Keywords

Introduction: A Western Challenge

Women’s underrepresentation in most fields of IT has been a topic for researchers across the western world for decades (Arnold et al., 2021; Cohoon & Aspray, 2006; Corneliussen, 2011; Haraway, 1991; Hayes, 2010; Holtzblatt & Marsden, 2022; Wajcman, 1991). It is a complex and multifaceted challenge that has changed over time and place (Charles & Thébaud, 2018; Cohoon & Aspray, 2006; Misa, 2010b). There are, however, also similarities, in particular a notable slow improvement, stagnation as well as setbacks (Branch, 2016), showing that although context and situation might be specific to national cultures, most western countries share the challenge of producing effective and long-lasting improvements to the situation.

Research into the underrepresentation of women in IT covers different topics, some relating to challenges of recruiting, others relating to women’s challenges in a male-dominated work culture of IT and a large number of women leaving the sector (Branch, 2016; McKinney et al., 2008; Pantic & Clarke-Midura, 2019). Though there are overlapping features, these different perspectives involve different challenges and raise different questions. There has been little focus on the issue of women leaving the tech sector in Norway. Recent numbers from Statistics Norway shows that women who complete a degree in the technology are as likely as men with similar degrees to work in the field (Foss, 2020). Recruitment thus appears to be the most pressing challenge for a more gender-inclusive tech sector in Norway. This book will explore this issue with the aim of learning more about what brings women to higher education in IT.

This chapter will revisit the knowledge landscape of girls and women’s pathways to IT in the western world and with a special focus on Europe and Norway. It will do so by looking at research into barriers and women’s motivations for participation in IT, the relevance of support from family and educators, before considering explanations for the slow improvement in this field.

Numbers Talking

IT employment in Europe has increased in the past decade, growing notably faster than employment in general (Eurostat, 2021c). The gender gap, however, remains large. In 2020, the average participation of women in IT work in Europe was 18%, ranging from 10% in Czechia to 28% in Bulgaria, with Norway at 19% (Eurostat, 2021a). Different from the situation in Norway, women leaving the field during their first years of working in IT is a challenge reported from the US as well as the European Union (EU) (Griffiths & Moore, 2010; Holtzblatt & Marsden, 2022; European Commission, 2013). The annual productivity loss for the European economy due to women leaving their digital jobs was stipulated to more than 16 Billion Euros in 2018 (Quirós et al., 2018).

Education in Norway is, in general, state-supported, thus reducing inequality due to economic accessibility of education. Gender norms and stereotypes, however, still have a large effect on youths’ educational choices (NOU, 2019: 19), and women’s participation in certain fields of technology education are lower in Norway than the OECD average (OECD, 2021). Closing the gender gap in technology and the other science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields will not only increase employment and empowerment of women in Europe, but also foster economic growth (The European Institute for Gender Equality, 2017). There has been a positive development for women’s participation in information technology disciplines in higher education in Norway, with an increase from 17% in 2012 to 29% in 2021, as illustrated by Fig. 2.1. This is a positive trend, however, there are still large variations between universities and disciplines, ranging from less than 10% in disciplines concentrated on programming, to more than 50% in disciplines focusing on design, use and interaction (The Norwegian Universities and Colleges Admission Service, 2022). Furthermore, the increase in women’s participation at university level has not yet produced a notable increase in women’s participating in IT jobs in Norway, different from the development in some of the other European countries (Palmer, 2021; Simonsen & Corneliussen, 2020).

Fig. 2.1
A line graph of percentages versus the years. The lines start at approximately 79, 26, 17, and 13 and then remain stable throughout.

Female applicants in percentage to higher education in technology and health care, and vocational courses of technology and industry from 2012 to 2021. (Source: The Norwegian Universities and Colleges Admission Service and The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training)

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The proportion of women in technology disciplines in vocational education in upper secondary level is even lower and show less signs of improvements. A recent evaluation of the Norwegian government’s strategy for increasing participation of children and youth in STEM also found discouraging results for both boys and girls. The evaluation showed a particular low motivation among girls for choosing technology subjects such as programming, with only 7% girls against 31% boys in 2020 (NIFU, 2021). Education in health care experience the opposite challenge, with weak recruitment of boys. Figure 2.1 includes health care in higher education and thus visualizes the large gender differences in educational choices in the Norwegian educational sector. As the figure illustrates, there have been some improvements in this field, however, the main pattern of a notable horizontal gender segregation is still unmistakably clear.

