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Young Women Encouraged to Go For IT
An anonymous reader writes "Wednesday Microsoft Canada's vice president of developer and platform evangelism encouraged 9th grade girls to head for an IT career with a presentation that debunked key myths. Apparently IT isn't geeky or socially isolating. From the article: "Some issues (the girls) brought up included fears that their friends will think (working in IT) is a geeky thing to do, and that IT work is not very social...They were concerned that there were limitations for women in this area of technology, and they felt there is a stigma associated with IT in terms of it not being a very exciting place to work."
I can't believe these are even real concerns among women. Why does your profession have to seem cool to other people? You do stuff because you think there's a challenge there or if it's interesting. Who cares what your friends think? What the f is wrong with women in the US and Canada? If they think like this, I almost don't even want them in the IT industry. I want free thinkers.
I can count on hand the girls in all three computer science classes combined!
3 minutes to server death. I'm sure it was an interesting presentation anyway :)
"Nothing was broken, and it's been fixed." -- Jon Carroll
"For the next twenty years I'll sit in a big box called a cubicle. It's like a restroom stall but with lower walls. I spend most of my time hoping the electromagnetic fields from my office equipment aren't killing me."
The coolest voice ever.
I know several women in IT...
It isn't really a stigma once you get into it. Usually they are popular girls. I have to say I have known fewer "geeky" girls in IT than the popular type... It really all depends on the person.
If there is one thing I can say for certain, it is that the female IT stigma is definately non-existant. I'm sure the fear of it exists, but in practice it doesn't. I believe most of the fear of the stigma comes from females that don't know what they are doing and make their way up for other reasons. I know this happens in IT more than other places. And it usually isn't because of a lack of qualified girls, but a lack of hiring experienced girls.
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
Anyone who's studied even a bit of psychology and perhaps some communications will realize male's and female's naturally excel in certain area's and are also drawn to those things. There's a REASON why you don't see many girl geeks... why try to force this on them by basically lying about it?
While it may just be "stigmata" about the socially isolating aspects, it surely isn't about the "boring" aspects. I promise you my girlfriend just wouldn't ever enjoy spending 6 hours recompiling and securing a *nix system. Where as I find it to be quite relaxing and a fun challenge at times.
Bad jokes aside, we need to encourage these girls to get into Linux, rather than Microsoft, thus saving them from Bill's evil influence as early as possible.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
With so many PEOPLE unemployed in IT, is it really responsible to encouarge people to take up this profession?
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
WTH are they smoking?
Now, as an alpha geek (Slashdot on Saturday? guilty) I'd be the first to say that geeky isn't something to avoid or be ashamed of. But trying to claim that something very obviously geeky isn't, won't help get more women into IT.
Some issues (the girls) brought up included fears that their friends will think (working in IT) is a geeky thing to do
If someone is going to be influenced by what their friends think, perhaps we should let them be influenced. Many consider going into IT to be geeky. If you're immature enough to let your friends stop you from going into a particular market, then maybe your not really ready for any serious market and should work in a market that requires next to no maturity (I hear McDonalds is looking for people to hire).
Evey single issue there applies to guys as weel.
With the exception of limited advancement, which as far as I know is a problem for women in pretty much every field. Probably because women in successful families are likly to take a hiatus from work to raise young children, and therefore from an employers perspective are inherently higher risk.
At least when I was in school (nopt too long ago) IT was geeky, and in IT related classes I was with a bunch of "geeks".
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Are stereotypes really that bad that it's scaring some people away from some professions? (I'm not sure if I worded that correctly.)
s px?id=idgml-e40631b2-274b-45d5-8254-cf2348b75056&f ormat=Print might work better for going to the page.
http://www.itworldcanada.com/Mobile/ViewArticle.a
So what happens when these girls graduate, work in IT for a year or two, and then realize that it IS geeky and not social... Kerplow!
Scale the H1-B program back to pre-Clinton levels.
... actions which tell rational college students to seek other fields.
Women respond to market supply and demand just like men do. If the wages are high enough, women will go into the field.
The guest worker program expansions have depressed wages artificially and given employers incentives to not hire Americans and to outsource
Want more women in IT? Get rid of the guest worker program.
that IT work is not very social I meet all kinds of people while I'm on IRC at work!
I wish it wasn't...
The fact is that it tends to get exciting a bit more often that I wish and I suspect the "exciting" as in pull your hair out... the CIO is screaming at you... get it fixed yesterday... isn't the kind of exciting that a 9yr is thinking of.
Here's wishing for a nice boring week this week!
I
The only complaint I have about my line of work is that it is 99% male. Of course we are rarely the kind of people girls dig, but the few girls in the company pretty much have their pick of any guy they want from where I sit. Can someone point me to a decent paying profession that is 99% female (and no gay dudes)? I would change careers in a second :)
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
There are already many sissy women in IT, they are called Mac users.
What are you doing on slashdot?!
What I don't understand is why schools encourage people to pursue IT as a career.
1) Being in IT is not as profitable as being in management (from what I've seen).
2) Encouraging people into math and science and IT invalidates perfectly valid career paths.
3) Colleges (in my experience) have droves of people who sign up for computer science their Freshman year, and then change out to another major because they find out what the major is really like.
Why do you need to encourage anybody into a particular field in high school? Shouldn't they decide for themselves what they want to do? If you're going to encourage them into a field, why not one that's more profitable. Tell them to become architects or businesspeople. Business is where the $$ is.
And as a guy student at Georgia Tech, I definately hope that more women start studying the sciences..
We'd all like to believe that those 'myths' *are* in fact myths, and that the stigma associated with IT careers is unwarranted.
But I think there probably is more than a kernel of truth to them. IT careers, at least the ones I've had, aren't in fact very social. Aside from the not-so-infrequent game of foosball, there was not a heck of a lot of interaction going on. Let's face it, IT-centric jobs are not exactly hubs of social activity, so why pretend otherwise?
Certainly there will be much anectodal evidence to illustrate the converse, but on the whole I think it is difficult to discredit the assertion that IT workplaces aren't as socially-friendly as many other fields. If what women are looking for is human interaction, we should not mislead them down the path to computer-centric work.
It behooves us to be honest about what we do.
Not as irresponsible as emcouraging people to go into the hospitality, retail, or fast food industry.
Is this entire website not evidence enough that IT is in fact, a geeky and socially inactive job?
Besides, how much could 9th graders really contribute to IT anyway, maybe Sponge-Bob drawings?
the main problem is not math or social or anything else.
the main problem is the behavior of the men in the industry.
'rape' jokes, misoginy, prejudice, stupidity, sexual harassment, etc etc etc. more prevalent in 'geek' sites like slashdot than in most others.
/dev/random
Why not just encourage folks who are good at math (and/or science) to broaden and deepen their capabilities in these core academic subjects?
My father became an engineer because a teacher at St. Dunstan's (in Milbrae, CA), his parochial grammar school, encouraged him to do so b/c the guy -- my dad -- was always good at math and science. It wasn't til much later that he actually settled on the particular subcategory of engineering (post tours as a Seabee in Nam) and began working on his career.
