New Report Shines Light on Roots of Exclusion for Women in Cybersecurity

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Mar 29, 2023, 09:00 ET

People, not policies, drive women's feelings of exclusion

COOKEVILLE, Tenn., March 29, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- As the cybersecurity industry struggles to fill a 3.4 million global jobs gap, a new report by Women in CyberSecurity (WiCyS), the nonprofit organization dedicated to the recruitment, retention and advancement of women in cybersecurity, sheds light onto the barriers that keep women from being retained and promoted into the field at the same rate as men.

The "State of Inclusion of Women in Cybersecurity" report, conducted in collaboration with the DEI firm Aleria, found that women faced numerous workplace experiences that contributed to their overall feeling of exclusion and consequently, their rates of satisfaction, productivity and retention. According to the report, women were especially impacted by a lack of career and growth opportunities, and by a lack of respect that stemmed from company leadership, direct managers and peers.

"We know that the representation of women in cybersecurity hovers around 24%, far lower than it should be," said Lynn Dohm, executive director of WiCyS. "We wanted to find out why this was the case and were somewhat -- but not entirely -- surprised that the most common source of women's feelings of exclusion came from people, not company policies. This highlights the fact that we still have a long way to go when it comes to accepting women in the cybersecurity industry."

The study found that:

68% of participants cited Leadership as being a source of experiences of exclusion, 61% cited Managers, and 52% cited peers. By comparison, workplace policies were cited as a source of exclusion by only 12% of the participants
83% of participants shared at least one experience of exclusion
The top two categories where participants reported exclusion were Career & Growth (reported by 57% of participants) and Respect (reported by 56% of participants), which dominate the categories of workplace experiences of exclusion. Other frequently-cited categories include Recognition and Access, both cited by 41% of participants.
New hires report exclusion levels that are 17% higher than those who have been with an organization for 2-5 years; however, the highest exclusion levels come after six years with the same organization
Larger organizations (5,000 or more employees) seem to be more inclusive than smaller companies
Cybersecurity firms have a higher level of exclusion than non-cybersecurity firms. This finding aligns with similar studies showing that technology companies tend to have higher overall exclusion scores than companies in other sectors, especially for women.

The data for the report was gleaned from a series of workshops in February attended by over 300 women who anonymously entered information about themselves and their work, sharing uncomfortable workplace experiences and categorizing each experience into typical aspects of the workplace such as career & growth, respect, and work-life balance. The data was then used to calculate an exclusion score, a numerical value that combines prevalence (the proportion of participants who shared at least one experience), severity (the average number of experiences shared per person) and frequency (one-time or recurring).

Overall, nearly 500 experiences were collected, with women reporting incidents such as male coworkers viewing pornography in their presence, receiving less "pats on the back" than their male counterparts, and being asked to speak with a man in IT instead of them.

"Our study makes it crystal clear that leaders of any organization must educate themselves about inclusion and must start treating inclusion as a key part of their business strategy," said Paolo Gaudiano, co-founder and president of Aleria. "With cybersecurity facing a serious shortage of workers, it is essential to understanding the obstacles that prevent women - who have so much to offer the industry - from entering and advancing in the field. We hope our study is a much-needed wake-up call for business leaders to move beyond diversity as the sole metric, and to make inclusion a key part of their DEI strategy and objectives."

To read the full report go to https://www.wicys.org/initiatives/executive-summary/.

SOURCE WiCyS