Barriers for Women’s Participation in IT

Women’s underrepresentation in IT is not only notable in the statistics but is also reflected in narratives describing IT as a “world without women” (Sørensen, 2011, p. 45) and technology as “gender inauthentic” to women (Faulkner, 2009, p. 172), opposed to narratives of “men’s love affair with technology” (Oldenziel, 1999, p. 9; Hacker, 1989; Kleif & Faulkner, 2003). Gender stereotypes about IT as well as gender structures in IT education and work are identified as some of the most challenging barriers for girls and women’s engagement in IT (Chavatzia, 2017; Cheryan et al., 2015; Cohoon & Aspray, 2006; Frieze & Quesenberry, 2015, 2019; Turkle, 1988; Wajcman, 2004; Watts, 2009). Despite variations between countries, it is widely recognized across the western world that gender cultures, norms, and stereotypes affect and limit youths’ choices of education in ways that reproduce the gender imbalance in IT (Chavatzia, 2017; Frieze & Quesenberry, 2019; OECD, 2016). This is also the case in Norway, as documented in a recent governmental report concluding that youth in Norway are highly affected by gender norms and stereotypes when choosing their education and career paths (NOU, 2019: 19). Gender stereotypes defining IT as a masculine field make women less likely to identify with IT, while men are more likely than women to believe that they “match the cultural image of successful tech workers” (Wynn & Correll, 2017, p. 5). A study among OECD countries reflects this with only 0.5% of girls compared to 5% boys aiming for a career in IT (Borgonovi et al., 2018).

Gender stereotypes are responsible for many different types of barriers for women’s participation in IT (Master et al., 2016; Master & Meltzoff, 2020; Yates & Plagnol, 2022). It has been noted that youth in general have limited knowledge of and understanding for what IT education and IT work represents (Grover et al., 2014; Jethwani et al., 2016). A recent Swedish report shows a discouraging low and sinking level of knowledge about IT work among young women (Insight Intelligence, 2022). Lack of insight gives youth unrealistic expectations and opens up the opportunity for stereotypes to dominate the youths’ perception of IT (Spieler et al., 2019). This also suggests that lack of insights about IT have a more negative effect on young women than it has on young men, who can rather lean on positive stereotypes predicting favourable beliefs about men’s relationship with IT (Czopp et al., 2015).

A well-studied field is the harmful effect that negative stereotypes about a group can have on self-confidence and trust in their own abilities to perform key tasks, such as predicted in the theory of stereotype threat (Steele & Aronson, 1997). The expectancy–value theory (Eccles, 2009) suggests that individuals’ study motivation is influenced by their expectations of success as well as the value and rewards they identify with a field or discipline. This has contributed to studies exploring how a lack of suitable images, role models, and support combined with a low expectation of success can produce significant barriers to girls’ and women’s participation in fields of technology (González-Pérez et al., 2020).

A large bulk of studies have documented that gender stereotypes and images of IT as masculine challenge women’s entries into IT. This has, for instance, been illustrated by Lewis and colleagues, who found that women who associate computer science (CS) with “traits of singular focus, asocialness, competition and maleness” interpreted this as an indication that “men are innately more talented” than women in CS (Lewis et al., 2016, p. 23). Such images make women doubt that they can compete with fellow students and colleagues (Margolis & Fisher, 2002; Yates & Plagnol, 2022).

This also echoes stories of the dawning computing industry in the late 1960s, aiming to define a programmer so that they could recruit the best ones. Emphasizing certain types of personality traits, the result was a description of programmers as “antisocial, mathematically inclined males”. This contributed to a self-fulfilling circle of recruiting what they named, and thus the overrepresentation of “antisocial, mathematically inclined males” worked to confirm that the definition was appropriate (Ensmenger, 2012, pp. 78–79). Research from the US suggests that the impression of programming as an innate ability that is mostly found among men, is still strong, and is stronger in computing than in other disciplines (Becker, 2021; Guzdial, 2015). Such assumptions produce notable barriers for increasing diversity in fields of IT, also identified in the UK by Yates and Plagnol. Their study showed that many women studying computing felt that their technical competence was questioned, and the women shared an experience of “feeling stupid” compared to their fellow male students (2022). One consequence was that women tended to back out from job reviews when they realized that their coding abilities were put on the test, because they assumed they would lose out to men they imagined had been coding since they were “in diapers” (Yates & Plagnol, 2022). Women facing male co-students that seem to confirm this gender stereotype tend to reconsider their own position by questioning whether they have the right or enough interest (Margolis & Fisher, 2002).