I think the same model should still hold. We should encourage those who show aptitude to get into this field. And instead of encouraging them to "join IT," we should be encouraging them to take as much math as they can handle and worry about specific job/career paths later on, when it's more appropriate.
So my two gripes are: (1) don't just encourage girls for the sake of encouraging girls, encourage those who are actually likely to excel and improve the field and (2) don't start pushing specific career paths to 14/15 year olds. Instead get them working on the academics that underpin many careers in technology in general. To encourage someone to become a help desk employee is a bit premature at age 14 imo.
Oh yeah, I'm a girl (a woman, actually).
Sorry but if you feel "friends will think (working in IT) is a geeky thing to do, and that IT work is not very social..." you are a retard and obviously lact intelligence. Go work in fasion instead.
I hate to say it, but I'm rather against trying to make IT sound better just to encorage girls to get in the field. As a woman in the field, I've seen plenty others of my sex give it a shot for the supposed money (So they weren't very bright. :)) or the novelty of being surrounded by men. In my experience both in school and work, many women don't like IT. You shouldn't pursue it as a carreer unless you truly have a love of the profession. Of course, this goes for either sex.
All sorts of bullshit like you mentioned is prevalent in almost any anonymous setting.
...). You get the point.
If this is actually going on in your (engineering/CS) work environment, then you've got a problem and I'd suggest you don't waste yourself toiling amongst such people.
Otherwise it's just jackoffs being jackoffs. Not relegated to the field of CS, unfortunately (just ask folks in Sales, or the Financial Industry or
IT isn't intrinsically anti-social, but the people you'll have to help with tech support might make you wish it were.
So lie to them and tell them otherwise?
I'm not sure wether I'm trying to be funny or not... Just they told me the same things couple of years ago (even tho Im a boy) and I still think that was bulls***
We've always been at war with Eurasia.
you too can be a BOFH!
I'm currently teaching computers and programming to middle school students.
Fortunately, the students are quite motivated and the girls perform as well as the boys (and in some cases better).
It's sad to see that as they move into high school, the pressure to conform and be cool forces girls (and boys for that matter) into certain well-defined areas.
It try to encourage all my students to excel in computer skills, but I'm only one voice in a cacophanty of voices (TV, movies, etc.).
What's the solution? Any ides? Anyone?
An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. - Victor Hugo
Stay out of the kitchen.
There are no women in the NFL? Why? Because it's a rough business. If you can't handle it, don't complain. It's the nature of the work: intensely logical and mathematical. Hard concentration for long hours. Maniac bosses. Fierce competition for jobs and more business. Singling out techies is unfair and the crimes you accuse IT folks of is a pervasive social problem not limited to the cubicule.
IT is an incredibly boring profession.
If they want to do something interesting and worthwhile, they should become scientists.
Once your High Elf builds up enough EXP points and you've found the right Star Trek .sig for your posts, all these fears will melt away.
Oh, no.. it's not umm.. nerdy... *points below, to post on the "killogram..."*
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
Microsoft needs all the help they can get.
That was funny. Quit supressing humor with mod points.
Wednesday Microsoft Canada's vice president of developer and platform evangelism encouraged 9th grade girls to head for an IT career
In a related story, Microsoft was seeking ways to reduce its IT costs by about 25%.
I know that there are some areas of IT, which are 95% male dominated (and some of those have English as the primary language as a minority within the office dept).
On the flip side, I recently visited an ERP project team implimenting Peoplesoft (or Oracle/Soft, however you prefer) 8.9 for their university, and of the 24 people employed, only 2 were male.
IT is both broad and deep in its job functions and levels of involvement, so is the diversity of those working in it (both based on culture and sex).
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
OMGHI2U!!!!11
Should read "Young Women Encouraged to Go For IT by IT department".
I am in a programming class, and in this 30+ student class, there is exactly one girl.
I don't know if it's social conditioning or genetics that makes girls uninterested in IT. Whatever it is, I don't think we'll ever see an equal ratio of men and women.
As for the geeky thing, I think it only applies to men. Let's not kid ourselves -- despite the internet's ubiquity, the IT profession is still very geeky, but it doesn't seem to affect women's social standing in the same way. Women will always have a bunch of horny men chasing after them. Guys don't have that luxury.
It's rather imperative that young women get an early jump into the world of technology. The earlier, the better. IT is a very tough world, and it's extremely competitive, particularly in the realm of programming. I believe (note: personally - not backed by science) that girls develop faster intellectually during jr. high and early high school. The earlier the better I say to get the jump.
I can only attribute my own success in the IT industry from being exposed to computers and getting involved with them as they began to take root in the very early 80s. My dad got me a Vic20 when I was 8, and I was writing programs soon thereafter. I went through the whole gambit of OS's and languages and whatever software I could get my hands on. Because I grew up real poor, I was lucky to use what was provided by the schools, so it gave me a wide range of exposure.
By the time I got to college, I had developed chronic pain, and couldn't do work study in the cafeteria (why is that always the first job??) - so I picked up a job because I knew MSDOS and WP5.0. I was a consultant for a lab at college! And they put me through 2 weeks of school at HP!! *woooo* Not long after that, I changed my major and I was on my way to where I am today. Then I transferred schools to a better program.
Coming up through the ranks in the relatively new field of Information Technology has been fraught with a lot of challenges. Not only is it you against everyone else who is better trained, smarter, or more motivated.. but there truly is a battle of the sexes in IT. Particularly on the network systems operations side of the house. Come on... you know it and see it every day. Sometimes it's caused major issues, but it all has depended on the environment and the level of professionality within it. It's *tough* when you are faced with working 75 - 90 hours a week, and then have to go home and raise a family and care for a home. But we do it, we do it gratefully, because it's afforded us girls a chance to stand on equal footing for once. At least I did.
All of that being said, I fully believe that there should be strong internship and mentoring programs for all young people getting involved with IT, especially those coming in from the bootcamp schools like Microskills, or whatever. While they may have the knowledge and motivation - there is an awful lot more to the IT culture than knowing how to install Windows 2003 or Linux. I sure know that I could have and still do need a good mentor to help me through tough situations that arise in the day to day operations of IT. Some things, I couldn't get through on my own, and left me high and dry, not because of any other reason that my own dumb ass.
Finally, I have to say that 14 years in the industry, I've gone from a flunky consultant bossing around lunkheads in business school to a sr. systems engineer doing huge infrastructure implementations and upgrades, project management, and policy design & implementation. And every 72 hour stretch, all nighter, business trip, massive outage, tear, sweat, blood and torn muscle has been worth it to be where I am today. And I couldn't have done it without the love and dreams that I started building as a child.
Sorry man... the Internet pooped on me.
Should you be able to study and work in any area that interest you? .com cares is no solution. If they want to help with education - fund schools and let young people work it out as they grow up. Working in an isolated cubical "helping" end users with worms, bugs, product activation and drm is not exciting
Shaping education is not good. Telling young people to work for 'you' and adding some cash to show how much your
It brings a tear of joy to my eye that Slashdot finally celebrates the accomplishments of America's niggers.
