ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses decreasing participation in Information Communication Technologies and Media by diverse women around the world. It offers solutions and techniques to respond to the multi-layered challenges involved in increasing diverse women’s participation in media and ICTs. Scholars from diverse fields have grappled with the question of why women are so underrepresented in Information Communication Technologies and Media (ICTM) sectors around the world. The under-employment of women in the workforce significantly and negatively affects the economy by limiting the size of the labor pool. Diverse perspectives drive technological innovation, so constraining diverse women’s engagement will limit short- and long-term ICTM possibilities. Valuable research has shown that technological tools, practices, and cultures are naturalized as masculine, promote stereotypes suggesting women are technologically inept, and exclude women from the design and use of technology and from IT employment. The exercises imagine and move toward an intentionally more equitable and diverse future in ICTM spaces.