According to social cognitive theory, gender stereotypes might affect women’s self-efficacy in male-dominated fields such as IT (Bandura, 1977). This points to the importance of providing female role models in IT, which is often a core activity in recruitment initiatives targeting women (Dasgupta, 2011; Lang et al., 2020). However, identifying female role models in technology can be problematic for young women (Arnold et al., 2021; Corneliussen et al., 2019; Thomas & Allen, 2006). One of the informants in our study of women in IT work explained that she didn’t know of any female role models, “because often there haven’t been anyone before us, in a way” (Corneliussen et al., 2019, p. 383). Such claims appear to reflect not only the scarce number of women in IT, but also the masculine coding of the field which seems to give women a feeling of being the only or “first” woman with a career in IT (2019).

A Nordic Gender Equality Paradox

Some researchers have posed the question: Why do we find this situation also in the gender-egalitarian Nordic countries? (Charles & Bradley, 2006; Chow & Charles, 2019; Stoet & Geary, 2018). The pattern of gender segregation, including women’s low participation in IT, appears to be in conflict with the image of the Nordic countries as “superpowers” of gender equality (Larsen et al., 2021, p. 2; Ellingsæter, 2014; Sund, 2015). This gender equality paradox takes on a Nordic profile in international comparisons highlighting gender inequalities which appear as more extreme in highly gender-egalitarian and affluent countries (Chow & Charles, 2019; Minelgaite et al., 2020; Stoet & Geary, 2018). The paradox is shaped by a failed expectation of gender equality in one field leading to gender equality in other fields (Ellingsæter, 2014, p. 101). Authors behind international studies have suggested that the paradox is a result of countries with a high level of gender equality and low “life risks” opening for individuals to choose education and career according to “individual interests and academic strengths” (Stoet & Geary, 2018, p. 582). This suggests that the gender gap in fields of IT in gender-egalitarian countries such as Norway is a result of women having less interest for these fields, or even less career ambitions, and less academic strengths in IT and related subjects. Other studies have challenged this view, pointing out that the question of interest is not simply an individual isolated preference, but needs to be considered in the context of gender stereotypes and a masculine culture of computing (Blum et al., 2007; Cheryan et al., 2017; Corneliussen, 2021a; Yates & Plagnol, 2022). Furthermore, women having a lower career ambition than men is not supported by the fact that more women than men apply for higher education in general, and that they also outnumber men in some of the educations traditionally associated with high-prestige professions such as medicine, psychology, and law (The Norwegian Universities and Colleges Admission Service, 2022). Thus, the paradox rather seems to reflect a gap between theory and practice (Minelgaite et al., 2020), or between a “myth” about gender equality being already in place despite continuous inequality and a culture that does not provide necessary support to achieve gender equality in practice (Holtzblatt & Marsden, 2022; Martinsson & Griffin, 2016). This has caused many contradictions experienced by women in the Nordic countries, where on the one side there is a strong public gender equality rhetoric (Griffin, 2022) emphasizing that women are wanted and needed in fields of technology, while on the other side women still experience barriers for participating in IT contexts.

What Brings Women to IT?

We know a lot about barriers for women’s participation in IT, but what makes girls and women consider IT a relevant career choice? Cheryan and colleagues have suggested that there are three main areas that can benefit from more gender-inclusive images to make IT more attractive to girls and women. This involves altering the stereotypes and “broadening the representation of the people who do this work, the work itself, and the environments in which it occurs” (2015, p. 1). Providing girls with an early opportunity for becoming acquainted with computers is one strategy for providing relevant insight into what it means to study and work with IT. Early exposure to computers and concepts of computer science can provide girls with knowledge and familiarity of IT that can reduce effects from negative gender stereotypes. Starting early is important because negative attitudes to IT tend to grow stronger during the teenage years (Cheryan et al., 2013), for instance involving images of IT as boring and unsuitable for girls (Armoni & Gal-Ezer, 2014; DiSalvo et al., 2014; Prottsman, 2014). Research has suggested that such an approach can support girls’ interest in studying IT later (Jones & Hite, 2020; Yates & Plagnol, 2022).

