Like many women who are established in this Industry, Jennifer had no aspirations of being a part of a tech company. From growing up wanting to be a teacher, to now being on the senior leadership team here at ComputerWorld, Jennifer Bennett shares her journey of progressing through the tech industry and how she is now a self-confessed `Geek’.
Before joining ComputerWorld in 2019, starting her journey into the tech sector in 2001 Jen worked for Turkish Vestel Electronics, specifically in the UK arm of the business focussed on software development for digital TV. Having spent time across the UK and Turkish offices, Jen was surprised that whilst the UK office struggled to recruit many women into tech roles, the Turkish team were achieving numbers far closer to parity. Jen believes that Turkey was achieving this more balanced number of men and women due to their encouragement to be in tech starting in education. By inspiring both girls and boys equally during their education to enjoy technology and the different opportunities within the industry can attribute to better numbers in the career sector.
This notion of inspiring through education and support resonated with Jen, as being a woman who is passionate about learning (recently having completed an MBA and currently studying an MSc in Business Psychology) Jen felt that more education was needed to help excite more diversity into the industry. This was not only brought on by her experience in Turkey, but from her own experiences in her youth, to now with her own daughter. Starting when she was young, growing up with an older brother, Jen witnessed the different levels of support given to boys and girls regarding technology. Her brother was encouraged to learn to programme with his Dragon32 computer, whilst Jen did not have the same push into enjoying tech. Although classing herself as a “Tomboy” and interested in traditional “male” spaces/hobbies (playing pool for Bristol Country), she still did not have that external drive to take interest in what was seen as a male career path at that time – this still echoes in current society according to the wider research.
But in her own experience with her daughter, Jen now believes that there is more of a drive for younger people to have a greater passion for IT in general. After being in the industry for 15+ years Jen has been particularly delighted about her daughter’s interest in modern technology. With this shift to the current reliance on technology, from entertainment (gaming) to learning (remote learning on apps like Microsoft Teams), Jen believes that society’s current integration of technology in day-to-day life has organically nurtured more of an interest in IT. However, this interest according to Jen, needs to continue to be supported and developed by families, schools and by the IT industry itself. Doing more and taking an active stance in encouraging under-represented professions from an early age will be key for us to continue towards reaching gender parity for future generations.
As mentioned, Jen is delighted that her daughter has taken an interest in IT, but being a full-time employee, pursuing further academic learning outside of work and combined with being a mum, causes her to feel ‘mum-guilt’. Mum guilt isn’t exclusive to the tech sector, many working women experience the guilt of not living up to the expectations of being the perfect hands-on mother. Balancing her commitments and giving her 100% still remains a challenge for Jen to justify her work/education pursuits when she is a mother to an 8-year-old. Although ‘mum-guilt’ is unfortunately common with working women, these multi-tasking, caregivers should try to rationalise any of their guilt. Jen does this by reminding herself why she is doing this and showing her daughter a real-life, determined, female role model.
Jen says “I do experience a lot of ‘mummy-guilt’ for working full time, it feels like quite a selfish thing to do. However, I believe I am a better mum for being a working mum, with much more balance in myself – I just wasn’t made to be a full-time mummy.”
Moving forward in her position as the People Director here at ComputerWorld, Jen champions equity in the workspace but reiterates that it is not her role to police others, but to continue to encourage education and thoughtfulness to work towards an equal, welcoming space.
“As a standard, we should be very aware of different people’s perspectives and must take ourselves out of our own normality to think about what somebody else’s normal, and needs, might be and then champion for them. We all just want equity at the end of the day, having the same opportunities available to us”.
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