Gender Bias and Equality in Media and Technology

Gender Bias and equality in Media and Technology

"The people who resist change will be confronted by the growing number of people who see that better ways...are available thanks to technology." Bill Gates

In the field of technology, there is a growing trend of women in technology accomplishing great strides in specialties of engineering, electronics, and research. Women in computers and communications are dwindling, because of the boy's club mentality in this country.

The Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, part of the National Academies' Policy and Global Affairs (PGA) division, has released a report that examines ways to make the fullest possible use of women in academic science and engineering. According to the report, women face barriers in hiring and promotion in research universities in fields of science and engineering -- situation that deprives the United States of an important source of talent as the country faces increasingly stiff global competition in higher education, science and technology, and the marketplace. In today's society of the 21 st century there are elements that make it more difficult for women to train for and maintain a high-achieving scientific career. These factors include social stigma of sexism and racialism, institutional bias in the technological community and pressures related to starting a family. Nowadays, thanks to the civil rights movement and feminists, racist and sexist images are not as overtly portrayed as they were before the 1960s. Other biases like racism, sexism, ageism, classism, can still be found in the mainstream media and in other institutions.

For example if we know that 51% of our society consists of women, yet men outnumber women 2 to 1 on television, then we know that the direction of gender bias is against women. Historically,