Boys have, in general, been more exposed to technology at early stages than girls (Barker & Aspray, 2006; Gerson et al., 2022). Thus, the early exposure strategy partly reflects the typical success stories associated with boys’ interest in studying IT. Some studies have shown that early exposure to technology does not necessarily increase girls’ interest in studying IT (Vrieler et al., 2020), while for women who have decided to study IT, it can appear vital. For some of the women interviewed in Yates and Plagnol’s study, thinking of studying computer science without having had early exposure to computers, in particular to coding, was considered a risk (2022). With more exposure to IT, in particular to programming, girls develop their self-efficacy in relation to technology as well as their career orientation towards IT (Aivaloglou & Hermans, 2019). Not the least, this has a positive effect on women’s fear that other students, whereof the majority tend to be men, are more skilled because they have been playing around with technology (Master et al., 2017; Yates & Plagnol, 2022).

While a surge of code clubs in the 2010s invited children to learn about coding as a strategy for recruiting future dedicated IT students, limited focus on recruiting girls to such arenas risks reproducing gender stereotypes and the gender imbalance in IT (Corneliussen & Prøitz, 2016). Furthermore, while studies of early exposure suggest that such activities can represent important insights into IT, the variation and partly contradictory conclusions also indicate that exposure alone is not enough to challenge the gender coding of IT as masculine. One reason might be that many of the elements that have been considered to provide motivation for and interest in studying IT have developed from narratives about boys’ playful relationship with IT and are already associated with a masculine relationship with technology. If the reflection of IT as a male field is a strong one, the same activities that can have positive effects on boys, can have rather discouraging effects on girls’ and women’s aspirations for pursuing IT. Girls need to see computing as a subject where also they belong, as Dee emphasizes (2021, p. 45).

This leads to the question of what IT represents, which also needs to offer something that interests women. In today’s Norwegian society and the level of digitalization experienced here, the answer is that IT can be a vital instrument for nearly anything. One challenge is that many studies of women’s underrepresentation in IT set out to measure aspiration to participate in terms of attitude and interest in the context of rather traditional computing activities and arenas (Eccles, 2009; Master & Meltzoff, 2020; Sáinz & Eccles, 2012). Questions about interest often reflect assumptions about boys’ gateways to IT building on interest raised through leisure activities and in private spaces. Boys’ interest in competition and gaming has been identified as giving advantages for their participation in IT education and work, for instance by Sevin and DeCamp, who suggest “game play is statistically significant as a predictor of confidence and interest” for studying computer science (2016, p. 1). They suggest that video games as “a recreational technology” help develop the players’ abilities to navigate the landscape of “non-recreational technology” and to increase their interest in technology in general (Sevin & Decamp, 2016, p. 14). This supports assumptions that gamers acquire some types of insights in IT that helps them against the identified lack of knowledge of IT among youth (Jethwani et al., 2016). Social cognitive theories developed around concepts of individuals’ trust in their own abilities to master and succeed in a field in close operation with a sense of belonging (Eccles, 2011; Eccles & Wigfield, 2002; Sáinz & Eccles, 2012, see Chap. 1), can explain why, for instance, boys’ experiences with computer games can translate into an interest for studying IT. Experimental research supporting this has, for instance, found that when IT disciplines and environments are presented in a gender-neutral way rather than reflecting gender stereotypes, girls and women express more interest in the field (Cheryan et al., 2015; Master et al., 2016). Women also react positive to lecturers of both genders who do not display stereotypical notions of IT, while men in the same contexts do not respond much different to this (Master et al., 2014). Thus, when efforts are taken to reduce, erase, or transform negative gender stereotypes, girls’ interest and aspiration for participating increases, while boy’s aspiration seems less affected (Master et al., 2016).

A survey with nearly 700 young women (age 16 to 36+) explored what had motivated them to consider or deciding to study technology at upper secondary level or in higher education (ISCED 3–6) (Corneliussen, Seddighi, Simonsen, et al., 2021; Corneliussen, Seddighi, Urbaniak-Brekke, et al., 2021). As shown in Fig. 2.2, most of the women agreed that exciting job opportunities were important, closely followed by the importance of technology knowledge, good salary, and technology as important for solving societal challenges. These numbers point to motivational factors that are rather similar between men and women; however, it also identifies women’s emphasis on societal aspects as a motivation for working with technology. The least important motivational factors were related to leisure activities and computer games, documenting that some of the triggers for choosing a technology career associated with boys (Sevin & Decamp, 2016; Yates & Plagnol, 2022) are of little importance for most girls and young women.

Fig. 2.2
A horizontal stacked bar graph of percentages versus motivational factors. The majority of people oppose organized leisure activities involving focus and technology, whereas 93.1% of women chose exciting job opportunities in technology professions.

