The report estimates that 57% of the jobs set to be displaced by technology between now and 2026 belong to women. According to Saadia Zahidi, the WEF’s head of education, gender and work, this underlines that global efforts to reduce gender inequality in business are stalling. “We’re really looking at a worsening of inequality, particularly in IT but across all sectors,” Zahidi said. “We are losing valuable opportunity to reduce gender inequality.”

The boom of sexual harassment websites and apps is "clearly responding to a need," says Jhumka Gupta, an epidemiologist at George Mason University who focuses on issues of gender-based violence. "I think these platforms are great because the control is given to the women," she says. "They don't have to go through the police or public authorities who may not take them seriously."

A number of Chinese mobile applications have been shut down after it was revealed women on their platforms were actually automated robots, it's reported. According to the Modern Express newspaper, police have closed down mobile apps associated with 21 companies and arrested more than 600 suspects operating across 13 provinces, after discovering that messages from some women were being automatically generated by computer programmes.

A source told me that CTA was looking for female CEOs to add some diversity to the lineup, but today they confirmed that it didn’t find any takers for the show, which begins on January 9. So for the second year in a row, the very top slots—those addressing the entire conference—are all going to men, most of them white.

Iin 2017, women also reminded us all of the upside of connecting online. Joining together around the world, they used these platforms the way the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world had originally hoped; they were able to find and support one another, despite geography and circumstance, and to subvert the power structures that have silenced them for so long.

But what does a consumer tech show have to do with the current toxic revelations of harassment, assault, bullying and abuse coming out of almost every influential American institution and industry? Just about everything, because at the center of all of this is power, perceived and real. The power to hire, to fire, to promote, to celebrate, and most important, to be heard. Who speaks on national platforms, who stands before decision makers, and who appears in the media on lists of who is important signal value. It’s about measuring worth. Zero women speaking in the most coveted slots is a big flashing signal that we’re not worth it.

Around the world, Apple’s workforce in 2017 is 68 percent male and 32 percent female. That’s the same gender breakdown that the tech giant reported in 2016. But it reflects a 2 percent improvement in the number of women in Apple’s ranks over the past three years. That translates to 37,000 hires, the company said.

Her eye is on the future, one that has gender parity. One of the reasons Pearson is so hopeful is her 13-year-old daughter, Eloise. Her daughter explained to her mother recently that on the school playground, some boys in her class made a rude comment. “And these girls turned around and roared,” Pearson says. And then they went to their teacher to propose a student-led conference with the theme, “Objectifying Women and Believing in Feminism.” The future is bright in part because of this next generation, she says. Because the bias, discrimination and invisibility of women in the workplace have gone on long enough.

Harbouring such strong biases can cloud one’s judgments about oneself, especially about one’s abilities. Multiple studies have found that such implicit stereotypes, held by both men and women, can predict a participant’s math engagement, performance and achievement, intentions to pursue science-related majors, academic programs and careers. Among women, stronger implicit stereotypes predict worse math performance and achievement and weaker identification with math and science. Pervasive stereotypes associated science with men emerge early in development and exist across cultures.

“AI tech is a direct reflection of the people who are engineering it, so any bias by these individuals will be reflected in the products they create,” Montoya tells OZY — something she’s seen many times with “tech bros” in Silicon Valley. Looking for examples? In 2009 HP’s imaging software couldn’t recognize Asian faces, and Harvard’s Project Implicit discovered that people automatically assign positive or negative behavior to different skin tones. That’s the impetus behind Accel.AI: to make sure that diverse people have a say in tech of the future.

Women at that time could not join the U.S. Navy except as civilians, and certainly could not go to sea except as nurses; confined to a landlocked desk, Agnes Driscoll not only diagnosed the “super-enciphered” code that Japan’s naval commanders were using; she trained many of the male naval officers who would get the credit during the war, when code-breaking enabled the great American sea victory in the Battle of Midway and other Pacific victories.