Women in Tech

[vetran]

Something I've observed in male primary teachers is that they are crap, because there's a "shortage" of men willing and able to do it and there is a perceived need for "male influences", so schools accept a lower standard and as a recruiter I am seeing the same thing happening in IT, managers have been bugged by HR to "interview more women", even though in the sector I work in they almost don't exist at all.

quite.


Though I suspect that many men in education pursue promotion harder than women due to their conditioning as the bread winner and competitive style. Also most of the promotion boards are male and in my limited experience unreformed sexist socialists.

so the factors IMHO are - no particular order

1. existing composition of organisation.
2. Nepotism / gender cronyism.
3. Candidate desire to do the job.
4. work style / pressures suiting child care etc.
5. aptitude/ability
6. positive (and frankly immoral) discrimination
7. history - few become a fortune 500 CIO without decades of relevant experience in a traditionally male dominated area.

[vetran]

my kids reception class teacher is male

and also gay

how does that fit the demographic then?

well it just adds another fly in the ointment, maybe we should have quotas for LGBT, Disabled and Taurean primary teachers?

[mudskipper]

I think the inequality in the promotion prospects can be at least partly explained by women taking time out to have kids, then often being the primary carer - working part time etc.

But that doesn't explain entry (or lack thereof) into certain careers. I think the obstacles facing boys are different - being a 'bit of a girl' is not generally perceived to be a flattering description of a boy, whereas it's fine to say your daughter is a tomboy. If your son wanted to become a secretary, the chances are you would dissuade him either gently or strongly. If your daughter wanted to enter IT, you'd probably encourage her.

[mudskipper]

Yes there is, women network less than men and it hurts their careers. I'm not saying every pint I sup somehow makes me richer but I have got work that way and sometimes it has come when I needed to find it.

I've also hired from people I know from the pub, it works both ways.

But presumably your ability to network at the pub is dependent on your wife being at home to look after the kids? Does her career require her to network too?

[doodab]

My perception is that women tend to be better represented in large organizations and on big projects where soft skills are more pertinent, but men tend to do better in hardcore technical roles. I know it's not because women can't do those roles, because I've worked with some very capable women, but it's an inescapable fact that a greater percentage of men seem to have those sorts of skills, or at least pursue those sorts of roles, than women.

My personal theory is that it's related to differences that manifest in the teenage years. Boys seem to be more likely than girls to be geeky loners who spend a lot of time in front of a computer, and I'd say it's the development of this habit and the technical ability that sometimes results from it that leads to a greater percentage of men gravitating towards IT as a profession. I wouldn't like to say how much of this is cultural and how much is due to thousands of years of evolution, but I'm fairly sure the image of IT professionals as socially awkward manchildren sat in a darkened room tapping away does nothing to attract women into it.

[NotAllThere]

Maybe, given the same level of intelligence, only 1% of one sex are able to be skilled at a particular subject, whereas it is 2% of the other sex.

In my area (SAP development), I've noticed that the majority of programmers are crap, regardless of sex.

[doodab]

In my area (SAP development), I've noticed that the majority of programmers are crap, regardless of sex.

Maybe good programmers avoid SAP?

[bobspud]

Lobbing the politically incorrect grenade into this debate...

Obviously coding is different to infrastructure but:

I cut my teeth malhandling 75kg 8U Sun servers into the top of racks all day as a junior grunt. any bird that wants to come up that route is more than welcome. Its hard to become a sysadmin without spending a fair amount of your formative life upside down and back to front under a floor tile swearing at a cable run. Would I recommend the job so my son. Yeah probably. Would I do the same for my daughter? No I'd tell her to go find herself a contractor for a husband and spend her life lunching and having her nails done while she income splits to save a shed load of cash on tax... There are more girls in the IT game than one can measure by there presence on site its just that most of them are far too clever to bother working the crap hours...

[NotAllThere]

Maybe good programmers avoid SAP?

There are few decent SAP developers, because in the SAP world, developers are not valued. It's all been out-sourced to a culture that's very hierarchical and since the developers are the lowest on the rung, anyone who's any good quickly moves out. If someone has been in the development team for long than two years, it's because they're really crap.

[Dallas]

I have observed a correlation between women who work in IT and women who drink pints.

Most of the IT laydees I know drink pints in the pub. Very few of the non IT ladies I know drink pints (I honestly can't think of any, but I'm sure I must know some).

So, to get women into IT, get them drinking pints.

(There is a serious point somewhere in this post I think)

+1

and ride bikes