Motivational factors for choosing technology among women (percentage, N689). (Source: Corneliussen et al., 2021)

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The survey also provides information about how the women experienced support from friends, family, and school. Technology at upper secondary school and encouragement from family were important motivators for more than 50% of the respondents (see Fig. 2.2). The high number of women identifying IT classes at upper secondary school as an important motivation for studying IT is notable compared to the relatively small proportion of women participating in these classes on a yearly basis (The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, 2023). Another Nordic study found that family was the most important motivation for early decisions to study technology (Engström, 2018). Whether the motivation behind choosing IT at secondary school stems from family background cannot be identified in this survey. However, the high proportion of respondents identifying the IT classes as motivation for further studies in IT suggests that they have an important role in preparing women for higher IT education. Apart from the technology classes, Fig. 2.2 shows that school had a modest role in motivating young women to consider a career in technology. Only 1 in 4 had been motivated by recruitment initiatives.

Considering the question of who the IT workers are, can also help to identify strategies for motivating women. The high importance of family with a background in technology illustrated in both the above-mentioned Nordic studies (Corneliussen, Seddighi, Simonsen, et al., 2021; Corneliussen, Seddighi, Urbaniak-Brekke, et al., 2021; Engström, 2018) also points to the value of identifying and recognizing IT professionals. It has been challenging for women to identify female role models in technology. The reason is not only that men outnumber women in tech work, but also that cultural images and stereotypes picture the IT expert as a man, thus “doing IT while doing femininity” appears like a contradiction (Corneliussen et al., 2019; Nentwich & Kelan, 2014).

Educational choices are often assumed to rely on rational choices (Reisel et al., 2019), assumptions about one’s own abilities or—in particular, when talking about technology—to be inextricably dependent on interest (Sáinz & Eccles, 2012), often developed in spaces and places of leisure time (Sevin & Decamp, 2016). Many studies have, however, shown that this also goes hand in hand with the ability to associate with the main characters recognized in the field. Female role models can increase girls’ expectations to succeed in a male-dominated field such as IT (González-Pérez et al., 2020). Seeing someone they can associate with is important for girls’ ability to imagine themselves in a future career in IT (Lang et al., 2020; NOU, 2019: 19). Students tend to choose careers that include features that they associate with themselves (Eccles, 2009). Role models, in particular women (European Commission, 2013; Stout et al., 2011) and role models that do not embody gender stereotypes of IT, have been identified as important for making girls’ able to imagine themselves in the field (Master et al., 2014). Within the tradition of expectancy–value theory, Gonzales-Peres and colleagues found that exposing girls to female role models with a successful career in IT or, more broadly, STEM fields, increased girls’ expectations of success and decreased the negative effect of gender role stereotypes (González-Pérez et al., 2020). Although role modelling involves complex issues, as discussed above, also the interviews analysed in this book suggests that providing girls and women with images that they can relate to can have a decisive effect on study choices.

Effects of Recruitment Measures

Several decades of research into the underrepresentation of girls and women in fields of technology have created important knowledge about what the challenges are as well as producing suggestions for how to make changes. Putting such solutions to work, however, is an understudied field. Actions to recruit girls and women to technology are few, mostly local, and most have short-lived effects (Lagesen et al., 2021). Few recruitment initiatives have been evaluated, thus it remains to identify precise effects (Reisel et al., 2019). One exception to both is the national campaign, Girls and Technology, which was evaluated by the author and colleagues in 2020 (Corneliussen, Seddighi, Simonsen, et al., 2021; Corneliussen, Seddighi, Urbaniak-Brekke, et al., 2021). This state-financed campaign has since 2016 been organized by the largest organization for employers in Norway, NHO, together with partners. The aim of the campaign is to encourage girls and women to choose technology educations. The main event of the campaign is a national tour of female role models. Across the country, girls from lower and upper secondary school are invited to an “inspiration day” with motivational presentations of technology education and professions, promoted through female role models. The evaluation showed that the emphasis on women studying and working with technology was highly appreciated among the girls and young women, because it represented an alternative to the more widespread perception of technology as “something boys do together with their fathers”, one of the girls explained (Corneliussen, Seddighi, Simonsen, et al., 2021, p. 23). The girls-only quality of the events created a community of girls that included an acceptance of girls also being interested in and playing with technology (Corneliussen, Seddighi, Simonsen, et al., 2021).

