Damned whores and God's police 2.0

Beverley Head
Tuesday, 08 March 2011 16:47

IT Industry - Strategy

Technology has played a major role in bringing women into the workplace, and provided a largely gender-neutral communications platform. But there is still a way to go in terms of achieving full gender equity in the IT&T sector and more broadly in society.

Almost 400 people attended the Females in Information Technology and Telecommunications (FITT) event in Sydney today to mark 100 years of International Women's Day. While women in Australian society have moved on from being cast as Anne Summers' famed 'Damned whores and Gods police' it was clear from today's commentary that even in the internet era women have yet to achieve equality in a number of areas including pay and position.

Speaking at the event were Gloria Farler an executive director in market intelligence and customer analytics from Telstra, Pip Marlow who has recently taken on the role as managing director of Microsoft Australia, and Anne Davies one of Australia's leading investigative journalists, who writes for the Sydney Morning Herald. The focus of the event was the way in which the media portrayed women and women's issue today, how that was changing as online media expanded, and how women were able to participate in both the traditional media and emerging online and social media.

While the speakers generally agreed that new media and social networks had given women a fresh platform from which to share their views, all were keen to stress that the journey toward gender equity had not ended.

In one of her first major public speeches since being appointed as the managing director of Microsoft Australia Ms Marlow said that while Microsoft was a company which embraced diversity, gender bias was still a reality for many women. She did however believe that 'the internet and technology takes away gender biases and allows females to participate in the conversations like they never have before.'

She said it was important that technologically savvy women encouraged, promoted and supported other women to help them get online and 'look at new ways to use technology to drive innovation that would eradicate gender bias.'

She acknowledged that her recent appointment as managing director of Microsoft had attracted some commentary based purely around her gender. However she said she viewed that as an opportunity to raise the awareness of what women can achieve in IT.