...you should focus on being a careful thinker.
That would include, for example, not drawing inferences about "women in the US and Canada" based upon the reported meanderings of 14 year olds.
..men were encouraged to enter the rather cushy field of teaching Kindergarten classes. "Don't feel as this is a feminine thing to do, that your friends will laugh at you for doing something so.. err.. gay" the head of the board of education was quoted as saying.
Why is this even an issue? Maybe the reason why there is a lack of females in IT is because
a)they dont want to do it or
b)they arent as suited to it
Why must they be cojoled and sweet-talked into doing something they wouldn't otherwise do? You dont see men being encouraged to teach Kindergarten classes, for exactly the same reasons above: they dont want to or they arent as suited to it.
-Copyright law #69:Whenever Mickey Mouse is about to enter the public domain,copyrights get extended by 25 years.
Some guy from Microsoft was telling girls in grade nine that he'd really like them in the cubicle next to him?
Aren't there laws against this?
and it isn't geeky either.
I guess 9th graders are in a position to determine the rest of their lives, but I doubt their view of IT is that intellectually founded. He would have done better to stress money, umm money, and the possibility of marrying a fabulously wealthy money man in the IT world. Nix the last one.
If he was to go for social aspects he'd do well to point out upstart competitors to microsoft with a more collegiate environment or perhaps the opensource community.
Citizens should see themselves as business owners, with the govt as hired manager. The wrokplace field ones enters is probably not as important as making sure your Hired Man (the govt) is not in collusion with large and powerful entities( i.e., billionaires and corporations) to decrease your return on investment as a citizen by putting ever more of the profits of business (and the work of the citizens) into investor hands instead of worker hands.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Cheerleader!
So-and-So!
What's-Her-Face!
The Ugly One!
Which one works in IT?
It's over!
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
Most jobs working for someone else are at the very least 75% boredom, politicking, drudgery, etc. Unless you happen to be very attractive, intelligent, charismatic, or born of privilege this will be true whether you work on an assembly line, at a fry vat, or in a cubicle.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
With so many PEOPLE unemployed in IT, is it really responsible to encouarge people to take up this profession?
The more unemployed people there are in IT, the lower the wages. The lower the wages are, the more money that companies will have to spend on computers and licenses for Microsoft products. You didn't expect a large corporation to be interested in anything but their own profits, did you?
Letting Microsoft address young children on the "benefits" of going into a field where there is rampant unemployment is like letting RJ Reynolds tell them how cool smoking is. Sure, the latter is worse, but neither corporation is going to be acting in the interests of the students.
View article here
OH? What part of Microsoft are YOU in that's not exciting? I work on the main campus and it's much, much more exciting than I ever expected it could be (and definitely more exciting than any place I've worked in years).
For example, within 6 months of employment, my released project was a subject of discussion on Slashdot. (Really, it's 2005, and Microsoft technology is not all about NEAR and FAR pointers, MFC and "NIH" attitude any more.)
The IT folks have all sorts of state of the art hardware to play with, and the stakes of "getting it right" are very high, because if Microsoft doesn't, people aren't inclined to give the company much of a break.
Who are we to debate this? Outside of immediate family, who on this forum has even spoken to a woman?
There you go again! Playing the race card!
You're adopting the attitude that anyone opposed to unfair immigration is a racist.
Not true. America has historically admitted large number of immigrants (who could vote and join unions) but then shut the borders. We've just had the biggest wave of them all, and a general consensus is emerging that maybe we should slow down a little. Sorry to dissapoint you, but it's not "xenophobia", it's sound policy.
And, yes it does encourage outsourcing. These are not immigrants (in fact the H1-B legislation contains the title "non-immigrant), the are guest workers. Many, after getting trained, go back home to compete with American labor.
I guess it depends on the company but most companies these days are too conservative to make any bold moves. A few weeks ago it took me 6 hours to get approval to push something to production that only took 30 seconds to implement and would not have any impact to users. SOX (Sarbane-Oxley) has really put moral in the tanker for anyone that works with financial systems. The red tape in IT these days is simply incredible.
I'm sure there are some companies out there doing cutting edge research/development or supporting these environments. But quite frankly 99% of them don't.
Also, most of the people I know in IT would have chosen a different career if they had the time back. I loved computers as a hobby but sitting in a cubicle all day, putting up with people that shouldn't be in IT and the red tape is the opposite of exciting.
"Thanks to the remote control I have the attention span of a gerbil."
Or does the article title sound a little suggestive? "Young Women Encouraged to GO FOR IT" Hmmmm...
is women distracting us!
... to find out what you do not want to do.
3)Not everyone realizes exactly what they want to do out of high school, and some kids don't have enough drive to explore things on their own. Someone says "CS is good." so they try it and it doesn't work out for them. Great. They learned a little bit about CS, and a lot about themselves. They try psychology - some stay, some dont. Repeat for numerous departments. Some people do this for 6 years at public universities.
Some other commments on your points:
1) Managers get paid a lot to worry about all sorts of boring shit - like accounting and market research. IT guys only worry about the technical stuff - which is usually more fun.
2) This statement is non-sensical. What do you mean, exactly? I agree with you if you mean that IT is not a good career path for people who studied real math and real physical science to end up, it's usually a step down. I see IT as a path for people who get Bachelors in Management of Information Systems from a business school, or C students in Bachelors CS/EE programs.
Pardon my arrogance, but you touched a nerve.
Fresh meat! :)
*growling*
"Some issues (the girls) brought up included fears that ... IT work is not very social ... it not being a very exciting place to work."
I think than introducing 9th grade girls into your typical IT department might tend to change those perceptions. Maybe we should launch a pilot program?It's one of the first intelligent replies I've seen on this topic.
Silly rabbit
Whatever it is, I don't think we'll ever see an equal ratio of men and women
And the lawyers before them.
Only for CEOs does this actually still hold.
I dont think the job is socially isolating at all. In fact programmers are much more isolated, at least in my view. Its the IT people (of course depending on exactly what you do) that get to wander around the office, talking to people, fixing things, etc. Someone ALWAYS wants to talk to the IT people, because someone ALWAYS has a problem.
snowulf.com
Boys are being encouraged to go into non-traditional fields such as:
-Ballet Dancer
-Nurse
-Kindergarden Teacher
-Hooters Waitress
Most girls in high school consider working at the Gap to be the holy grail of employment.
Mind you, most guys in high school consider working at McDonalds to be the holy grail of employment.
In short, high school is a fucked up place that has no bearing on reality. And the people in that society aren't very good at making life-changing decisions.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Wednesday Microsoft Canada's vice president of developer and platform evangelism encouraged 9th grade girls to head for an IT career with a presentation that debunked key myths.
This from the company that didn't have any female executives, until they discovered that the diversity of their workforce was going to come under scrutiny when they bid for some juicy government contracts. And the ones they got back then didn't last.
