#GAReads | People were asked to name women tech leaders. They said "Alexa" and "Siri"
photo credit: Rahul Chakraborty, via Unsplash
"People were asked to name women tech leaders. They said 'Alexa' and 'Siri'":
The tech industry has a persistent problem with gender inequality, particularly in its leadership ranks, and a new study from LivePerson underscores just how depressingly persistent it truly is. When the company asked a representative sample of 1,000 American consumers whether they could name a famous woman leader in tech, 91.7% of respondents drew a complete blank, while only 8.3% said they could.
But wait, it gets worse: Of those 8.3% who said they could name a famous woman tech leader, only 4% actually could—and a quarter of those respondents named “Siri” or “Alexa.” Now, granted, this represents only about 10 people in the survey group, but that’s 10 people for whom the most famous woman in tech is a virtual assistant.