Promotes gender-fair language with its “A Bug Detected” project

Launching its “A Bug Detected” project within the company to minimize the use of masculine language in the technology industry,

Softtech has published a Gender Equality Guide as a first step. Believing in the motto “Equality begins in language”, the brand encourages using Gender-Neutral Dictionary in company correspondence.

According to Association for Monitoring Gender Equality’s (CEİD) monitoring report prepared within the scope of its efforts to identify inequalities in different fields to promote gender equality, Turkey ranks 35th among 36 OECD countries with an index value of 56.5 in the 2010-2020 period. The report also states that while women’s labor force participation rate was 30.6 percent in 2016, this rate decreased to 28.0 percent in 2021. While the rate of women not in the labor force was 67.5% in 2016, it also increased to 69.7% in 2021. Many industries develop awareness projects to eliminate these inequalities.  Among the companies leading the transformation in the technology industry, Softtech takes a significant step in this direction.

Believing that every individual is equal on the way to unleashing their potential and considering gender equality as a must for more efficient and sustainable work, Softtech has launched its “A Bug Detected” project within the company. This project, which will excel in the field of technology, aims to raise awareness about sexist words, one of the significant reasons for gender inequality.

 “Is another world possible?”

While giving information about the project prepared to reset the masculine language in technology and ensure gender-fair language, Softtech General Manager M. Bülent Özçengel stated “Gender inequality is among the undeniable facts of the society and the world we live in. As it has been systematically normalized for many years, we don’t realize how prominent its impact on us, no matter how we are all aware of this issue. As a company that leads change and development in the technology industry, where gender inequality is mostly prominent, we aim to set an example in this issue as well, believing that an another world is possible. Thus, we have taken the initiative and established a project team within the company to achieve our goal of creating a more mindful and sympathetic working culture against stereotypes from the past. In this respect, we have also received consultancy from beloved Ebru Nihan Celkan, Gender and Equality Specialist. Moreover, we have created an action plan to create a more inclusive and supportive working culture. As the first step of this action plan, we have prepared our Gender Equality Guide and shared it with our colleagues. We believe this guide includes the necessary insights to provide a working environment where everyone can have the courage to be themselves and exist in their truest selves and remind everyone that diversity, which bears great creativity, is a valuable asset.”

“Equality begins and ends in language”

Highlighting that updates are among the most effective ways to eliminate mistakes in codes, namely bugs, M. Bülent Özçengel also added: “If we want to neutralize any system gap that would be defined as gender inequality in our industry, we first have to update our language. Equality begins and ends in language. With this vision, we have prepared our Gender Neutral Dictionary with the voluntary support of our Innovation Team and started using it in our corporate e-mail correspondence to learn and internalize the gender-fair language, become aware of all the sexist words and phrases that we believe acceptable but impose irreversible wounds on someone else, and update our language. We are very happy to launch this project for our own working environment, believing it will contribute to a significant transformation in this regard.”

About Softtech:

With over 1700 employees in Turkey and Cyprus since 2006, Softtech is among Turkey’s pioneer technology companies. Thanks to its subsidiaries in (Maxitech) and Shanghai (Softtech China), Softtech offers customer-oriented solutions to its business partners by digitalizing them and closely following the global technology trends with its banking and financial experience. Besides providing solutions to its business partners, Softtech also includes innovation and in-house entrepreneurship in its primary strategy, offering creative, sustainable, and innovative solutions to its customers and exceeding their needs.