Interesting timing - eSchool News has a article on Cisco's efforts to get more girls interested in IT and their Tech Academy. Most interesting statement in their article was is that research shows girls are more interested in to learning about technology in the context of "broader social issues." - especially using tech to solve social problems.
T.J. Schmitz - the man, the myth, the legend - o
We need to stop trying to make it something it isn't in order to appeal to women. We don't try to make daycare, social working, teaching and other female-dominated areas more enticing for men precisely because the jobs fit women better than men as a general rule. These can be great, highly respectable jobs that do a lot of good. They may not be as glamorous as IT is in some circles, but they are necesssary and hard.
From what I have seen watching freshmen girls in CS now that I am a senior is that a lot of them really aren't interested in computers. Most of them really aren't at all. At my university we have a female CS professor who is very incompetent and tries to recruit girls because they are girls. Then she turns around and gets on their cases in her classes when they screw up, in part because they're "making girls in CS look bad." This isn't healthy and at its core, this is what specifically seeking out girls for CS does. It makes them a statistic and ignores what they might actually be good at and enjoy.
Women should be encouraged to try things for the sake of the liberal arts experience, not because "we need more women in IT." Frankly we don't need a hell of a lot more IT workers. We are already training lots of people who suck, are apathetic toward it and/or would be happier elsewhere. That last part is the most critical part. These feminazi recruiters don't care what might make that girl happy, they want to see their quota of estrogen for IT filled, even if the girl ends up in a field she hates with a degree that is worthless for what she ends up wanting to do.
This is the natural result of the "group rights" bullshit popular on the left. You see the forest, but you don't see the trees. You are so damned concerned with gender politics to realize that, regardless of what the Vagina Monologues say, a woman is not defined by her vagina anymore than a man is by his penis. A woman's destiny, is not in her gender, but in herself and God's plan for her. Oh wait, did I just say God's plan for her? Another strike for political incorrectness.
I think anyone with some interest should be encouraged to take an entry level CS/CIS/IT class to see what's involved. Just stop pushing girls to do more than that. Let them make their own decisions and stop telling them that their choice isn't good enough. If she wants to be an IT worker, that's her choice. If she wants to be an artist, that's her choice. If she wants to work on cars for a living, that's her choice. If she wants to be a housewife, that's her choice. It is no one's right to tell her that because she was born female that any of those choices are invalid for her. Her career choice, as long as it is legal, is her choice. If she wants to get married and stay at home to raise her kids, that's her right and choice.
So repeat after me: let the girls make the choice and then respect it. The fucking elitists, most of whom are feminists, have no right to criticize a woman for pursuing the occupational path that makes her happy. Social justice is about people being free to live as individuals and to pursue happiness, not about stuffing individuals into a faceless quota. The irony is that feminism has accomplished nothing for women. Coercing them into professions is no different than coercing them into being "barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen." It is not liberation to chastise her until she feels unhappy and without self-realization outside a 9-5. It is nothing more than a different manifestation of the same alleged patriarchical drive that "forced women to stay home" the only difference being is that the feminists tend to want to force them into the work place. If the goal of feminism is freedom for women it should place a huge sample plate of life options before them and let them choose and then be proud that they are happy regardless of which one they choose.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Funny headline. Nice... real cute ;)
Being a male in IT, I wholeheartedly encourage young women to enter my field. Especially if you're about 38"-24"-34".
today is spelling optional day.
Perhaps I've just had the benefit of being sheltered and never seeing some dark underbelly, but it's always seemed to me that IT was one of the most equal opportunity fields. I've always noticed that there was a lot of diversity among people who worked in IT, of all the people I know, there seems to be an equal divide of men and women, younger and older people, etc.
Ofcourse, I've always thought that events that "encourage group X to Y" really does more harm than good, because it just re-enforces that "group X" is different.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
You point out that IT people would ideally be more people-friendly than the Average Joe. Interestingly enough, one data recovery service actually employs a psychologist with no computer training to help calm distraught callers. She helps provide some of the people-soothing skills necessary to get the hysterical callers to calm down enough so they can describe their problem to tech support. Wouldn't it be even better if the tech support could provide that human touch? Why employ two seperate people? We can argue all day about whether women really, truly empathize more than men as the common belief goes. But there is definitely a need for IT people of either sex to be more understanding and friendly than they are. I know I've talked with some people on the phone who are borderline rude. Please, no replies here about how it's a thankless job (I'm getting to that below) and I should be understanding of how they treat me.
People in IT get treated pretty badly sometimes. Think about it: they work long and hard for little to no thanks. No one walks up to their sysadmin and says "Hey, thanks for all you do. My system worked perfectly today!" No, the only time co-workers take notice of them is when things are going badly. In many ways, IT and sysadmin-ing in general is a thankless job. Now, I have no idea whether women are more able to put up with this kind of situation or not. But I can see where it would take a very unique kind of person to feel happy in such a job. And I see no reason why only men would have the necessary outlook on life, their career, and their role within a company.
By the way, I happen to know a female sysadmin who works out at the local gym. This is no typical-looking geek girl. She is really damn sexy. We're talking blond, super-fit, and breast implants. I mean everyone in the gym watches her with envious eyes (she's married). And when I was in grad school, the syadmin in our department was this asian cutie who was so pretty she made your teeth hurt! So the idea that only unpopular girls who don't care about their appearance go into IT is definitely not true.
GMD
watch this
The Muslims figured out shit along time ago and put veils on em and made them sit in the backseat...its the right thing to do for their own good. Jokes!
I am confused. VERY VERY confused. Is this article the script for a porno film? A woman in the IT section, that's usually how the scenes begin, right? But there's no sex afterwards.
Choose a field that interests you and startup your own company :)
Thats one of the plans floating around my head for when I graduate
I can't be the only one that read that as "Young Women Encouraged to 'Go For It'" and clicked that RSS link wondering what the hell story slashdot was covering...
--
Ive got to say I agree.
Far too much people are pushed towards the IT industry. Thats one thing that didnt go away with the dot com.
When will people learn that the IT industry does not collect all the people youd rather sweep under the rug or cant find an industry they want to work in?
so true, so true.
"Some issues (the girls) brought up included fears that their friends will think (working in IT) is a geeky thing to do, and that IT work is not very social...They were concerned that there were limitations for women in this area of technology, and they felt there is a stigma associated with IT in terms of it not being a very exciting place to work."
Not surprised to find out it was Microsoft behind these lies.
Vote for Pedro
My own experience is that a woman of an equivalent level, skills and qualifications as a man in IT will be almost always better and more productive at that particular job. I think, mainly for the reason that they had to overcome a lot more to get there and be generally better to get the same promotional opportunity.
One reason, give to me by a female colleague, why women may not apply or accept a particular IT position, is that it can be intimidating to be the only woman working in an all male department. Imagine, one girl among 10 guys - 10 computer guys - with all the noted social skills, science fiction interests, bodily hygiene and mature attitude we computer guys are noted for. Now what woman wouldn't want to work in that environment?
telling high school freshmen girls about working for Google seems like it would show off how fun IT can be...not Microsoft.
