{"id":564,"date":"2020-06-09T11:32:02","date_gmt":"2020-06-09T08:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/?p=564"},"modified":"2020-06-09T11:32:02","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T08:32:02","slug":"the-rise-of-femtech-in-a-gender-biased-technology-sector-cure-or-symptom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/2020\/06\/09\/the-rise-of-femtech-in-a-gender-biased-technology-sector-cure-or-symptom\/","title":{"rendered":"The rise of Femtech in a gender biased technology sector \u2013 cure or symptom?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our culture\nputs high hopes on the role of technology in improving our lives. New\nsolutions, devices and applications enter the market constantly, and many of\ntheir creators are seen as trailblazers, paving the way to a better future,\nwith more well-being. The development and emergence of new technologies is\nalmost seen as a force of nature – it\u2019s coming, and it will make everything\nbetter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We might think\nthat technology is neutral, that it’s neither good nor bad, because it doesn\u2019t\nhave a will of its own. This is true to a certain extent, but it omits the\nhuman element. As Marshall McLuhan famously said, first we shape our tools, and\nthereafter our tools shape us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lot of\nresearch has been dedicated to this question of how technology is shaped by\nsociety, and how it in turn shapes society. In the age of Silicon Valley and\namidst general techno-optimism, it\u2019s good to remember that technology is always\na reflection of its creators, and the culture they are part of. Technology is\ndesigned by specific groups of people, in order to serve interests of specific\ngroups, as the organization scholar Wanda Orlikowski argued already back in\n1992.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With this realisation in mind, it\u2019s good to stop and think about two questions: who are the ones developing tech products, and what problems are they solving?<\/strong> Once these questions are asked, we can start to think about the follow-up question: what\u2019s being left out? <\/strong>The structures of society have led to a skewed gender divide in the technology sector, on two fronts. While women account for only less than 25 percent of tech jobs in the U.S., the small but growing amount of female entrepreneurs face also greater challenges in obtaining funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A couple of\nyears ago The New Yorker<\/em> wrote about an American start-up that had\ndesigned a smart breast pump. It could measure the milk nutrients, was\ncomfortable to wear, and had a huge market potential. When the founder of the company\nmet with venture capitalists for funding, the response surprised her: the men\nsitting in the board room didn\u2019t even want to touch the device, calling it\n\u201ddisgusting\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end this\ndevice, with a huge market potential, got only a fraction of the funding that\nfor example the infamous Juicero received from enthusiastic VCs. (For those\nunfamiliar with Juicero, it was a juice press that used pre-juiced fruit\npackets sold by subscription. The catch \u2013 the packets could just as easily be\npressed by hand, with the same result).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A study made in Sweden showed that venture capitalists talk very differently about female entrepreneurs than male ones. <\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This story is\nnot unique. It\u2019s an example of the gendered nature of the tech industry. A\nstudy made in Sweden showed that venture capitalists talk very differently\nabout female entrepreneurs than male ones. The study showed that when investors\ntalked about women, they used language with qualities opposite to those that\nare valued in entrepreneurs. As a result, female entrepreneurs risk receiving\nless venture capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But many\nentrepreneurs and investors are now telling us not to despair. During the past\ncouple of years, there has for instance been a huge surge in interest towards\nFemtech, i.e. technologies that focus specifically on female health. Femtech\nappears now more often in media than before, and there are even dedicated\nventure capital companies that focus solely on femtech solutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clearly, progress is being made. This is all good and well, but, perhaps ironically, the term Femtech as such tells us a lot about the biased nature of the technology and innovation landscape. It implies two categories of technology: the Common, and the Other, echoing the thoughts of Simone de Beauvoir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Femtech is an\nimportant first step towards more equal technology, but we could ask ourselves\nif just Tech without gender descriptors would be better. In the end, it\u2019s\nquestionable whether Silicon Valley can solve this gender divide by itself. The\nbusiness and technology world is only a product of our society at large. This\nis where change needs to happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hannu Tikkanen<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hannu Tikkanen is a doctoral candidate in marketing at Hanken. He is interested in understanding the roles of technology and societal norms in management of well-being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Malmstr\u00f6m, M.,\nJohansson, J. & Wincent, J. (2017) Gender Stereotypes and Venture Support\nDecisions: How Governmental Venture Capitalists Socially Construct\nEntrepreneurs\u2019 Potential. Entrepreneurship\nTheory and Practice<\/em>, vol. 41, no. 5, pp. 833-860<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Orlikowski, W.\n(1992) The Duality of Technology: Rethinking the Concept of Technology in\nOrganizations. Organization Science<\/em>,\nvol. 3, no. 3, pp. 398-427<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The New\nYorker: https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/business\/currency\/why-arent-mothers-worth-anything-to-venture-capitalists<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Statista: https:\/\/www.statista.com\/chart\/4467\/female-employees-at-tech-companies\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Unsplash<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our culture puts high hopes on the role of technology in improving our lives. New solutions, devices and applications enter the market constantly, and many of their creators are seen as trailblazers, paving the way to a better future, with more well-being. The development and emergence of new technologies is almost seen as a force …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[67,68,29,69],"class_list":["post-564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cers-blog","tag-femtech","tag-gender","tag-research","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":566,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564\/revisions\/566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}