The Tech Industry Needs More Women Role Models, Here’s Why [infographic]

During a time of astounding, innovative technological advances, you’d think that more women might be taking on tech careers. However, even with the amount of available STEM jobs increasing, female role models in the tech space are few and far between. And we think this is a big problem.

Some of the most brilliant tech innovations have come from the minds of women, yet our current societal norms still deter young females from embarking on obtaining challenging, high-paying STEM careers. It’s amazing that we still haven’t moved past living in a world where young boys are pushed to become astronauts, scientists, doctors and engineers while we make sure our young girls follow career paths where they stay “pretty” and don’t get their hands dirty, per se. Of course, not every parenting style forces traditional gender roles onto children, but numbers and statistics, well, they just don’t lie.

Imagine what it would be like if more women went after careers in science in technology. If they did, then perhaps more young girls would see these incredible female minds in the spotlight, look up to them instead of the most glamorous pop stars and follow their own STEM dreams. It’s interesting to think about how the gender wage gap could finally, truly begin to close.

Here at PayScale, we have taken this matter into our own hands in order to start changing this unfortunate career trend. Our new data package, Women at Work, examines why females are absent from high-paying careers in technology, engineering, science and the like. In addition to our own analysis, we stumbled across this infographic below from TechSchool.com. The image offers an eye-opening window into the current state of women in tech and science careers

And truth be told: the numbers aren’t pretty.

(Photo credit: TechSchool.com)