Robert X. Cringely did a documetary on the PC industry that aired on PBS a few years back called "Revenge of the Nerds." There's a very minor part of that documetary that has always stuck with me. Right at the beginning several people are quoted including a ten year old boy who loves to dabble in electronics and technology. When he's asked what his friends say about this, he says "Boy, he's a nerd. Yeah, but I don't mind, I'm used to being called a nerd, can't have other people stop your dreams."
I found that very touching, and I wonder if that attitude has something to do with the reason why there aren't more women in technological fields and especially in IT (not to put too fine a point on it, how many ten year old girls can you find that would say something similar).
The concern about the lack of women in IT and related fields is mostly linked to the salaries involved (not too many projects devoted to encouraging girls to become truck drivers). And when a high paying field like IT has such a small percentage of women, the goal is to remove any barriers that may specifally target women.
Up until now the emphasis was to remove biases in education (biases like calling on boys more often than girls in math classes, yadayadayada) But I always thought that the social factors outside of the classroom were very important and I'm glad to see that this is being recongnized, although I think the approach to address the problem is wrong.
Teaching nine-year-olds that there is no stigma is pointless. Their peers will be glad to inform them that there is a stigma. The question is, why are there more boys at that age that are willing to resist the stigma and be, to a certain extent, loners than there are girls?
The most frustrating thing is that the choices nine-year-olds make about what interests they pursue will acutally influence what career path they start to persue when they are twice that age; but the social pressures that they hold all-important at the age of nine will become practically irrelevant when they are adults (or I should say that they may still find social pressure to be motivating as adults but it will be based on a totally different set of criteria).
My oldest stepdaughter was about 14 when I married her mother. At that age she thought anybody who had anything to do with a computer was impossibly geeky, and she certainly wouldn't touch one herself. Now she is 22 and a journalist and you couldn't pry her iBook out of her hands.
I have three other daughters, the youngest one is six. I hope they can have a choice of careers from the widest selection that is open to them, but there is this problem, I think, that we socialize girls to be more dependent on the opinion of their peers while boys apparently can sometimes be more independent. Rather than trying to convince girls that IT is social, non-stigmatized, etc., I feel we should be trying to get them to be more resistant to socal pressure. It isn't easy -- I didn't teach them that their friend's opinion is so important, but they pick it up anyway.
Schools can be helpful in changing this, but of course the real problem has to be recognized before solutions can be sought.
when will people stop applying meaningless statistics to things and realise that people have a will of thier own, and if they dont want to do something they wont. What is the benfit of having a 50% (or truly proportional) split of male to female workers in every industry. What is the benefit of splitting every industry perfectly as a ratio of race or hair colour or some other feature. People do what they want, and these statistics arent worth the money people/the government pays for them - i know i wouldnt employ the people making them!
I could definitely use some more eye candy, some juicy knockers, a nice ass, anything's got to be better than staring at the clods I'm surrounded by.
...considering I met my fiancee in an IT college program. I say more girls should get into IT, and more IT guys will thank them for entering the dating pool.
One of the 187.
that was the first thing I thought of
Why?
I won't let my daughter go into IT if I have any say. If you don't go into IT management, your options shrink when you get into your mid 40's and after. Plus, global competition is eating away at both salaries and opportunitees. Business and sales have more long-term opportunities and safer from cheap offshore labor. If she has the knack, that is where I will encourage her to go. IT is fine if you really dig it for technology's satisfaction alone; otherwise it is a dead-end wallet-drainer going the way of manufacturing.
Table-ized A.I.
My science teacher who is also a computer science teacher participated in th is meeting hosted by Cisco, she brought back one of the videos showed in the meeting and played it for us. I think the name of the video is "I am an Engineer" or something like that, and it's supposed to encourage more girls into technology and computer industries. Right now, there far more males than females in the technology field. Out of my 30 student computer science class, only 2 students are female. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the F/M ratio of slashdot users is almost *:99.99 either. We should really get girls to like technology more. The causes of this male dominance include social expectations/standards, environment which they grow up....etc.
Seince when has microsoft owned canada?
Your skill in reading has increased by one point!
I'll go ahead and respond again, just in case my argument got lost in there.
The point isn't that IT isn't hot. It is. The point is that high schools seem to push everyone towards it.
The result of this is that you get a lot of people going down a career path that they don't actually want to be on. You take some 9th grader, and tell them that the career that they are interested in is "nice," but today, we're going to explore the great future you could have in IT. Soon, everyone thinks that IT is the career for them, or, at least, that's the one that the smart kids get into, or that's what they're supposed to do, or that's where the money is.
I talk to all kinds of people who think that IT/Programming/Computer Science is a great, high paying career. That's why CS people should go into the field. The fact is, that the guy who went into business school, for the "to make money" reason, did better than the guy who went into Computer Science "to make money."
As for smarts, sure, you can be very smart and go into IT... or Political Science... or Business... or Architecture... or Music. Life as a musician may be hard... but we're not outsourcing all of our music to foreign countries. If that's what the kid wants to do, why are you telling them that they should go into Math/Science/IT.
For that matter, why are you telling women specifically to go into the field? I agree that there are fewer women in CS (and I wish that the ratio was better... it's hard finding a date in the department), but telling a bunch of high school women "you should go into IT to even out the ratio" is akin to saying "all of the jobs that you'd rather pursue are girly jobs, you need to go into IT to keep up with the boys."
You should just provide the best environment possible for kids to become the best whatever they want to be that they can be. You should get rid of sexism by not practicing sexism. You should get rid of racism by not practicing racism. You should let kids pursue a career path that they enjoy so they don't become 20-something slackers that don't have anything to do with their lives, because they foreclosed on the opportunities that they wanted to pursue, because you told them that all of the money was in computers.
If read quickly, this title sounds alot like an encouragement to children actively participating in molestation!
Your skill in reading has increased by one point!
Seriously, why would anyone want to encourage men OR women to enter a career path that is currently in decline? Between the budget cuts, increasing security problems, and constant outsourcing of jobs overseas, IT is becoming a MISERABLE profession to be in.
Hey, I'm all for women entering high skilled jobs, but I'd recommend going into law or management instead. That's where the money and future career growth is.
OMG, you're an abject failure, like an utter loser, if you're not doing at least two of those things!
To further follow up on this... I went into Computer Science. I couldn't be happier with the field. I want to get my PhD, in fact. I'm in graduate school now, and I love it.
I, however, wanted to be in computer science when I was a kid. I spent much of high school learning about programming, robotics, and AI. I went to Jefferson Lab for their series of lectures aimed at high school students and loved every second of it.
So, this brings about the question. If a kid is going to Model UN, are you going to sit there and discourage them from studying the humanities because you want them in IT, or are you going to leave them alone and let them grow up to be an ambassador?
Us being the unemployed professional programmers. You must be that mythical hiring manager we hear about every so often. So you guys are all in Canada, eh? That explains it.
