Women are at the forefront in areas such as health, social action, education, but they are not so present in leadership positions, nor in technological areas. How can we change this reality?
The session “Portugal Digital mais Igual – Iniciativas onde as mulheres (já) tem um lugar ativo”, held by the INCoDe.2030 Program, in partnership with the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality and the Portugal Digital Mission Structure and the .PT, on March 8, brought together around 500 participants, and was attended by His Excellency the Minister of State and the Presidency and the Secretary of State for Citizenship and Equality.
The session, moderated by Luisa Ribeiro Lopes, Coordinator of the Inclusion Axis of the INCoDe.2030 Program and President of .PT, resulted in some conclusions, namely: it is necessary to deconstruct the prejudice that the technological area is mostly male, to reinforce the support measures companies to hire women for more responsible positions, bet on technological training programs, demand equal pay between people who perform the same work and also bet on the way they communicate to achieve better results during this change.
Rosa Monteiro, Secretary of State for Citizenship and Equality, chaired the opening session and stressed that very concrete actions are being developed for a more equal digital Portugal: “The Recovery and Resilience Plan includes mechanisms to ensure that women participate in digital education and training programs in their various components, from qualifications and competences, to 4.0 companies, to digital education reform, and to the investment and innovation component. I also highlight the creation of better conciliation conditions, with more social, health and mobility responses, promoting a more equal division of care tasks, which is a condition for full participation in the labor market and the exercise of leadership”.
The session also featured Mariana Vieira da Silva, Minister of State and Presidency, who highlighted the role of women in several areas, the increase in the number of graduates in the ICT area, the urgency of ending the stereotype of being a male area, and also highlighted that it was stipulated “that one of the priority indicators in the Action Plan for the Digital Transition would be the percentage of women employed in the ICT sector, and in this context the INCoDe program assumes a crucial role with the mainstreaming of gender equality in all the axes of the program and how important it is that we are currently working, both in initiatives such as “Upskill” or “Eu Sou Digital”, and that take this inequality into account and can seek to correct it”.
Representatives of several national projects and initiatives such as “Eu Sou Digital” by MUDA – “Movimento pela Utilização Digital Ativa”, “Emprego + Digital” and “ProjetoPromo” by CIP – “Confederação Empresarial de Portugal,” “Apps for Good” by CDI Portugal, “UPskill” by APDC – Associação Portuguesa para o Desenvolvimento das Comunicações, and the pilot project on teaching computing by ENSICO – Associação para o Ensino da Computação, were unanimous in underlining the important role of women in the technological area, which strategies used for greater inclusion and digital literacy of women and how their projects have achieved tangible results for greater gender equality in the sector.
Vanda de Jesus, Executive Director of the Portugal Digital Mission Structure, reinforced at the closing session the role of women in the context of the pandemic, having also focused on the issue of the evolution of the role of women in leadership positions: “According to data from a study carried out by Informa D&B, in March 2020, concerning female management and leadership in Portugal, the presence of women in management positions at listed companies was strongly boosted by the application of the 2017 law, where we now reach 19.5% of women in managing positions of listed companies, which compared to 2013 is about double”.
The priority and main goals of the projects presented are transversal: to train and innovate without leaving anyone behind. The imbalance goes beyond gender barriers, with 48% of citizens lacking basic skills (mostly women) and 18% never using the internet.
You can watch the full session on the INCoDe.2030 website – https://www.incode2030.gov.pt/eventos-incode2030