Women Fight Gender Gap With Self-Employment

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August 09, 2000 (6:24 AM EDT)

By Terry Costlow,

Electronics is the glamour field of the new century, as states and cities offer enticements to attract technology companies and as tech employers dangle incentives before job seekers and employees.

But many women in the field say they are still fighting for equality. In fact, many have given up on the big-company culture and have become entrepreneurs in bids to find career fulfillment.

"There's a real undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the electronics industry and corporate America," said Carolyn Leighton, chairwoman of Women in Technology International, Encino, Calif. "The biggest indication is the number of women leaving corporate America. A lot of them are leaving to start their own companies as a default choice."

Leighton cited Small Business Administration statistics that show the number of women-owned businesses grew by 89 percent from 1987 to 1997, roughly triple the growth rate of 29 percent for businesses overall.

Measured another way, the SBA predicts that about 4.7 million women will be self-employed by 2005, up 77 percent from 1983. By comparison, the number of self-employed men is predicted to rise only 6 percent over the same period.

Leighton, who founded WITI in 1989, said that despite the electronics industry's reputation as a leader in the brave new world of equality, the industry is "very anachronistic."

Asked about studies that conclude the industry is a leader in employee relations, she responded, "A lot of women laugh at those lists. There's such a disparity between the description of the awards and the actual work environment."

She recounted a conversation with a chief executive shortly after WITI held its annual conference in June.

"He wanted to let me know that he sent more women to our conference and when he heard the feedback, he said they'd found out how much they liked their company," she said. "That's because they heard so many other women at the conference complaining so much" about other work environments that they concluded they were relatively well off.

Leighton contended that broad discontent among women now working in the field might dissuade others from entering it. The latter group may conclude they can't make a difference in the technology world.

Consider the voter registration figures for the pending board elections for Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ICANN, authorized by the United States and other governments to set guidelines for the Internet, is soliciting voters who will select the board members. Though the sign-up process is quite simple, less than 10 percent of North American registrants at the end of June were women.

WITI's effort to boost female registration at icannvote.com raised the percentage from 10 percent to 15 percent during July. But considering that NetSmartAmerica.com, New York, predicts that women will constitute 60 percent of Web users by 2002, ICANN registration results are low indeed.

In another sign that women don't view the electronics industry as a field where they can prosper, the Association for Computing Machinery's Committee on Women in Computing found that the percentage of women earning bachelor's degrees in computer science is declining, even as other fields see increased numbers of female baccalaureates.

From 1983 to 1996, the percentage of female graduates in computer science fell from 37.1 percent to 27.5 percent, the committee found. That's a decline of nearly 30 percent, and the study's title indicates the committee's bleak prediction for the near future: "Incredible Shrinking Pipeline Unlikely to Reverse."

The group called on the computer science industry to recruit more girls and young women into the field and to take such steps as creating more computer games that appeal to girls.

But efforts to interest more young women in careers in math and science won't bear fruit unless the industry better utilizes the women already working in those disciplines, Leighton said.

"Young women will choose a field where they feel they can be successful," she said. "If they see women leaving businesses to start their own companies after hitting a block wall, why would young women choose an industry that seems to have no interest in advancing them?"

Leighton said that until gender bias declines, women will continue to depart. But she said that even when women run their own businesses, bias doesn't go away.

Many women, and most men, starting out tend to stay in the same general field they have worked in. Whether they deal with their former employers or not, they will find that creating business relationships remains tricky.

"Women have to go after business and establish relationships with companies that are often run by men," she said. "When I started my third company, a research firm in technology, I was trying to get contracts and wasn't having any luck even when it was obvious that it was business my company should have gotten.

"I brought a guy in to help out," she continued. "He had less experience and fewer contacts than I did, but it wasn't long before he started bringing in contracts that I couldn't get."

To help companies reduce gender bias, WITI is putting the finishing touches on a software program designed to measure gender perceptions and monitor organizational effectiveness in handling gender issues. It provides benchmarks for companies and a 20-minute self-assessment program for individuals.

The Web demo is slated to start this Friday, Aug. 11.

"This can benefit everyone," Leighton said. "Research has proven that one way to improve behavior is by making people aware of their behavior. This survey can help anyone who takes it. If someone has a problem with women, they probably have a problem with anyone who does not fit their cultural mode."

The resultant improvements in the workplace, she said, can bode well for the corporate bottom line.

"I think the question is whether any company in today's environment can [afford not to] do everything they can to retain people," she said. "Retention was the biggest issue for every company at our summer conference. The cost of losing and replacing an employee is huge."

In another groundbreaking move, WITI has formed an alliance with Smith College (Northampton, Mass.), which last year became the first women's college to establish an engineering program.

Together, they're creating WITI's first Invent Center, which will collaborate with Smith's career development office to provide programs designed to help women start or participate in technology-based endeavors.

Though WITI is focused on improving the lot of women in technology, Leighton noted that most benefits and programs that help women succeed or enjoy their jobs more fully will also benefit men.

"In a perfect world, everyone does what they do best," she said. "For years, men had a huge burden: They had to provide the support base for the whole family. If women can do that, men might find that they're much happier staying home and taking care of their kids."