Encouraging technology skills development will help the province compete over the next several years as the world moves toward a global, knowledge-based economy, Doerksen said. "The skill requirements will continue to grow, and we just need more people in (technology) fields with skills and talents to make us more globally competitive."
I notice a weird hyprocracy. Countries overall seem to want more techies for national security and "global competative" reasons. Yet, they don't take care of the techies they have. They happily let them compete with Phd's making $3-an-hour in Cheapbuckistan, and then complain when not enough people go into tech.
Use the carrot, NOT the stick if you really want more techies. Draining the paychecks and opportunities via "free trade" is not going to encourage potential techies. One hand tries to create what the other hand is destroying. Typical of governments.
Table-ized A.I.
The parent post is right on. Big companies have only one interest and that is profits. Microsoft wants to drive down pay for IT because they want a bigger slice of the pie from the IT budgets of their customers. The school administrators who let Microsoft do this one sided presentation should be fired.
Fully agree with you. I'm a self-taught programmer with no education whatsoever. I spent the first 20 years of my career coding, and the last five years I've spent advancing up the corporate ladder. I'm now the Technical Director for a Fortune 100 company. I'm not saying that that having a degree is bad, but what keeps you in moving in the business is a love for what you do.
in behavior, conduct,verbal etc! I guess that will lead to less flames to microsoft as well....... heh! M$ has technology but no lockdowns...
and they felt there is a stigma associated with IT in terms of it not being a very exciting place to work."
I work in the birthplace of Dilbert (hence the AC). I only wish it were "not excitng".
Working here is tedious and frustrating, sometimes tedious and uninteresting but, only on a good day is it only tedious. I'm thrilled when I have a "not very interesting" day.
"1) Being in IT is not as profitable as being in management (from what I've seen)."
Traditionally management was a career step for someone who spent years practicing his craft and has proven ability in his field.
When someone picks what type of work they want to practice, management should not be a choice.
Nothing is more detremental to employee morale than having a clueless boss who got his job by waving around some management diploma he got at a university.
A manager should be respected for his ability to manage issues in his area of responsibility and a fundamental understanding of those issues, not because he has some title.
Unfortunatley during the bubble many incompetent or mediocre people got into management positions.
Nerds worldwide are both turned on, and frightened by the thought of more female co-workers...
People keep on saying management, business, law et al. as careers for people. This is a bad move. In the coming revolution, 'people' (I use this term loosly for management/lawyer types) will be exterminated like the vermin they are.
Or atleast, thats what I keep hoping.
I think it's alright, as long as they take the right path. But maybe they're afraid of this.
Need Mercedes parts ?
I wish I had mod points :(
...it's hard finding a date in the department...
This is really one elaborate plan devised by older geeks to help the younger geeks get dates! Most of those women in marketting and the "normal" majors/teams at work wont even talk to us!
For that matter, why are you telling women specifically to go into the field? I agree that there are fewer women in CS (and I wish that the ratio was better... it's hard finding a date in the department), but telling a bunch of high school women "you should go into IT to even out the ratio" is akin to saying "all of the jobs that you'd rather pursue are girly jobs, you need to go into IT to keep up with the boys."
They are encouraging women to enter IT because they feel there may be very talented people who are being kept out of the industry due to social barriers. The idea is to tear down the social barriers to improve the overall quality of IT professionals.
You should just provide the best environment possible for kids to become the best whatever they want to be that they can be.
That is what they are doing. They are trying to educate and remove social barriers such that kids can pursue whatever they want to be. It can be intimidating to enter a field where you don't "fit-in", because you wonder if you will be accepted by your peers.
You should get rid of sexism by not practicing sexism. You should get rid of racism by not practicing racism.
The problem is the vicious circle, if no women/minorities are in a field, other women/minorities will be intimidated and not enter the field. I don't see encouraging to be a racist or sexist activity.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Funny, I never knew that Connect Four was less popular among women.
It's a terrible mistake to think that IT is a geeky field, or that there is stigma attached to it.
Don't be fooled into thinking that IT professionals must be introverted socially inept pedants who live in their parents' basements just because that describes everybody currently in the field.
.evom ton seod gis eht
You know, the thing on the Dilbert website where you can generate a valid sounding mission statement from buzzwords? Sounds like your post- "insufficient management with technical competency"; "lacks a familiar liason to traditional business"; "that would enable effective utilization".
I'm not saying you don't know what you are talking about, but you come off sounding like a traditional PHB. (And if you are being sarcastic and I fell for it, I'm gonna cry)
And by the way, I'm an unemployed IT network guy for 2 years now. Maybe I need a gender modification?
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
and a coordinator for my university's Women in Computer Science initiative, it's good to see more organizations target girls, specifically, in their recruitment efforts. There have been many studies that show that disproportionate numbers of girls "lose interest" in science, math, and computers as they progress through adolescence. This may be the new millenium, but there are still influences that turn girls off these areas of study.
While there may be physiological differences between men and women (and there are studies supporting that), no study has conclusively shown that women inherently lack the necessary skills to succeed in math, science, and engineering. Therefore, the reasons that girls choose English, Psychology, and Biology over Math, Computer Science, and Engineering (for example) are societal influences. There is a real male-oriented culture still in these areas, and people have two choices: to point to all the progress that has been made over the past century and the lip service that equality is given and say "Look! There's no problem at all!"... or to open their eyes and realize that discrimination and discouragement happens in subtle ways.
Adolescent girls, like adolescent boys, are delicate. A few off-color comments about women's ability in a field by a person in a position of authority, and a girl may, when the going gets tough in junior high, decide to go the safe route--and excel at writing, art, music, etc.
Back in the late 80's in Australia it seemed that slightly over half of the first year undergraduate computer science students were women, while in my year in engineering there were sixteen women and over two hundred men (decent maths scores were required to get into engineering and at that point girls were culturally conditioned to think they were bad at it, so usually didn't even take the advanced subjects in high school). Some of the women in my year in engineering also eventually ended up in IT and found it very much a male dominated area as well. Where did all those women trained in IT go?
these 'women' ? I searched the pictures on the net and they seem nice. It seems they are actually a sub-class of the human species. How come I have never met one ?
Lasha Decker's photograph for those who are interested in knowing what she looks like. http://www.microsoft.com/canada/media/bios/bio-las ha_dekker.mspx
I was a CS major in college, and during my junior year I picked up an Econ degree, as the dot com bubble had burst (this was in the fall of '01). After seeing the CS ratio at around 85%-15%, I figured Econ would be somewhat better, maybe 65%-35%. Nope. The lower level classes had decent ratios, but once you got up to the banking and corporate finance classes the ratios were just as bad in CS. Having worked in both IT and finance professionally, I can tell you it's no better in the working world.
Why? Partially the culture -- I know I wouldn't want to enter a field that was considered "feminine" with 80%+ women. A lot of it is also due to the life you're forced to lead in high stress, long hour jobs. My current job is at a company with a pretty high reputation, and almost all of the women who work in the "thinking" positions are either single or married with no children. It's tough working 50+ hours a week while trying to advance if you're raising small children (while things are changing, when push comes to shove women are still the primary parent for child-rearing, even in two-income families).
