In the 2000s, Mitts, C. R. (2008) indicated mathematics and science courses were perceived as main dominant. This was as a result of sexism attitudes as well as low confidence among girls, making them to shy away from the technology field. Weber (2015) adds that the though technology industry in the past was unwelcoming to women, things are changing due to gender equity as more women enter the technology industry. However, with inadequate women in the technology industry to act as role models as compared to men, about 57.5% of young men were encouraged to pursue engineering and technology careers as compared to 48.8% of women (Weber, 2012). Inadequate women role models in the technology industry begin in the education sector, where only 14% of physics educators in the U.S are women. In addition, though gender equity encourages IT companies to employ women at an equal rate as men, most IT companies are yet to fulfill this promise. For instance, 79%, 63%, 69%and 39% of Google, Yahoo, Facebook and LinkedIn employees respectively are male. Lagesen (2007) indicated that such disparities may partly be attributed to inadequate qualified women applying for such jobs.
Inadequate women in the technology industry may also be attributed to differences in learning style. This is because though the number of young women enrolling in colleges (72.7%) is higher than the number of young men (64%), the number of women enrolling in engineering and technology courses is less than that of men (Ballard, Scales & Edwards, 2006). This is because young women are naturally interested in learning about things to do with social and verbal nature, young men on the other hand are more interested in learning about manipulation of objects and building things (Halpern, 2000). This difference is stereotypical in nature, but is dictating women and men careers significantly as women shy away from technology.
In dealing with this problem, organizations like the Canadian Women in Technology, which is a national volunteer organizations based in Canada has taken up the responsibility of encouraging young women through mentorship, advocacy and networking to consider taking technology career. This encouragement is accelerating women involvement in technology. According to Weber and Custer (2015), the number of women graduating with computer science and engineering bachelor’s degrees, diplomas and certificates increased by 18% between 1980 and 2013.
In terms of technology use and application the number of women is catching up with men. However, men are interested in what technologies can do; women are interested in more practical application of technology (Bulik, 2011; Kazim, Schmidt, & Brown, 2007). In this regard, women are influencing the trends of technology application from social gaming to group buying; hence playing an important role in web-3 development. Nevertheless, the number of women is buying and using media technologies including iphones, ipod, computers, digital cameras, laptops and tablets is catching up with men.
