Women are new target of electronics makers

Kevin O’Brian has written an interesting article on how women are the new traget of electronics makers. This is based on the fact that women influence most decisions to buy a consumer electronic product but consumer electronic producers just started to see them as viable customers. Kevin argues that women prefer stylish products and has some interesting examples of how consumer electronic producers try to sell to women.

Two articles published

Two of my academic articles appeared in the last week.

The first one looks at how the new soft skills in information communication technology work are gendered. It argued that even though women are said to bring the soft skills needed to ICT work, they rarely get credit for displaying them as they are seen as just natural in women.

The full reference is:

Kelan, E.K. 2008. Emotions in a Rational Profession: The Gendering of Skills in ICT work. Gender, Work & Organization, 15(1): 49-71.

The original article is available here.

The second article is about how ICT worker talk about the scarcity of women in ICT work. I show that gender is indeed something that is confusing for people. They have no easy explanations to account for the scarcity of women in ICT work as the problem is much more complex than that.

The full reference is:

Kelan, E. K. 2007. 'I don't know why' - Accounting for the Scarcity of Women in ICT Work. Women's Studies International Forum, 30: 499-511.

The original article can be downloaded here.

Earlier versions of the two article can also be downloaded from my university website (under Elisabeth Kelan and publications).

In the media

I gave two interviews with the media recently.

One on gender in management education:

Still too few women, FT, 22 October 2007

And one on gender stereotypes and the situation of working women in Germany

Developing world cracks glass ceiling, The Guardian, 15 October 2007

In the next week, I will be speaking at the event Diversity Dividend organized by World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders.

The Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business will also present its results on Innovative Potential: Men and Women in Teams.

Gender and Gaming

Gender and gaming is a fascinating topic. As part of the Lady Geek project Belinda Palmer looked the retail experience surrounding gaming. More can be found here.

I recently read an article in Psychological Science dealing with that topic. The article reported on an experiment in which people had to spot the ‘odd one out’. Like previous research, this study showed a sex difference with men having a higher success rate (68%) than women (55%).

This seems to be pretty much in line with the belief about spatial tasks in which men are said to perform better than women. For instance women are slower and make more mistakes when mentally rotating objects. However this is not the case for women trained in the natural sciences who are as good as men in these areas. It is also notable that women and men use different strategies to navigate. Men prefer maps while women navigate based on landmarks, which means that it may be rather a question of how good navigation is assessed and which way of assessing this skill is accepted as norm.

Returning to this study, the researchers could have left it at this having confirmed a gender stereotype. What they did instead was to let them play video games. One group played a video game called ‘Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault’ while the other group played ‘Balance’, a non-action puzzle game. While the latter group did not improve their performance, the ones who played ‘Medal of Honor’ did much better in the spatial task test. What was staggering was that women improved their performance more than men and that the sex differences found earlier vanished altogether. These effects were the same when people were tested again after five months.

As biologists and neuroscientists point out our brains are shaped by genes but also by upbringing. The different games girls and boys play may have to do with different brain structures developing. The social construction that boys play violent games and girls non-action games might in conclusion lead to the expression of greater sex differences in spatial tasks. The fact that women are confined to have dirty little secrets when playing video games, is a way in which gender stereotypes are reiterated and re-enacted.

Lady Geek

I advised Saatchi & Saatchi on their Lady Geek project inspiring women to enjoy technologies.

Here is some of the press the project received:

Saatchi and Saatchi reveals "Lady Geek" survey highlights

Tech companies just don't get women

Gadget retailers failing to target women

Mujeres, deuda pendiente para la tecnología

La mujer ¿una cuenta pendiente para el mercado IT?

Vrouwen willen geen roze en glimmers meer

Women's Forum for the Economy and Society

Lamia Walker and I will attend the Women's Forum for the Economy and Society in Deauville in October. Further information on the event can be found here. I am a panellist in the session 'Spare me the Stereotypes' at 1645 on Friday 12 October.