The evaluation of the campaign confirmed that gender-stereotypical attitudes could have a negative impact on girls’ aspirations to study technology, and, more importantly, meeting non-stereotypical female role models made girls more open for choosing technology. Although it can be difficult to isolate and identify the precise reasons for deciding to study technology, the evaluation showed that nearly all the women who participated in one or more events before choosing educational direction, reported that the campaign had an impact on their decision to study technology (Corneliussen, Seddighi, Simonsen, et al., 2021). Based on interviews with 26 women and a survey with nearly 700 respondents, the evaluation report points to two important effects of such recruitment initiatives: firstly, for girls who do not find support for learning about technology from family or school, the recruitment initiative compensated for this. The focus on female role models presenting new and exciting technology could have a very dramatic effect on some of these girls who had not imagined themselves studying technology before. It worked almost like a “rocket”, transporting them straight into a new landscape where technology could appear a natural choice not only for boys, but also for girls. This had made some of them leave behind their former study choice of a more gender-traditional discipline (e.g. social science or health care) to explore further the possibilities in IT. Secondly, for those girls who already were interested, seeing female role models was adding to their former experience and could be vital for their ability to imagining themselves working with technology. This effect is less dramatic, but equally important for supporting the young women towards the final decision to study technology (Corneliussen, Seddighi, Simonsen, et al., 2021, p. 6).

The add-on as well as the rocket effect suggest that girls need insight into what technology is, what it is used for, and, not least, to see also that women can be experts to make them consider technology as a suitable, interesting, and welcoming field. Reflecting Puwar’s concept of “space invader” (Puwar, 2004), the recruitment events made the young women feel less like an outsider to a masculine space of technology. Instead of meeting technology as a “gender inauthentic” educational choice (Faulkner, 2009), the girls were invited to experience an insider position in a gender-inclusive space in which women too were identified as experts.

Alternative Training Arenas

As Fig. 2.1 illustrates, most young women in Norway do not consider IT a relevant study choice at the time when they were moving from upper secondary to tertiary education or higher education. Furthermore, the evaluation of the Girls and Technology campaign suggested that the schools were only partly successful as motivator for girls to study IT. The transition from lower to upper secondary school, and from secondary to university, are identified as contributing to gender differences in educational choices (Reisel et al., 2019). Alternative training arenas, such as out of school initiatives, are less often involved in research aiming to understand women’s participation in IT, and this topic is often limited to the context of the younger children and teenagers (Corneliussen & Prøitz, 2016; Vrieler et al., 2020). A limited number of studies of women finding alternative training grounds identify boot camps, apprenticeships, and other non-traditional arenas for learning about programming and IT as important sites for recruiting women who had not been recruited through school (Lyon & Green, 2020; Smith et al., 2020). Some of these alternative routes to IT competence attract a higher percentage of women than tertiary education and university degrees (Lyon & Green, 2020; Seibel & Veilleux, 2019; Smith et al., 2020), and appear attractive for women who had not aimed for an IT education as undergraduates (Seibel & Veilleux, 2019).

In a Nordic study of women working in the primary and secondary IT sector, the 28 women interviewed were engaged in designing and programming as well as implementing new information technology, and some working as managers for processes of IT innovation and digitalization (Corneliussen & Seddighi, 2022). Less than half the group had pursued a “conventional” educational route of choosing math and sciences at upper secondary school and then moving directly to an IT program at university. A larger group had pursued alternative routes to IT work, mainly triggered by new requirements for IT skills and digital competence across different fields and occupations. Many of the women had started within a non-tech and rather gender-traditional education such as nursing, economy, and social science, before changing direction towards technology. Some returned to university and others engaged in work-based upskilling in IT, while some of the women had been engaged in core processes of digitalization because a wide set of competences beyond the tech disciplines were needed in processes of digitalization (Ekeland et al., 2015). This study thus further illustrates that many women who had not imagined working with technology had still made choices that led to a career in technology. One of the women described this as a natural progression from a master’s degree in chemistry to a PhD in cybernetics. In the interview we asked why she had made these choices: “Well, in fact I chose chemistry. When I finished (upper secondary school) I didn’t even know what cybernetics was. And I am not sure that I would have chosen it even if I had known” (Dani, quoted in Corneliussen & Seddighi, 2022, p. 66). The barriers that many women experience when approaching tech education during their teens, might not appear equally daunting when they move into tech via less conventional routes, such as Dani’s natural progression. Although many of the women in this study had developed a high degree of involvement and central positions in processes of digitalization with a vital importance for society, many of them will remain invisible in the public statistics identifying individuals who are moving through the more traditional educational routes to tech work.

