IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2013 - 9

Joanne O'Riordan (left) attends Girls in
ICT Day 2012 in New York.

Girls in ICT Day 2012, New York.

men, who are taught early on to be so
much more aggressive than you and
present that as a positive-to push and
to be out there, to be outspoken," she
explains. "And for a woman, it's never
that positive. You need to be shy, modest, and nice and sweet, right?" But
to be highly successful, especially in
a male-dominated profession, women

have to be confident in their abilities
and "never say no-just take anything,"
she says, "because there are tons of
men around you who'd always say yes,
even though they're far less competent
than you are and so far less capable
than you are. ... They will be aggressive enough, and they will ask for it. ...
So you have to encourage yourself,
work on it, have your friends and family
support you in your decisions, ask for
something if you feel you should ask,
but you're kind of embarrassed and it
feels bad."
Back in 2010, when the International Telecommunication Union adopted
the resolution designating Girls in ICT
Day, it also agreed to promote and support the launch of a "global network of
women ICT decision-makers." The idea
is to leverage the growing number of
women who are succeeding in the sector in order to empower other women,
socially and economically, through the
use of technology and to help shift the
gender balance in the field's top-level
positions. The hope also, says Matic, is
that the women of this group "could be
role models that will speak out and that
will just be there for the parents, the
teachers, the relatives, [and] the communities to see and become accustomed
to this idea that women can actually
make careers in IT and become the decision makers."
Matic believes the ICT field is suited to women's skills: It doesn't require
physical strength, and the ability to
communicate and empathize is critical
in today's global world. The problem is

that young girls are often presented with
a different message. "You can see the
stereotypes that are being instilled into
little girls' heads when you watch movies and you watch TV shows," she says.
"Beautiful women are always dumb,
and if they are not dumb, then they're
usually evil. It's very difficult to find a
smart, generous, nice, intelligent, professional woman in the media. That's
just not there. And what's even worse,
the situation has not been improving
at all."
This is why, at least in part, it shocks
so many people that Miss Serbia is an
IT student who wants to become a programmer. For the same reason, it might
surprise them to learn that Matic, highly intelligent and educated, who comes
across as kind and generous with her
time and story, is a sharp dresser who
wears makeup and reads Vogue. "I actually saw this ad, which I thought was
really cool," she says, flipping the pages
of the magazine. "It says, 'Smart is
beautiful.' It's an ad for Amazon.com. I
thought it was a smart ad.... We should
not feel pressured to be smart or beautiful. I think, actually, it is very natural to
be both."
-Heather Wax

The Next Wave
of Innovation

Martinich masters the art
of science and public policy
Leslie Martinich is constantly looking
to catch the next wave of innovation:
she's worked for a variety of start-ups,
started her own management consulting firm that guides companies in leading innovation, and spent 2012 serving
as the sole IEEE Congressional Fellow
in Washington, D.C. In fact, Martinich
began innovating at a young age when
she acted against the expected societal
norms and the advice she was given by
teachers not to pursue her passions.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MWIE.2013.2251767

Witnet Launch at the United Nations in New York City, February 2011.

Date of publication: 8 May 2013

June 2013

IEEE womEn In EngInEErIng magazInE

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Women in Engineering Magazine - June 2013