Women’s and Gender Stereotypes in Indonesia Tech Industry
Earlier this year, many social movements that express inequality and sexual harassment towards a woman. This movement called by #MeToo and #TimesUp. The campaign first appeared toward the inequality and sexual harassment issues in Hollywood.
Many actresses speak up about this issues, whether they get paid lower than male actors, or they were a victim of sexual harassment. This movement rapidly becomes a global issue, not only in the United States but across the world including Indonesia. Although this movement is not national issues as what happened in the United States, many public figures try to speak about what happened to the woman in their workforce.
It seems in Indonesia there are various stereotypes related to the role of women in the workforce. Women are still described unable to handle multiple functions and tasks that have been dominated by men.
In the technology industry, or e-commerce category specifically, based on data compiled by iPrice Group, only 21% of women occupy the position of president director or the highest level. Based on the World Economics Forum index, Indonesia is ranked 10th in the Gender Gap Index.
The study from the Peterson Institute in 2016 conducted research from 21,980 companies in 91 countries showing the number of female leadership in company management resulted in an increase in annual profit of 2.7% higher than those who did not. Women’s participation can provide a diversity of ideas and views in business.
Another thing is the gap in income. There still a gender-based salary imbalance. Based on a global study conducted by Korn Ferry, globally, men earn an average salary of 16.1 percent higher than women. The Korn Ferry Gender Pay Index shows that when analyzing the same job position, such as director level, the gap decreases to 5.3 percent globally. While in the same job position in the same company, this gap has dropped to 1.5 percent. And when male and female employees are in the same job position in the same company and work in the same function, the difference in their salary is 0.5 percent on average.
At the same job level in the same company, the difference is -1.7 percent, which again benefits female employees. When male and female employees are in the same job position in the same company and work in the same function, the average salary difference still benefits female employees, namely -4.1 percent.
This shows that the root of the problem of salary differences between men and women is not because women and men do not get the proper salary in the same job position, but more to the labor imbalance.
One of the factors that influence this is that more men are in senior management positions of companies in the sectors and functions of higher paying jobs, while women are more in lower job positions in the company.
It seems that in the future, this situation will be further reduced. Because in the last few years in Indonesia, especially the world of technology began to attend with a female figure who has a vital role. For example, there is Alamanda Shantika (founder of Binar Academy), Cynthia Tenggara (founder of Berrykitchen), Diajeng Lestari (founder of Hijup), Hanifa Ambadar (Founder of Female Daily), Christina Suriadjaja (Co-Founder of Travelio), and many other names.
Gender equality issues in the world of technology are perplexing. Not many dares to express this problem. Alamanda Shantika, founder of Binar Academy, who has a lot of experience in the technology industry, especially programmers, clarify that there is no gender bias in the tech industry in Indonesia. She has never experienced any conditions related to that.However, she underlines in the case of gender bias, should be seen within the broad spectrum.
Sometimes the leader figures should be able to give opportunities to the women. She had the experience when she was pointing one of the female programmers in her company to become a team leader, but the woman asks her, whether she would be able to hold the responsibility.
“From there unconsciously when I want to give the task to women wonder whether she is confident to herself or not.”
For her, the process of empowering women not only can see from bottom to top but also look in top-down condition. “Maybe we are as the leader is giving less opportunity to the women.”
Currently, there are also various communities and institutions that support the critical role of women in the world of technology, one of them is called Generation Girl.
This collective was established by several young women in the technology industry. Crystal Widjaja, Mila Alfitri, and Anbita Nadine Siregar from Go-Jek. Josephine Bahari from Blueboots Farm, Janice Widjaja from Moka Pos. There is also a man named Fadri Attamimi who also initiated the Generation Girl movement.
Generation Girl was founded in April 2018 with the vision of introducing the world of technology, especially Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).
Nadine Siregar who works as a Product Engineer in Go-Jek stated that the initiative is caused by the many stereotypes related to women’s roles. They doubted their abilities, just because they were a woman.
“Every time I got a project and promotion, many say I got it all because I am a woman. Not because I am able to do it and work very hard.”
For her, Generation Girl gives choices to Indonesian women in determining their career choices. Women can pursue careers not only as office employees, doctors, and accountants. They can also work as developers and programmers in the technology industry. Especially in formal education, new things like working in the technology industry were not introduced.
Moreover, the social system in Indonesia still emphasizes the importance of being married rather than building a career for women. Not a few cases, talented women must stop working because of household problems. Whereas in the technology industry, especially being a programmer and developer gives work freedom by working remotely, so that you don’t need to be present at the office every day.
“After graduating, not only getting married and having children, you can pursue dreams and work as a programmer. If they want to get married after graduation it doesn’t matter, but if they don’t want to, we try to offer something new, and they can achieve it.”
