Dr. Sarah Saska (she/her/elle) (PhD' 16) inherited a passion for social justice and making a better world. She grew up thinking she would follow in her father’s footsteps and become a human rights lawyer.
When she began her university studies in social sciences – particularly in social justice-related fields such as gender studies and masculinity studies, she realized there was more than one way to be a social warrior. Although valuing academic discipline and methodology, Saska is a hands-on, tactical person who knew she wanted her contributions to go beyond sitting on a library shelf or a digital archive.
Her studies led her to read landmark white papers from Oxford and Cambridge, which claimed that innovation and technology studies were inherently gender blind or gender-neutral. This sparked her interest - with a background in gender studies, Saska knew this was simply not true.
“It would be cool “gender-neutral” or “gender-blind” but that’s not how the world works – so it didn’t make any sense.”
As an example, Saska cites automotive game-changer Tesla – a company that prides itself on being a disrupter and innovator – yet their crash data was based on the archaic standard of using test dummies replicating male bodies. Because of this flawed assumption, someone who is pregnant and in a car crash has a high probability of losing the fetus because car crash safety testing was done using the 180 lb. male body as the default or the “norm.”
Saska notes an obvious gap in the field of innovation and technology is the lack of acknowledgement of the many complex factors that make us human.
Voice recognition technology has trouble with accents and research shows facial recognition algorithms have different accuracy rates for different demographic groups. None of these are acceptable to Saska. She started to think of ways of transforming her academic research into practical applications.
She obtained a MARS Discovery Innovation Fellowship while in the midst of writing her thesis at Western. This helped her figure out the basics of starting a business around her research.
There, Saska met her soon-to-be company co-founder, Dr. Andrea Rowe (she/her/elle), over what was supposed to be a quick 30-minute cup of tea. Many hours later, Feminuity was born – an astute combination of “feminism” and “ingenuity” that was a result of their marathon chat.
Feminuity’s core mission is to collaborate with innovative companies to embed diversity and inclusion strategies into the core of their business.
“At the most fundamental level, this work is about challenging people’s hearts and minds – we are coming up against people’s biases, insecurities, and ego and all sorts of things.”
She adds Feminuity is not a PR firm for companies who want to pay lip service and jump on the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bandwagon. It’s not about political correctness, which Saska says leaves people frightened about saying the wrong thing. Nor is it about ticking boxes at hiring time. Saska’s company only partners with organizations who want to do better and have serious intentions and genuine commitment.
In fact, companies seek them out. Feminuity has never had to actively solicit business and they turn down fifty percent of inquiries they receive that do not feel are aligned with their values.
Successful strategies never focus on only race or gender and that is where so many companies go wrong, said Saska. The problem requires a more nuanced approach. Feminuity considers over forty unique diversity characteristics and brings an intersectional analysis allowing for the full range of identities of an individual. People are messy and complex, and solutions must allow for this.
There is a very high cost associated with a toxic workplace. Saska cited a Kapor Centre study which claimed bullying, stereotyping, sexual harassment and racial bias in the workplace cost the US tech industry alone 16 billion per year due to turnover.
As the company continues to thrive and evolve, Saska is still driven to explore social justice concepts. She is keenly interested in the ethical and equitable design of artificial intelligence (AI). She acknowledges technology does have a dark and dangerous side. Technologies are built by us and they are using datasets that reflect our history of exclusion and discrimination.
“The efficiency and scalability of technology mean that existing inequities can be reproduced at scale and at warp speed – the good, the bad and everything in between.”
For example, she shares real concern as AI is seen as a silver bullet solution, under the guise that humans are biased and technology is more objective.
AI is being used to determine who gets parole, how long a prison sentence should be, what level of police presence should be in a community – all based on historical data, which is inherently flawed. Even, so-called helpful, Smart home technologies can be used by abusers to target and control victims.
Emergent platforms like TikTok also have their problems. TikTok software was prioritizing and “privileging” content from conventionally attractive Eurocentric users and burying content of users who didn’t conform to the image. Some users watched their content drop off or be copied by other users who didn’t credit their original work. Making a living as an “influencer” is a new concept but comes with real problems. White influencers can get incredibly rich from using content they’ve taken from others on the platform. Saska says TikTok has to move quickly to come up with ways to make outcomes more equitable to retain their base.
The bottom line for Saska is the belief that we all have a role in shaping technology and our future. Technology will be more powerful when everyone is empowered by it. Feminuity’s goal is to make better things and to make things better for everyone.