Monica Eaton-Cardone is sounding an alarm: a future generation of women is at risk of getting left out of an ever-increasing supply of jobs in the STEM disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and math. To some, this is due to a long-standing gender bias that has already made for an unwelcoming environment for women in these industries, which offer among the highest-paying jobs in the U.S. economy.
Eaton-Cardone, who has seen the tech industry up close, offers an alternative view. She is founder and CIO of Global Risk Technologies, better known by its U.S. counterpart, Chargebacks911. As she explains in the following Take Five interview, the chances for women to occupy and excel in STEM jobs is undermined by social perceptions that science, technology, engineering, and math are “male industries.”
IB: First of all, do you agree that there is little hope of reducing or eliminating the pay gap between men and women, however you define it or measure it, unless we do a better job diversifying workforces in the high-paying, STEM-related industries?
Eaton-Cardone: In order to realize the fastest results, yes. However, on a long-term basis, I do not believe this is a mandatory contingency, albeit a significant one. There are a large number of high-paying jobs in STEM-related industries. Passion, talent, persistence, and education are factors that contribute to wage earnings and advancement opportunities — above the consideration of one’s sex.
| “I recently interviewed 18 people for a job as a software developer. Interestingly, not one applicant was a woman. Why?” — Monica Eaton-Cardone, founder and CIO, Global Risk Technologies |
I believe that in order for us to level this equation and help bolster women’s earnings as a whole, we must target the issue at the source, cultivating a more equal interest from inception, not attempting to solve this problem by pushing acceptance from the top-down, applying pressure for management to recruit women in order to meet equality compliance. A bottom-up approach will be more effective.
We are living in a day and age where the success of a STEM organization, more than ever, is dependent upon its ability to evolve and innovate. Companies do not flourish in this space operating on static principles, they grow due to their ability to challenge rules of the past and consider that there is a better way. Bottom line: adopting a change of more women in these roles is not a far detour from their current thought patterns.
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Monica Eaton-Cardone |
Men who excel in these industries are not just those who gained an education, they are those who discovered a talent and passion. These attributes are exploited in terms of financial gain. If women don’t learn more about STEM industries, they will not discover hidden talents and passions, despite their existence. The largest contributor to this gap is resolved with more education, not necessarily political education.
Man or women, individuals are hired based on the potential value they can bring to an organization and advance based on their abilities and competencies — their proven aptitude to continue to deliver results. I recently interviewed 18 people for a job as a software developer. Interestingly, not one applicant was a woman. Why?
IB: According to the Harvard Business Review, the number of women in STEM has actually decreased since 1991. What explains this more — a lack of interest among women in STEM careers, or unwelcoming cultural environment in male-dominated tech businesses? Or is it something else, or a combination of factors?
Eaton-Cardone: I believe this is due to a lacking interest in STEM careers, and a lacking education surrounding the different opportunities in the industry as a whole. Women, I believe, are not under the belief that these careers foster creative aspirations, provide avenues to help improve society, or allow flexible growth strategies for future advancement and development. There is a stereotype around many of these careers that may discourage their interest as well.
(Continued)
IB: I’ve been writing about this topic for 10 years, since about the time Carly Fiorina was let go from Hewlett-Packard. Back then, there seemed to be some consensus in the industry that technology businesses needed to attract more women and minorities in order to grow. How or why did tech drop the ball?
Eaton-Cardone: Corporations cannot be held responsible to sustain growth in a statistic where they don’t have 100% control. Fewer women are going after these jobs in the first place. This means the ball is getting dropped well in advance to college decisions. Cultivating interest at much younger ages will be the most effective resolution. Women should be encouraged to pursue STEM studies and be provided opportunities to experience the potential in these industries. If young girls were educated about all of the exciting, diverse, and rewarding opportunities in these areas, tradition would finally meet its match!
IB: Was this a case in which Peter Drucker was proven right when he said culture — in this case, the male-dominated tech culture — eats strategy for breakfast?
Eaton-Cardone: If you put culture against strategy, most business owners would agree that culture will always win the competition. If you view your employees as a vital asset to your business, you realize the power of culture in achieving growth. Employees who work well as a team, who are dedicated, and interested and passionate about the company, help create a culture. Strategy helps guide the direction, but it is ultimately the culture that gets results.
Drucker also believed that if an organization struggled, it was because of outdated ideas, a narrow conception of problems, or internal misunderstandings. STEM industries, by nature, grow through evolving technologies, meaning they must continually challenge past ideas to consider future improvements. The culture is primed in many ways to adopt change (i.e., more women); the problem is there appears to be a limited supply.
IB: You have cautioned that the lack of female perspective in STEM could cripple the ingenuity of those fields because diversity is important to creative development and because women make most of the purchasing decisions for families. Do the men who run technology companies understand this point — that it’s in their business interests to be more proactive about this?
Eaton-Cardone: I believe this is a common factor that is known but too often trumped by tradition.
IB: In your view, is there still hope for changing these business cultures internally, or will this require some sort of government intervention that punishes a lack of progress and rewards actual, measurable progress?
Eaton-Cardone: A couple years ago I realized that high school graduates in our community were not graduating with sufficient skills to prep them for the workforce. Rather than recruiting college-age students to work entry-level data processing jobs, we targeted high school seniors to find that most had not worked with Excel, lacked overall confidence, and the majority quit before even trying. As a business in this community, we could either change our direction back to college graduates (and recruit overqualified individuals for these positions), complain to the overstressed education board that is underfunded and worrying about other priorities by default, or consider that we could do something about this.
We started an initiative called ‘Get Paid For Grades,’ a program designed to cultivate interest in STEM-industry jobs at the high school level, inspire confidence, and help cultivate interest by promoting the fact that these careers are readily available to those who put forth some effort. The incentive for their effort is money: a student who attends 12 workshops designed to bolster their math skills, improve their confidence, and expose them to their true potential, and who also improves their grade-point average, receives either $500 in cash or a $1,000 scholarship to the school of their choice. Much to our surprise, despite students signing up for the cash incentive as the main draw, every single individual to date has opted for the scholarship award by the last workshop.
Bottom line: although I believe that the government needs to take notice and step in to help solve this issue, businesses have an innate social responsibility to participate as well. We are all members of society, and to the extent that we achieve greater equality and diversity, everyone wins.
IB: I’ve spoken to a business consultant and author (Tom Koulopoulos of the Delphi Group in Boston) who tells me that enrollment in business schools across the country is starting to balance out between young men and young women, and more young women are interested in owning their own business someday. Is that where the ultimate solution lies, with women setting the pay scales in their own business ventures?
Eaton-Cardone: This is a great example of what the tech industry can do. Not just the pay, but the flexibility, the potential to contribute something of value, and creative control are also valid factors. It is has proven through many studies that men over 55 and women over 30 are also interested in a valuable contribution to society. Money is not enough, as other interests drive decisions.
Bottom line: if women were educated about the real payoffs for pursuing STEM careers, invariably more women would enter these fields. And if a department head was faced with reviewing 50 resumes from women and 50 from men for a software developer job, logic suggests this equation would achieve our desired balance pretty much overnight!
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