Is this it? Have we succumbed to a world where we have lost power of our own lives — worse one in which we’ve given power to a few? Have we somehow been conditioned to accept this reality? Few think for themselves on top of being raised to consume on a robotic level. We’re constantly running a race that we still don’t understand what the end game is. Even when we are being confronted with everyday situations that affect us we could care less. It’s 2017 and we still can’t learn from the mistakes of the past, we still haven’t realized the lock to the door that holds this cycle. We are so gracious of being given crumbs still when we know there’s a whole loaf of bread within reach. Here’s what I mean:
The World Economic Forum reports that it will almost 170 years ( ~ 3 lifetimes) from 2016 for gender inequality in employment opportunity and gender pay to close this gap.
Let that sink in for the 3.7 billion women in this world. Let that sink in for all the fathers and mothers who have daughters.
You know I expect the people who created this disparity to not care as it only reinforces their power but what happens when you tell a woman this and their response is one of helplessness or worse no response because “That’s the way it is”. You know it’s a struggle when you have to defend yourself against the people you’re defending.
Let’s get even more deep, for women of color they get the bottom of the barrel. In the superpower and developed country of the U.S. a Latinx woman will earn $0.54 for every $1.00 a white man gets, a Black woman will earn $0.63, a Native American woman will earn $0.59, a Pacific Islander woman will earn $0.62, and an Asian American woman will earn $0.90 (note I have no problem with white men, but given their historical dominance in the world and the U.S. they are indeed the primary benchmark). Note the overall gap is 22% for all women. I use the U.S. because historically the world wants to emulate the “American way” of doing things as well as the U.S’s influence over the world.
Now let’s add another paradigm shift with something that will only worsen these statistics. When you consider the two sectors with the highest female labor participation, sales and administration, these sectors will greatly be affected by automation and AI. I say worse because the lack of employment opportunities and equal pay is attributed to the lack of women in executive and management positions. So in turn wages may decrease as a result of less women to make decisions.
Let’s go over to another topic. The industries that will be around are and will be tech, this is no surprise to anybody. Every industry has to adapt its way in some shape to this new paradigm as well. Women, Blacks, Latinx kids aren’t being prepared for this future so in turn there will be a plethora of the population out of the ecosystem of wealth creation and innovation. Can we afford to have swaths of the population out of tech anymore?
We’ve seen it with every shift in technology, these above groups have traditionally been last to the party because its meant to be that way. Take for example venture capital, which stemmed from 1940’s white male dominated banking sectors. These pioneers were able to capitalize on these opportunities because women and said groups were kept out of the banking industry so there weren’t any women, black, or latinx venture capitalists. Only as of 1980s did you begin to see a crack an obviously more recently do you realize that it’s an actual opportunity and even more discouraging is that it’s 2017 and women and minority founders receive less investments and are often under emphasized for their skills and competence and heavily biased against because of what they look like. Let’s look at the 21st century parallel with this situation.
Blockchain technology has emerged to be here awhile, but being in this space you don’t see a lot of women and that’s an understatement, same can be said for Blacks and Latinx. Now understand a big reason is most of the early communities today exist of people who were once heavily involved in the video game culture as well as finance: fields that aren’t necessarily pushed for little girls or black and Latinx children. Lets bring it back again we see 1950’s computer technology taking off and again predominately white males creating companies based off the information and knowledge they received which was denied to women and minority groups. The companies to get venture capital investments were these companies the Intels, Microsofts, Apples, Googles of the world. It’s 2017 and until recently do we see the push for minorities just learn programming and coding. But the shift into Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing, Swarm Intelligence, etc is in full affect. In these spaces may I need remind you who isn’t present, I think you see the pattern here.
Now I am writing this as someone who has recently created a tech startup that will be using artificial intelligence and blockchain technology. I am using it to help to women and said groups have an equal chance and opportunity to at least get acknowledged as a qualified candidate for an employment opportunity. But I am writing this as someone who doesn’t want to wait for 170 years to see if women will finally get equal treatment in the workforce and environment. I mean by 2040 there will be more minorities in the U.S. and there is already more women than men. And this is my concern, because the collective power and potential is so strong if enough people cared about problems that they actually could control it would end no matter if they are the majority or not. But often people feel they can’t so they choose not or decide they are powerless or worse feel someone else will make the change.
As a collective there is no way that women, can’t demand each and every company to pay all women who work there an equal pay and give access to equal opportunities let alone if women and minorities united for these changes. Whether that means protesting a company’s bottom line by not using their good/service and using blackouts to demand equality. Like has willful ignorance forced us to give money, time, and information to companies that decide to continue the status quo.
And if you’re wondering if legislation will be the change we need, then let me remind you of the acts and laws passed in the 1960’s promising equal pay and opportunities for women, minorities, and older citizens. It’s 2017 and not much has really changed in terms of the problem, it’s just changed form.
There are groups like the UN that are forcing companies to make a pledge to commit to gender equality which are progressive. There are companies like Impakt that are using AI to provide us with information and inform us about companies’ ethical behavior like diversity hiring. And there are companies like mine working to use new technology like AI and Blockchain for improving hiring decisions by removing biases and unnecessary filters that discount whole groups of people because of what they look like or how old they are. We’re all apart of this global ecosystem because we all care. But we are ever so small in comparison to the many affected groups walking and living everyday with these issues.
Together we can force companies to make these changes. now I don’t know why the masses don’t care maybe it’s because we have decided to give up our voices, whether out of fear or from group think, or because we need someone with a huge social media following to validate our beliefs and form our thoughts for us, I don’t know but having a greater wealth inequality gap on global scale is only imminent if we can’t muster up the strength to come together for basic principles of freedom and liberty and justice. The future doesn’t have to be this way, history has showed so many times that we can change it. I repeat “2017” because I wonder if in 2186 will anyone have cared — will somebody be writing about this then. So the question comes when will we ready to prove this study wrong, that the projected year for ending gender inequality isn’t 2186 but actually within our lifetime and if we wanted to could be tomorrow, will anybody have cared?
It’s funny though most of the world’s problems like terrorism, lack of empathy, climate change, poverty, disease, food, water, energy, resources, etc can all be related to this problem of gender equality — if we can solve it then I guarantee this world will be much more enjoyable world where we can all elevate to Mars instead of just a few.
Photo courtesy of Dave Chinell
(Note the author of this article is a black man born and raised in the U.S. from a part of an urban environment where I shouldn’t know what I know simply put. I am not “woke” and me being black or being a male or coming from a defeatist community doesn’t matter. I’m just a human born on Earth and just want to see everyone reach their full potential so in turn I’m just against things that prevent that.)