female ICT professionals, which also needs to be addressed. Liberia now has the opportunity to be part of a global solution.
I urge you (reader) to join this debate by visiting the Daily Observer’s website and posting a response to this article. Remember, we are all responsible for rebuilding Liberia.
Copyright Liberian Observer - All Rights Reserved. This article cannot be re-published without the expressed, written consent of the Liberian Observer. Please contact us for more information or to request publishing permission.
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Updated: September 1, 2009 - 5:41pm
In December of 2008, while forming the SWAT team (Students Working to Advance Technology) at B. W. Harris School, I emphasized the need to make the team diverse. This was an effort to create a gender balance as well as include students from several grade levels. The goal was to encourage young female Liberian students to engage in other aspects of Information Technology other than the clerical aspects, they have traditionally dominated.
While I managed to achieve my goal of balancing the SWAT team, the issue of gender imbalance in ICT – and in many other professions — is shockingly a major one, not only locally, but globally.
What follows is a modest attempt to create awareness for gender disparity in the Liberian ICT community and hopefully proffer some ideas that could help bridge this chasm in Liberian society.
In Liberia, the relative balance of gender in government and other sectors of the society quintessentially indicate that we have the capacity to create a balance in the area of ICT as well. Creating this balance, of course, requires role-modeling and overwhelming support on the part of our authorities. On the other hand, women in Liberia need to be motivated, determined, and willing to explore areas other than the traditional occupations or careers that everyone seems to embark upon because they feel they have limited employment options.
The problem, as I see it, with gender disparity in ICT in Liberia is that Liberian women are not given the encouragement or motivation to embark upon careers in ICT or in the sciences. Liberian girls ignore careers in ICT because of the lack of support from role models, persistent stereotyped views that ICT is better suited to men, and the lack of understanding about types of ICT jobs available and what they entail. What’s interesting is that females generally like and enjoy using ICT and more often become competent users of computers and the Internet. An example of this is the frequency with which, many Liberian girls use social networks like Facebook and hi-5. A lot more Liberia girls or women have a Yahoo! email account which they use proficiently to communicate with relatives and friends locally and abroad.
No doubt, there has been much progress in the area of gender equality in the workplace globally. Even Liberia has made relatively significant progress in gender balance, although there is still a lot of work to be done to in this area. The Ministery of Gender, the national machinery for promoting gender equality, is doing a great job at encouraging gender balance; but there is still lot it can do to encourage Liberian women in the area of ICT. The Ministry needs to initiate programs and activities that empower women to engage in ICT as a way of supporting the Poverty Reduction Strategy.
Policies that favor girls must be put in place to ensure that Liberia achieves a high percentage of ICT manpower 10 years from now. If we fail to do so now, future mothers and daughters will be further marginalized from the mainstream of the global community. This is why all stakeholders have to be fully committed to this initiative. There is hope of course, as the recent National ICT Policy draft that was put out by the Ministry of Postal and Telecommunications Affairs addresses the issue of women’s access to ICT. The document acknowledges the marginalization of women in ICT and illustrates government’s willingness to address that issue.
In December of 2008 during our “hands-on” Computer Hardware training at B. W. Harris School, one of the female students grabbed a screw and began to disassemble a computer as I had instructed. Just then, a male student yelled, “what are you doing? That’s not a woman’s job; women are only supposed to use computers to type letters.” Ignoring those comments, the female student proceeded to open the computer without hesitation. Before the male student could say another word, I interrupted and gestured him toward a photo that I had accessed online through my Palm Pilot; it was the photo of Barbara Desoer, Global Technology and Operations Executive at Bank of America. Then I mentioned the name of Heather Jackson, CIO (Chief Information Officer) of Halifax Bank of Scotland.
But before I went further to mention another foreign name, I mentioned the name of Ciata Victor, who is the webmaster of TLCAfrica.com – a Liberian, a female, and one with quite an IT background. I informed him that ICT is not a gender thing, that I had had two females as my managers in my ICT career and that they were the smartest programmers that I had ever worked with. I also told him that there are also a lot of Liberia female ICT professionals here in the United States and around the world who, upon return to Liberia, will play a significant role in the rebuilding process.
Many people stereotype ICT professionals or professionals in the computing field as a certain unique and weird type of people who are exceptionally smart and geeky. Others see ICT as a profession fit for men only. This is not true! Women have the potential to be just as good at ICT professions as men. In fact, from my experience working with ICT women, they are often smarter than their male counterparts. Also, during my academic and even in professional life, I had many female classmates and colleagues who were all smart girls capable of writing code as well as any one of us (guys) on my teams.
The absence of women in ICT in Liberia represents a double talent loss; not only for the ICT sector, which is already faced with a shortage of skills, but for women themselves who miss further opportunities to enter the labor market. This gender gap will not be closed until Liberian stakeholders do more to educate, support and encourage young women in Liberia to explore careers in ICT. This means public-private partnership and collaboration will play a major role in changing perceptions about industry by giving access to more realistic and authentic information about ICT and ICT careers. Closer cooperation between institutions of learning and the Ministry of Education, what currently constitutes the ICT sector, those of us in the Diaspora, as well as NGOs and other donor agencies, are needed to ensure accurate information about ICT is available to teachers, students and parents.
Liberian schools also have a major role to play in this effort. They must integrate ICT in their curricula and include girls in all ICT-related activities so as to encourage them to pursue studies in ICT. Liberia’s future depends on the capacity of Liberians in areas such as ICT. While it is quite understandable that not all schools in Liberia have a technology program, schools should use any available means of getting information out to students. That includes pulling up-to-date resources from the Internet through an Internet café (if the school does not have access), videos on ICT, and so on. They should also set up field trips and allow female students to visit NGOs, public and private corporations, USAID, or any entity that shows ICT in action. It would be even more beneficial if they were to visit places where women work in ICT. This would encourage young girls to aspire for careers other than those traditional careers which they explore because they feel they have no other choice.
Finally, the 16-year civil war was a phenomenal setback for Liberians. But as my father once penned, “EVERY SETBACK IS A SETUP FOR A GREATER COMEBACK!” That setback has set the stage for a greater comeback through the current recovery process. We see this in the progress that is being made in the area of gender equality. Today we have a Ministry of Gender as well as other organizations that advocate gender equality.
That being said, Liberian gender advocates must redouble their efforts to ensure gender equality in the area of ICT as well as leverage its transformative potential to benefit women. Women in Liberia must also take the initiative of engaging in ICT now so that they will be able to enjoy the benefits of the modernization and economic development that it brings. Gender balance in ICT is a crucial issue that needs to be addressed early in order to bridge the gap between genders in ICT before widens further. Globally, there is an absence of female ICT professionals, which also needs to be addressed. Liberia now has the opportunity to be part of a global solution.
I urge you (reader) to join this debate by visiting the Daily Observer’s website and posting a response to this article. Remember, we are all responsible for rebuilding Liberia.
Copyright Liberian Observer - All Rights Reserved. This article cannot be re-published without the expressed, written consent of the Liberian Observer. Please contact us for more information or to request publishing permission.