I Thought Internet Would Be an Empowering Tool for Women, Says Martha Lane Fox
Martha Lane Fox is riding on the paths of glory with her Lastminute.com venture. Well, she is made shit loads of money through dotcom. But, as the time took the pace, the problem started hovering: Sexism. A report last year found just 14 percent of the top jobs in the IT industry goes to women. The successful entrepreneur has spoken about why women’s are fading in the online businesses. She said that while she had originally thought the internet would level the playing field, "all that's happened is that one bunch of very rich white men have transferred their money to another bunch of very rich white men".
According to Baroness Lane-Fox, "the absence of women from the teams that are making the internet, the product designers, the coders, the engineers" risks sending the industry "back in time". She argues that in the early sixties and seventies, there were myriads of women’s who took social media or online businesses by storm. "In the Sixties and Seventies there were a whole load of women in the computer industries but something happened in the Eighties that professionalized it and a lot left and it has now become a self-fulfilling prophecy,"
She said. "I am perplexed by this as I genuinely thought the internet would be an empowering tool for women." Baroness Lane-Fox, who is Chancellor of the Open University, said that, "I am optimistic because I think there are a lot of things that we can do that is imaginative to get women and girls into the sector right now."
Martha Lane Fox is riding on the paths of glory with her Lastminute.com venture. Well, she is made shit loads of money through dotcom. But, as the time took the pace, the problem started hovering: Sexism. A report last year found just 14 percent of the top jobs in the IT industry goes to women. The successful entrepreneur has spoken about why women’s are fading in the online businesses. She said that while she had originally thought the internet would level the playing field, "all that's happened is that one bunch of very rich white men have transferred their money to another bunch of very rich white men".
According to Baroness Lane-Fox, "the absence of women from the teams that are making the internet, the product designers, the coders, the engineers" risks sending the industry "back in time". She argues that in the early sixties and seventies, there were myriads of women’s who took social media or online businesses by storm. "In the Sixties and Seventies there were a whole load of women in the computer industries but something happened in the Eighties that professionalized it and a lot left and it has now become a self-fulfilling prophecy,"
She said. "I am perplexed by this as I genuinely thought the internet would be an empowering tool for women." Baroness Lane-Fox, who is Chancellor of the Open University, said that, "I am optimistic because I think there are a lot of things that we can do that is imaginative to get women and girls into the sector right now."