Over the past few years, the divide between women and men in technology has been challenged. More women are starting to join the fight for their rights to connect to the world through technology, yet there is still a lot of blockage for the movement. The concept of keeping women from learning is very barbaric. The majority of governments are still mainly run by men. The main concern of letting women have the same amount of access to technology as men is that once these women have access, it will take away from their 'womanly duties'. Ultimately they are afraid that technology will impinge on the way their society has run for the past centuries. There are a lot of recent efforts put forth to close the digital gender divide. The main problem faced when trying to make a difference is the push of biased data. Biased digital data specifically relating to gender is used a lot to deter women from joining the revolution.
In the most recent digital women news, the Inclusive Data Charter (IDC) organization, "advocates for more granular data to understand the needs and experiences of the most marginalized in society." (Wajcman, UN Women) They go into lots of detail on the statistics of how men and women both perceive the divide differently. The men in organizations perceive the diversity of their organizations to be more vast than it truly is. "[M]en are far less likely to perceive that gender inequality exists at their organization." (IDC) This is a problem because the first step to change is acceptance. These subconscious bias' hurt the fight for women in technology. This misrepresented data is being pushed more than the accurately represented data. “Machines trained using datasets generated in an unequal society tend to amplify existing inequities, turning human prejudices into seemingly objective facts." (Wajcman, UN Women) Women are being hired in companies to reach a diversity mark. This is why men see the divide as less than it is, but although these women are being hired, it is much harder for these women to grow and move up in the companies. They are hired as a mere demographic statistic. That is why accurate data is important to follow.
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