Recently, it seems that women in tech is quite the topic. We have WomenBuild events at the MSDN Developer Conferences going on. Last week I participated in a conference call with some notable gals out there (like Jessica Moss, Jennifer Marsman, Sarah Dutkiewicz, Toi Wright, Carey Payette and others) discussing women in technology. Ted Neward and others have recently pondered about the role of women in IT and asks why there isn’t more of us women in IT?
Is It Too Hard For Us Poor Gals?
Ted starts off with this point in his post, getting the ridiculous out of the way first:
“Women, aside from a statistical minority, are structurally incapable of mastering IT. This is the "math is hard" argument, and I think we can all pretty much agree where this one belongs.”
As pointed out above, this is just a bogus argument as we know that there are many brilliant women in the IT industry and other hard to do thinking jobs. But it doesn’t stop some people from using that argument as blatant discrimination to prevent women from getting into the industry or getting a job at all. I’ve experienced this first hand when I was just a geekling and still in college, I had applied for Jr. level programmer position, which I knew I could easily do. During the interview I was told flat out that “women just aren’t smart enough for programming” and that “working and attending college at the same time is ridiculous, as women can barely do one, and surely not both” and that those were the reasons why I wouldn’t be hired. I was taken aback and left the interview in shock. It’s a good thing I was still pretty green - if someone would dare say that to me now, they’d be very sorry, very quickly. But how many young girls are exposed to this type of behavior, especially today? I can’t imagine it’s all that frequent, and I’m fairly sure and hope that my experience is an edge case.
What About Education?
Education is another hot topic when it comes to young girls, and boys too. What curriculum and topics are necessary so that kids can get the best education? What’s the best bang for the educational buck for both genders? Ted mentions this in point #2:
“Women are encouraged/forced down an educational path that leads them away from IT until much later in life. I've heard this from a couple of women my age, and while I think there may be some validity to it, at least back in the day, I don't know if there still is. I'd love to get some feedback from recent high school or college grads who can weigh in with some anecdotal evidence one way or the other.”
I think this probably does happen from time to time, but my own experience doesn’t reflect that. Parents are strong influences in the career paths of their kids, and my folks did nothing but encourage my über geekiness (which has paid for itself in the form of free tech support, but that’s for another blog post). A recent parody mirroring this sentiment is in this episode of The Simpsons (starts at 4:18), when the Simpson family went to a local mall and visited a store called Stuff-n-Hug, similar to the Build-A-Bear stores…
Employee (a female employee): What outfit do you want for your doll?
Lisa: Doctor!
Employee: Okay, nurse it is.
Lisa: Professor!
Employee: Kindergarten teacher.
Lisa: Chef!
Employee: Lunchlady.
Lisa: CEO!
Employee: Secretary to a CEO.
Lisa: You know, it's a boy dolphin.
Employee: Ohhh, here you go... doctor.
Lisa: (quietly to her dolphin-doll) Heh heh heh, we fooled her… Betsy.
The Simpsons show does mimic and mock everyday living in the USA, so this type of instance probably happens on occasion. Interactions like this couldn’t be the main reason for the lack of women in IT though, could they? I doubt it myself, and while there may be instances like the above, overall in this day and age teachers and parents seem a little more adept at evening out gender based roles and allowing girls to freely express themselves.
The Other Reasons Women Aren’t Hanging Around IT
I think a point that’s not brought up often enough is that many (most?) women most often are the primary family member who takes care of the house, children and often aging parents, making it difficult to obtain the same level of advancement that men do in any career. The problem is that someone has to take care of the kids, and even with the best father’s help the demands of family can be overwhelming. It is a choice to be made and when it comes down to the bottom line, men are still paid better for the same jobs. Using this research data provided by the US GAO (General Accountability Office)…
“Men with children appear to get an earnings boost, whereas women lose earnings. Men with children earn about 2% more on average than men without children, according to the GAO findings, whereas women with children earn about 2.5% less than women without children.”
That just makes it more practical for women to do the majority of the domestic work rather than earn less outside the home. Like it or not this is the reality for many people in many industries, not just IT. I know many women who have paused their careers to stay home with the kids while they were young and had a terribly difficult time getting back into the field later. That’s the nature of the IT industry in general, and software development in particular. Companies don’t always take the news very well when female employees announce they’ll be starting a family either. Toi Wright noted how her company reacted when they found out she was pregnant.
“They were so happy for the men whose wives were having babies, but they acted like I had betrayed them.”
I’ve been asked on more than one occasion, during interviews, project kickoffs or when changing positions, “What would happen if you were to become pregnant?”. The attitude behind the question is postured exactly as Toi describes her company’s reaction, as though you couldn’t have done a greater disservice to your team members, the company and the public at large than to have a baby. It seems that the corporate culture at many companies leans toward keeping those employees that will be the least affected by outside/family pressures. That’s too bad, since the end result is that they’re missing out on some great talent.
On a related note, during our conference call one of the women noticed that during a WIT luncheon at a conference the only female speakers were those without children. This reinforces my idea that it’s much more difficult for those women caring for children/others to advance in IT.
The Bottom Line
There’s no single thing that keeps women out of IT or any field (here in the USA), as it’s likely a case of ‘all the above’. There’s also many fields inside of IT where women do have some high numbers such as the sysadmin and DBA spaces.
Really, I wish I didn’t even need to write about this. I actually don’t like the fact that there are Women in Technology luncheons, meetings and the like. I’d much prefer that women were at equal numbers in this field, and I wish that this topic just wasn’t necessary.
Miscellaneous geekChick Ranting
I know I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but I did receive a pink Zune as a gift for working a conference this year. I don’t like pink, but that seems to be the de facto gift-color for girlies. <sigh/>
Why can I rarely find Tshirt at a conference that fits? Sometimes even as a speaker none are available in my size. I happen to be perfectly average in size for women too, so this isn’t some off beat request.
Could it just be a case that software development isn’t attractive to women overall? Could be. But I like it so I’m sticking around.
