Last year, when a reporter asked newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau why he supported a gender balanced Liberal cabinet, the PM paused and said matter-of-factly, “Because it’s 2015.”

Trudeau’s response — a glorified “duh” — has since taken on a life of its own, appearing in feminist memes and on official Liberal party apparel; last year the federal Liberals offered to mail a “limited edition” “Because It’s 2015” T-shirt to anyone who donated $100 or more to the party.

I think the popularity of the phrase (currently, “Because it’s 2016”) is tied up not only in its blunt delivery but in its message: who doesn’t want to believe, after all, that social progress is informed by the passage of time?

The phrase suggests that equality is inevitable and that gender disparity isn’t a constant or growing problem but a hangover from sexist decades past — a cloud that will eventually pass.

It’s a lovely idea. Unfortunately though, it’s false.

Canada may have a gender-balanced cabinet, but according to this year’s Future of Jobs Report published by the World Economic Forum, our global workforce isn’t moving forward into a gender-balanced future; it’s actually moving backwards.

The reason for this isn’t discrimination by men; it’s technology.

By 2020, disruptive technology such as artificial intelligence and robotics could lead, reads the report, to “a total loss of 7.1 million jobs — two thirds of which are concentrated in the office and administrative job family.”

“One particular set of jobs affected by this, for example, are customer service roles, which will become obsolete due to mobile internet technology.”

And guess who works, in greatest numbers, in administrative and customer service positions? You got it: women.

Meanwhile, jobs in the traditionally male, STEM fields (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) are growing rapidly.

This means one day we could presumably find ourselves in a world where the labour force is dominated not by men and women, but by men and machines.

If you’re OK with this scenario, of course, sit back and relax. However, if it concerns you as a feminist afraid of a dystopian future run by dudes and robots — you’re not alone.

It concerns Colleen McMorrow too, partner of Strategic Growth Markets at Ernst & Young.

McMorrow believes the most effective way — and in fact, likely the only way — to close this ever-widening gender gap is to encourage more women to enter the STEM fields.

If sales and administrative jobs are disappearing, women must try their hand at something new.

McMorrow was in Monaco this week, hosting her company’s World Entrepreneur of the Year Award — an event that opened with a Women in Leadership Summit.

“I get to meet a lot of entrepreneurs in the tech sector,” she told me over the phone, “and it always strikes me when I walk through their offices and I think ‘where are the women?’’

McMorrow is worried that women are being “left behind” in the STEM fields because of an absence of female role models in the industry. Few visible female role models she believes, results in limited interest in science and technology on the part of girls.

This theory isn’t exactly a bad one; research shows girls do take an interest in activities and industries they can see themselves in.

(On a personal note, I was once hired at a summer camp to teach aggressive inline skating to 8-13 year olds in part because I was the only woman who applied for the job and the camp director believed more girls would try the activity if the camp hired a female skater. He was right; they did, big time.)

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“There is an opportunity for men to help change the culture and encourage women to pursue STEM,” says McMorrow. In fact, in recent years, she has noticed that STEM guys who have young daughters are more likely to take an active interest in recruiting women into the field and mentoring them.

But the earlier girls get involved the better. “You need them to be pursuing those faculties as they’re moving through elementary and high school,” says McMorrow. “Technology is a powerful enabler and it is where the future of jobs are. Women have a role to shape that future.”

Because it’s almost 2020: dawn of the robot-dude invasion.

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