My girlfriend got her degree in engineering and is using it now, but she'd eventually like to work in a non-profit/environmental capacity. I'm sure she'd do well in higher stress, longer-hour jobs if she wanted to, but that's not her desire. The women I know who have chosen that life do just as well as men do, but for some reason many talented women stay away from those jobs. Frankly, I think they've got it figured out better than we have.
Young men have been encouraging young women to go for it since time immemorial!
I talk to all kinds of people who think that IT/Programming/Computer Science is a great, high paying career.
Which it is -- compared to most things. The median household income is something 45,000 for native born families. If you have two computer professionals in the family with the kind of jobs that require degrees, chancs are you're doing better than most. A lot better.
That's why CS people should go into the field. The fact is, that the guy who went into business school, for the "to make money" reason, did better than the guy who went into Computer Science "to make money."
I wouldn't necessarily assume that, without real data to back it up. It is true, the guys who make bg bucks are more likely to be B-school types, but I think that people who set out to make lots of money get a lot more variance in their results than people who set out to have an engineering career. Engineers as a group are usually in comfortable circumstances, and good engineers do make a bit more than poor ones, but nothing in comparison to their true relative value. People who set out to get rich sometimes get rich, sometimes are poor, and (not surprisingly) by in large get medianish or slightly better than medianish results.
If getting rich was as easy as simply setting your sights on B-school, more guys would do it. True, I've known a few guys who set out to make money and succeeded, although at least one of them is currently under investigation. But I've also known guys who have set out just to do something they love to do who've also ended up making a lot of money. But they'd have been winners even if they didn't luck out.
In any case, if you enjoy IT, want to make a salary that by reasonable standards is comfortable, and don't mind that there isn't a pot of gold waiting at the end of the rainbow, you're in the right profession.
If you hate IT, and are in it to make big bucks (odd the first time I typed that it came out "bugs" not "bucks"), well, you made a bad career choice. You could get lucky with stock options and IPO. Some guys did. Some guys also won the lottery, but that's not a career path.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
BRING ON THE LADIES! I won't dissuade you from joining this lively and exciting profession!
OK, I admit, I really need a date... (I'm posting this at 10:15PM on a Saturday night for crying out loud!)
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
In Sweden, a couple gets to -split- a year
of Family Leave (paid at 90% of the salary
of person taking it - on a particular day)
If the man doesn't participate in the 1st-
year's child minding (after the woman goes
back to work), they lose some of the bene-
fit.
A man almost -has- to look after the kids;
in Sweden, it's not really an option.
(The women wouldn't want it any other way,
nor would a Real Man(tm), either, I think)
In After the Sunset.
and go offer the jobs to the women in india.
The parent comment says Why force this on girls? (this being an IT profession). This is not just wrong but actually the exact opposite of reality. They are forced out of IT and other "manly" professions because all their life, society systematically discourages them from this kind of activity. These are not myths, there are realities of women being considered "not feminine" if they do certain things or do things in a certain "non-feminine" way.
This does not get fixed by standing in front of them and saying "noooooo girls, don't worry about this, no one will consider you a geek if you go into this profession, and you will not be discriminated". Bullshit. They will be considered geeks as we all are, which is less acceptable socially for a woman and they will be discriminated because there is such a discrimination in our profession.
Of course, this is not automatic. If you are popular and go to an IT profession, you won't stop being popular. But it is certainly a factor, like having pimples, being fat, using glasses, not being a good public speaker and being socially inept. None of these factors (except perhaps for the last) makes you a geek, but they all count. So does your profession.
This guy is lying to them. This is a problem and we must fight against it if we want to fix it. But the fight is wider than simply fighting for equality in a certain profession. Everytime that the women's movement (as any other struggle did) made important gains, they had a politically ambitious agenda. That's the way to go .
Hint: "vote for Kerry" won't do the trick either. That kind of limited political action is not enough.
Personally, I don't discriminate against women in IT. I am a professor and some of my research students are women. And they are as good (or as bad) as any man. On the contrary, I vigorously denounce any attitude that is discriminatory against women and support them when these things come out.
All I'm saying is that this is a real problem and we must stay alert and fight against it, not deny it.
Denial does not work.
It does not.
It does not.
It does not.
Isn't being geeky "in" now? Im in highschool, and a lot of girls here wear shirts that say like "I 3 nerds/geeks/etc" or wear the thick black glasses. However, none of them really are geeky, nor do they love me :(.
The specific reason for women to excel in certain professions is that the society has been forcing them all their life to do things and then take professions that are socially acceptable for women.
n +jensen+iq+girls+allik
...and genetically-mediated poor spatial abilities...5 0
...in addition to genetically-mediated feminine interests and outlooks:_ inevitability_of_patriarchy.htm
Actually, females have genetically-mediated low IQs (a deficit of 5.55 SD15 IQ points)...
http://www.google.com/search?q=nyborg+helmuth+lyn
.
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=651
.
http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/society_culture/the
Happy birthday. . .
Make those girls become involved in
IT even if they don't won't to. After
all, we want them to be happy...
Did it ever occur to these people that
*maybe* girls are just put together dif-
ferently than boys and therefore they
may not be inclined to pursue the same
careers that boys do.
What is wrong with not wanting to spend 60-80 hours a week cooped up in a drab, under-appreciated IT department fighting management tooth and nail for your job and the resources needed to do that job. Girls if you find yourself spending your free time writing code snippets or configuring you *nix box or just like the drone of cooling fans and the glow flouresent lights, then maybe a job in IT would be something you enjoy and you'd get the reward of doing something you love for money. But lets face it, most women seem to care about a little thing call quaility of life. Sure the work can be challenging and mentally stimulating, but christ!, you're stuck in a box without windows all day long or in a cube or some other bland sterile corporate enviroment. Who in there right mind wants that? Follow your passion and what interests you. Listen you yourself and not M$
Unlike boys, I suppose?
Because, as we all know, young male geeks are always the most popular kids in high school. They're never social outcasts. They're never isolated. They always have girlfriends. They never EVER get bullied.
See the point?
In your rush to play knight in shining armor to these "victims" who don't feel "encouraged" enough, you've completely ignored the fact that boys have traditionally never been encouraged to get into these fields either. They've typically received harsher treatment, including physical violence, just for being geeks. But notice, they didn't give up, they didn't run off and major in business or medicine, no, they stuck it out.
Remember when Jon Katz tried to make a big deal out of bullying? Most Slashdotters would have nothing of it, even though many were themselves victims of bullying. At worst they might crack the occasional joke about it, but they seldom--if ever--complain.
Why can't women do the same? Why can't they just stop complaining, STFU, and do their work just as men do? Why do they always need special treatment, special privileges, and special protection?
Come on, join IT, girls, it's very exciting. You don't want to hang out with football players. You want to hang out and play Dungeons and Dragons and collect guns. Then, you can get outsourced like the rest of us!
