Member-only story
Why Is There a Lack of Women in Cyber?
An analysis of the gender gap in cybersecurity and tech careers alike.
The fact that there are so few women in the cybersecurity industry isn’t news to anyone. This has been an issue for years and years but has become more of a popular topic in parallel with the rise in popularity of the profession.
One would think that as cybersecurity becomes a more well-known profession, the gender gap that has existed would start to even itself out, but that hasn’t been the case at all.
According to a survey performed in August 2018 by ISC2, women made up 24 percent of the cybersecurity workforce. On the contrary, Cybersecurity Ventures reported that in 2019, 20 percent of the global cybersecurity workforce were women.
While the number of women in the industry is reportedly growing each year, it’s not growing fast enough. At this rate, it’ll be another 20 years before the number of women in cyber makes up just as much as the number of men.
Whenever I tell people I work in the cybersecurity industry, I get asked one of two things:
- Are you a hacker?
- So, you stop the bad guys?
This behavior is a direct result of the perception of what cybersecurity is and why women may not be pursuing jobs in the field.
“Perception is a way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something; a mental impression.“ — Oxford Languages
The lack of women in cybersecurity is a result of a few things:
- Perception — incorrect impression of the profession from various media sources
- Gender Bias — results in lack of awareness regarding the profession and lack of encouragement to pursue it
Where does this stem from though? That’s easy. Life. Everything around us. The things we see, hear, smell, taste, and touch all impact how we perceive something.
This holds true for how the cybersecurity industry and jobs are perceived.
Think about how cybersecurity professionals are depicted in the media. One example that comes to mind…