Stereotypes Affecting Supporters

Most research exploring women’s underrepresentation in technology focus on girls’ and women’s experiences and attitudes, in line with the literature reviewed above. A large bulk of studies have explored the role of family and teachers for girls’ aspirations to study IT (Gerson et al., 2022; Jacobs et al., 2017; Jethwani et al., 2016; Master et al., 2014). Despite some variations in the results, there is convincing evidence that parents and family members can have an important impact on girls’ aspiration to study IT, as role models and by making a career in technology appear acceptable for girls (Ardies et al., 2021; Engström, 2018; Holtzblatt & Marsden, 2022; Tandrayen-Ragoobur & Gokulsing, 2021). The impact of parents’ background was also significant in the survey among women of motivational factors for studying technology. Here 70% of women in higher IT education had parents with university education and 70% had one or more family members working in technology or one of the other STEM fields. Teachers, lecturers and other “influential individuals”, in particular “male champions”, can also have important roles in supporting women’s entry into IT degrees (Yates & Plagnol, 2022; Master et al., 2014) or for dealing with barriers in the educational system (Trauth & Connolly, 2021). However, Nordic research has found that schools play a minor role compared to family with relevant education as motivation for girls’ choice of technology education (Corneliussen, Seddighi, Simonsen, et al., 2021; Engström, 2018).

Considering the current insight about girls’ and women’s need of knowledge and encouragement to start thinking of IT as relevant, family and school appear as important actors for supporting this. A less-studied effect is, however, how parents, educators, and other potential supporters for girls’ participation in IT see their own role and responsibility in this scenario, and how they are affected by the cultural narratives and stereotypes that threaten girls’ self-image in IT. The gender stereotypes that work negatively on women’s aspirations to study IT also affect this group. Documenting this, a Danish study found that 70% of parents assumed that boys were more interested in IT than girls, and only 1% of the parents imagined girls to be more interested in technology than boys (Tænketanken DEA, 2019). Gender stereotypes work as a filter for these groups to judge girls’ and women’s relationship with technology (Vekiri, 2013; Yates & Plagnol, 2022). Stereotypes also affect to which degree girls are actively encouraged and motivated to participate in technology training and education. Seeing the gender imbalance in IT as the normal state of affairs results in less effort put into recruiting girls and young women to technology arenas (Corneliussen & Prøitz, 2016). Reflecting similar stereotypes, several studies have documented that women are judged as less competent than men (Holtzblatt & Marsden, 2022; Moss-Racusin et al., 2018), and they are less likely to experience positive encouragement from supervisors in tech companies (Wynn & Correll, 2017). A study of attitudes among representatives from the Norwegian IT sector found a widespread doubt about women’s interest in technology. Here, this transformed into a doubt about women’s competence. Men have a “big advantage” before women in IT education, one of the IT experts suggested, because they had already developed their IT skills through their early playing and fiddling with computers (Corneliussen & Seddighi, 2019, p. 281). “Do we really need more women in IT? We can’t force women to like IT. What if they are more interested in other stuff?”, one of the IT experts asked (Corneliussen & Seddighi, 2019, p. 281). These attitudes had consequences for recruitment, and the IT sector representatives had not considered themselves neither responsible for, nor able to change women’s underrepresentation in IT.

Thus, the barriers and challenges that girls and women face are not only related to their self-perception, ability belief, or whether they can associate with images of IT expert. It is also shaped by other actors’ and potential supporters’ gender-stereotypical assumptions about and expectations to girls’ and women’s relationship with technology.

Challenging the Notion of Gender Equality

The research literature on cultural images and gender stereotypes working as barriers for girls’ and women’s engagement in fields of IT, from leisure to education and professional arenas, is overwhelming. With all the knowledge we have about challenges and barriers, a pertinent question is: Why isn’t the situation improving faster? Although we are not short of identifying factors working as barriers, there is little evidence that this research has produced adequate solutions to overcome the barriers, apart from local and temporary improvements (Lagesen et al., 2021). The recent evaluation of the Norwegian strategy for recruiting more girls and boys to STEM disciplines could not register improvements (NIFU, 2021). Another study of a long-term initiative to recruit women to IT disciplines at a Norwegian university found that the measures were working; however, the effect faded when the initiative ended (Lagesen et al., 2021).

