Teenage girls are being targeted by GCHQ, the UK’s intelligence and security agency, in a bid to identify the cybersecurity professionals of the future. According to local media Gloucestershire Live:
The National Cyber Security Centre, the ‘gamekeepers’ organisation set up in London under the control of GCHQ, is launching a competition specifically for girls aged 13-15 as part of its CyberFirst scheme.
The NCSC is inviting the girls to pit their cyber-skills against one another in the CyberFirst Girls Competition.
What will the girls have to do?
The competition begins with a set of online puzzles covering four main cybersecurity topics. The puzzles will become progressively harder. The competition’s FAQ explains:
The online round will be open for a week. There will be many challenges and we don’t expect any team to complete all of them, each team guardian and team should work out a strategy to complete the challenges which works best for them.
The top 10 teams from the online round will then attend a grand final in London to …
… compete against each other to investigate some suspicious cyber activity, present their findings and solve who’s behind the crime.
Girls in the winning team will take home individual prizes and their school will receive IT equipment worth up to£1,000.
Is this the right approach?
The NSCS is clearly trying to encourage young girls into technology careers at a time when, according to a National Cyber Security Centre press release,
… only 10 per cent of the global cyber workforce are female.
It believes the competition is …
… an important step to knock down barriers preventing women from joining the fight against online crime.
Though well meaning, the competition might actually be exactly the wrong approach.
Suw Charman-Anderson, founder of Ada Lovelace Day – an international celebration that aims to increase the profile of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) and, in doing so, create new role models who will encourage more girls into STEM careers – told us:
At a time when everything around us is gendered and culture is sending youngsters messages that some things are for boys and others for girls, we need ongoing interventions that really challenge the cultural barriers – tackle the stereotypes on a day-to-day basis.
With competitions today’s default intervention, Suw highlights another important point: competitions don’t work well for girls since each girl has more chance of losing than winning.
There is some evidence that girls and boys react differently. While boys that don’t come top are more likely to keep trying, girls may see failing to win as a failure of their abilities.
The organizers of the competition were most likely predominantly male, looking at how to encourage girls – but looking at it from a male standpoint. It’s time for those trying to encourage girls into STEM to really understand the cultural differences between the genders and to put more thought into devising a long-term plan that will work.
Bob
I wouldn’t blame GCHQ for trying, but yeah throw in the gauntlet/winner takes all approaches seldom appeal to many women, let alone girls.
I suppose another approach is to create a kind of narrative scenario where the teams have to work together in solving a fictional crime. They can do the puzzles and share their findings with the other teams, perhaps each team role playing a different investigative agency.
At the end they get to solve the ‘crime’ and praise is given to all for their collaboration. “Team Guardians” can debrief their team and feedback recommendations and praise to individual girls where appropriate. The girls can provide feedback on their experience and if they enjoyed it, the team guardian can elaborate further on what a career in cyber security can be like.
If GCHQ wanted to reward a team for their efforts, they can use the Team Guardian feedback to personally praise and congratulate the girls and send the ‘reward’ to their school without making a huge ceremony out of it. This way you’re playing on girl’s strengths in collaboration and communication, while creating some excitement around the use of logic and technology in solving real world problems without making them feel less valued as a person.
Anyway that’s my two pence.
Mahhn
First thoughts are- that’s sexist, if it was a “boys only” there would be so much negative press it would die in minutes. Encouraging people is great, excluding – not so much.
Great comment Bob. Teamwork should be a big part, as it is in real life. At work we don’t Win and Lose, we make things better. In IT you need resources and creativity, which is not competition.
Kate Bevan
It’s not sexist. It’s a laudable attempt to encourage girls and young women into a sector that’s dominated by men. I’ve worked in and around the tech industry for years, and women are outnumbered by men by a huge margin. It feels unwelcoming and at times it’s actively hostile, which means it can be toxic. That needs to change. The industry is sexist. It is not sexist to actively target girls and young women to redress the imbalance and reduce the levels of sexism in the industry.
Wolfie
Isn’t discrimination based on the sexes inherently sexist? That doesn’t necessarily mean this is bad however.
Chris
Well, why do you think women and girls aren’t wanting to be a part of the IT industry? I’m in college at the moment and in my classes there are only a handful of women. Even with free federal STEM money many women aren’t as interested in the subject matter and to many IT is for nerds. I say we need to encourage all of the best minds to come to IT not just those of a certain sex or ethnicity. How is the industry sexist? Anyone can sign up for classes or take online training materials. People need to have a passion to work with hardware and software, not just we need women in IT solely because they are women.
Marius
A society with freedom creates a lot of differences as everyone grows in different ways and finds what they are good at. A society with restrictions create a lot of the same because there aren’t a lot of choices and you ultimately all follow the same limited paths.
There was a time (or perhaps still is) in India where there was a roughly equal split of men and women in the IT industry because it was one of best ways and few ways to earn a lot of money and develop a career. Now, let’s move to America where there a lot of choices instead. You get a lot of people doing different things, still making decent money, and still developing careers. As a result, a free society creates a lot of inequality.
For a recent US example, let’s talk about registered nurses. Men are vastly outnumbered by women with the ratio around 9 women to 1 man. Why is this the case? Men just aren’t as interested in this field and most importantly, you can still make decent money and develop a career in other fields. I’m certain there are other fields in the human care/medical industry that are dominated by women. It’s not because that industry is sexist, either.
Nobody_Holme
If you think nursing and care (and attitudes to men in those fields from those who don’t) isn’t sexist, you need to think again.
From is not the same as being treated fairly by those around you.
Also relevant: Only men have replied with dissenting opinions here. That’s tells it’s own story.
Philip Le Riche @pleriche
Let’s get behind this and do our best to make it work rather than listing reasons why it won’t. Of course there will be challenges, and getting the most out of it will depend on understanding how girls react differently to boys, but if competition had no place as far as girls and women are concerned then there would be no sportswomen in the world!
4caster
If there is evidence (other than raw numbers that don’t prove the case alone) that GCHQ is sexist, that is illegal and should be tackled at source. Any organisation should appoint the best candidates for each job. That means opening the recruitment lists to people of both sexes and judging each applicant on his or her merits.
Neo
I worked with women IT geeks.
To be honest I don’t care if I work with woman or man.
But what I do care skills and mindset.