K
Kathleen Martin
Guest
Sometimes it’s the obvious things that are overlooked. Why aren’t there pictures of women building robots on the internet? Or if they are there, why can’t we find them when we search? I have spent years decades doing outreach activities, providing STEM opportunities, and doing women in robotics speaker or networking events. So I’ve done a lot of image searches looking for a representative picture. I have scrolled through page after page of search results ranging from useless to downright insulting every single time.
Finally, I counted.
My impressions were correct. The majority of the images you find when you look for ‘woman building robot’ are of female robots. This is not what happens if you search for ‘building robot’, or ‘man building robot’. That’s the insulting part, that this misrepresentation and misclassification hasn’t been challenged or fixed. Sophia the robot, or the ScarJo bot, or a sexbot has a much greater impact on the internet than women doing real robotics. What if male roboticists were confronted with pictures of robotic dildos whenever they searched for images of their work?
The number of women in the robotics industry is hard to gauge. Best estimates are 5% in most locations, perhaps 10% in some areas. It is slowly increasing, but then the robotics industry is also in a period of rapid growth and everyone is struggling to hire. To my mind, the biggest wasted opportunity for a young robotics company growing like Topsy is to depend on the friends of founders network when it leads to homogenous hiring practices. The sooner you incorporate diversity, the easier it will be for you to scale and attract talent.
Continue reading: https://venturebeat.com/2021/10/31/a-call-for-increased-visual-representation-and-diversity-in-robotics/
Finally, I counted.
My impressions were correct. The majority of the images you find when you look for ‘woman building robot’ are of female robots. This is not what happens if you search for ‘building robot’, or ‘man building robot’. That’s the insulting part, that this misrepresentation and misclassification hasn’t been challenged or fixed. Sophia the robot, or the ScarJo bot, or a sexbot has a much greater impact on the internet than women doing real robotics. What if male roboticists were confronted with pictures of robotic dildos whenever they searched for images of their work?
The number of women in the robotics industry is hard to gauge. Best estimates are 5% in most locations, perhaps 10% in some areas. It is slowly increasing, but then the robotics industry is also in a period of rapid growth and everyone is struggling to hire. To my mind, the biggest wasted opportunity for a young robotics company growing like Topsy is to depend on the friends of founders network when it leads to homogenous hiring practices. The sooner you incorporate diversity, the easier it will be for you to scale and attract talent.
Continue reading: https://venturebeat.com/2021/10/31/a-call-for-increased-visual-representation-and-diversity-in-robotics/
