Why is technology blue? A simple search for technology on Google images brings up a predominantly blue group of images. In the world we live in of extreme gender colour-coding, the first thought that comes to mind is that technology has been coded as masculine. But is this an accurate first impression?
A simple count of the number of male figures versus female figures in the image reveals that the majority associate male figures with technology, although there are a few female figures.
This immediately leads to a second question. Is this merely a coincidence or do these images and the colour coding of technology as masculine reflect a reality within industries associated with technological innovations?
Fortune magazine has compared the diversity numbers between the major tech companies and generally found them lacking. Just taking a look at the male-female ratio, the numbers are appalling. Indiegogo headed out the top of the list with 57% male and 43% female, while Apple with its uncharacteristically blue apple came in second with 72% male and 28% female. If the numbers only include technical workers, then the picture is decidedly more abysmal. Indiegogo still heads out the top with 33% female workers, but Apple's ratio of female workers drops to 20%.
The question remains: what happened to Apple's previous rainbow coloured logo? Is that not a better ideal to strive for than a blue one?
The predominance of blue in images of technology is not the source of the gender disparity in the tech industry but rather a symptom of a larger issue. The industry seems to have been coded masculine just as other fields have been coded feminine such as education and pharmacy.
A biological basis for these differences have long been discounted, so the question of cultural conditioning remains. In a world that is more and more dominated by images, we seem to be subtly reinforcing norms within industries through the visual representations we choose. The answer isn't necessarily to code technology as pink - that would be just falling back into a mindset that excludes rather than includes.
The images we choose to represent a set of discourses as diverse as technology will change as our concept of technology and who is involved in determining it will change. I would hope that images like the one of the tree will be the reflection of our future. Such images speak to a growing awareness of the impact our changing technology has on our environment and on our neighbours.