There is ample evidence demonstrating that gender equality does not arise automatically, but rather requires conscious and intentional efforts over time (Devillard et al., 2016; Frieze & Quesenberry, 2015; Hunt et al., 2018; Lang et al., 2020). This also applies to the Nordic countries. However, the gendered patterns in education and working life have often been understood as a result of boys’ and girls’ different interests, rather than of gender discrimination (Snickare & Holter, 2021). The strong myth about gender equality in the Nordic countries makes it appear as if gender equality has already been achieved. Research has illustrated that instead of the gender equality norm working as a call for action, the same widely accepted norm itself can be interpreted as the solution (Corneliussen & Seddighi, 2020a). In other words, when gender equality is assumed to exist, less effort is put into producing gender equality (Ahmed, 2012). Kaiser and colleagues have through experiments demonstrated that diversity structures in a company creates “an illusion of fairness” that makes the majority group less sensitive for recognizing discrimination, while those claiming to experience discrimination risk negative reactions from the majority group (2013, p. 504). They conclude that the presence of structures aiming for diversity produce the “ironic consequence of reducing perceptions of discrimination and undermining support for those who claim to be its victims” (Kaiser et al., 2013, p. 516).

The Norwegian gender equality ideology has also been identified with a similar effect. Exploring gender equality in academia, Holter and Snickare found that men and women make many of the same career choices. Despite finding only small differences, they documented a widespread discourse in which the argument of gender differences in career choices appeared as a legitimate way of referring to men and women as different, but equal (Holter & Snickare, 2021). This supported a view of gender inequality in the academic setting perceived as men and women’s different choice rather than being a result of a lack in gender equality (Snickare & Holter, 2021). The authors suggest this is related to the impression of Norway as one of the most gender-equal countries in the world, which is often misinterpreted as a description of Norway as gender-equal (Snickare & Holter, 2021, p. 24). Furthermore, seeing gender differences as a result of individual choices undermines the will to intervene based on the attitude that individual choices neither should nor could be forced into a different pattern (Snickare & Holter, 2021, p. 26). Furthermore, Snickare and Holter (ibid.) suggest that the idea of academia as (already) gender-equal is likely to be stronger in the Nordic countries than in, for instance, the US, reflecting the impression of the national value and identity tied to gender equality as a national branding (Larsen et al., 2021). This makes it a short leap to a postfeminist assumption (Budgeon, 2015) that gender equality is already in place and therefore no further measures are needed (Snickare & Holter, 2021, p. 40).

This way the widely accepted gender equality norm itself can be interpreted as already having solved the situation (Corneliussen & Seddighi, 2020a), making the existing gender inequality patterns disappear from view (Kaiser et al., 2013). It also makes gendered norms such as the male norm of IT appear as neutral for those who do not disturb this norm (Ahmed, 2012; Puwar, 2004). This increases the risk of the gender equality norm and policies becoming non-performatives (Ahmed, 2012), “meaning that the changes these measures and policies are meant to bring about are assumed to have been effected by the very fact of having a policy. In other words: nothing is done because a policy is in place” (Griffin & Vehviläinen, 2021, p. 7). This effect is recognized in the educational system, in working life, and in academia (Corneliussen, 2021a) and Griffin and Vehviläinen identifies this as one of the reasons that gender inequalities persist in the Nordic countries (2021).

The research revisited here illustrates that, despite the growing body of knowledge about barriers challenging girls’ and women’s participation in IT and other STEM fields, how to turn this into efficient and lasting initiatives to increase women’s participation still appears as a mystery. The next chapters of this book will suggest another approach to these challenges by looking closer at how women who have already signed up for an IT education describe the decisive factors behind their own choice to enter masculine spaces of IT. The research literature documents that the challenge of increasing girls and young women’s participation in IT is complex, with a spectre of barriers as well as factors affecting how girls and women find their way to a specialization in IT. Exploring women’s narratives of their chronological pathway to IT, as we will do in the next chapter, opens for a wider understanding of which factors support women’s journey from childhood to a university degree in IT. Petray et al. have criticized the oft-used metaphor of the leaky pipeline describing women leaving various stages of IT education and work, suggesting that part of the problem is that the pipeline metaphor “implies a singular pathway into engineering” (2019, p. 11). The women we will meet here illustrate not only that the conventional pathway to IT can be challenging for women to pursue, but also how they find alternative pathways that allows them to develop a sense of belonging in IT.