This is my sig.
Ok, maybe a bit backwards, but....
I'm second-semester electronics engineer major at georgia tech, basically because "thats where the money is". I'm taking engineering classes, and some Java classes too.
I'm doing ok in the engineer classes, which are mildly interesting. However, the programming classes I really enjoy. The Java/Matlab class I got a 97 average, and the Java II class so far I have a 99. I did a four-person two-week group project by myself in 6 hours because it was fun and I didn't bother stopping until it was done.
Plus, when I'm around the EE building, people usually talk about how life sucks and classes are hard, etc. When I'm around the CS building, people usually talk about their progress on a some complicated but interesting project, or some neat algorithm they're implementing.
So what would you do? Keep on chugging with EE, or switch to CS, and lose a year?
I don't know. I think gender does play a considerable role, but not necessarily for the reasons usually mentioned.
You're absolutely right though about I.T. in general. I think the *only* reason people flocked to it a few years ago was this idea that you'd get a huge paycheck for doing relatively little actual work. (Everyone from construction workers to truck drivers were chomping at the bit to get their MCSE, A+, and so on - and to then free themselves from physical labor and boredom while doubling their take-home pay.) Unfortunately, this only lasted for a short while, at best - until the bottom fell out of the crazy dot-com era and Y2K panic subsided.
I.T. today is pretty much back to what it always was before the "general public" thought it was a career track worth pursuing... LOADS of PATIENCE and a stubborn desire to find solutions to frustrating little problems and glitches. It likely includes pulling some LONG hours, and/or researching things on your own time, off the clock, to find answers.
Male or female, this isn't usually most people's idea of a "rewarding/fun job" - but it fills the bill nicely for us long-time computer geeks who did this stuff all day long for free anyway, as a hobby/personal interest.
That's where the "gender issue" really comes in, IMHO. The vast majority of people I meet in I.T. today who are really sharp and do their job well have had an interest in computers for years before it became a career path for them. 99% of the time, women didn't have this interest - so when they get into I.T., it means they're only using knowledge they gained through school or study guides/courses. They're not applying a vast collection of real-world knowledge built up in their head from the time they were a young teen playing for hours each day with a home computer in their house, etc. etc.
Oh, yes. And the last thing that we need is an alliance between Microsoft and NOW. what would they call it? MSNOW? I wonder what Gates' next ida will be....
Notice, we still call them "garbage men." That's because there are few, if any, garbage women. I live in a big city and I have yet to see a woman hauling bags into the back of some filthy trash truck.
Isn't this a problem? Isn't the fact that the extremely lucrative field of sanitation is completely male dominated something that needs to be corrected? Or maybe under representation of women in a field is only a problem if society views that field favorably. If it's a dirty job, let the men do it, huh?
The problem isn't that American companies require that employees compete globally, it's that governments do not have to compete for thier citizens.
See, we could choose which government we wanted to "buy" by paying taxes, you can sure bet that American programmers could relocate to locales with lower costs of living and compete globally.
That means that governments would have to compete on standard of living. If I can get a good wage and a low cost of living in another country, why can't I choose that? Mainly because it doesn't suit those in power, that's why.
If this were done overnight, the standard of living in the US would plummet overnight as a vast influx arrived. However, the standard of living in developing nations would skyrocket as people with "virtualizable jobs" brought thier higher earning potential into developing nations.
So, like the market liberialization experiences of South America, there would be a global wave of economic hardship in the short run, but in the long run a set of governments that *HAD* to be efficient, open, and responsive would be a huge plus.
You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake -- but you could be if you got off your ass.
That's right ladies, it's never too early to start thinking about an education in a career field that is bloated with unemployed and underemployed highly skilled workers under attack by commoditization of the workforce and outsourcing to cheaper workers in other countries. You too, could be a statistic (until you run out of unemployment compensation).
I'm all for girls (and boys) learning math and science, but if you want a job in IT, go to ITT or Devry after college. Of course, this advice may not apply in Canada...
Here come da fudge!
Great, so we're pushing them into an oversaturated and cratering market. Talk about do-gooders...
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
As long as girls have pussies to arouse men, they won't have any difficulties nowhere. The problem is, why they need to do that? They can just make their men happy, and sit home take care of children, so everyone would be happy.
heh, its so that us nerd guys have girls to relate to, and to gawk at in the workplace. thats about all. my friends are all aviation people and ive recently got into it too, and there are very few female pilots out there as well, there just something about technology that scares girls off. They would love to have more girls in the industry, but only so they have girls they can relate to. How sweet is it for you nerd boys out there to have a nerd girl to hold hands with while compiling your kernel? eh?
Following your argument, you shouldn't let a son go into IT either.
I am a highschool senior girl working as an IT intern. I wouldn't consider myself particularly popular or geeky. I love my job, but I don't think that it is something that I will do my whole life, I have other plans for the future (involving science and CS). One of my favorite aspects is the social aspect... talking to the other people I work with. If girls don't like IT because it is not social... I'd say that being the only girl working with a bunch of guys is a great way to meet guys. And not all of them are geeky.
My point is that if you're not interested in engineering, there are easier ways to make money than to go into engineering.
I know many many engineers who go back for their MBAs to make more money. They enjoy engineering, but see management as the clear path to more money.
Look at project management and program management. If you're on a small team of programmers, there are almost as many managers as there are programmers on the team. I don't that this is efficient, but it's true of many companies. On my last 2 projects, management outnumbered programmers and technical personnel.
If you look at the fact that the managers are in charge of those engineers, and that being in charge of someone quite possibly means making more money, management was the right route to go... if your goal was to make money.
If you genuinely enjoy engineering, then yes, you should become an engineer. Like I said, I'm a CS grad student, back in school after a few years in industry, and I would never look back. I look forward to making good money in my career, but even more forward to what I will do with my career. I don't think that people who don't truely enjoy engineering will have such an outcome.
I don't think that this is a valid route to accomplish this.
I think that this route sends the message that other fields are not as good.
I think that this route also sends the message that your expectations from (group x... in this case women) are low.
I think that if all of the silly pretense was lost, that people would just get on with their lives and do the right thing. I think that building up lots of programs and barriers sends the message "we want more girls in engineering (...because girls are intimidated by it)."
It's completely backwards, it's discriminatory policies ("we don't think you'll do this on your own, here's a helping hand"), engineered by people who are trying to make up for their past insensitivities.
If we dropped this nonesense now, in 2050, it would be considered an insult to say "we want to encourage women (who wouldn't otherwise go into math and science) to go into math and science."
I don't know about anyone else, but this sort of targeted campaign gets on my nerves. I would much rather have people getting in to the industry because they are passionate about it, and actually *care*, as opposed to because of some external trapping (e.g. the ever popular race/creed/gender/religion gambit). At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if your skin is purple and you only speak in anagrams; what does matter is if you're good at what you do, and if you love what you do.
No, I'm not denying that the workplace is probably different if you're a woman, or whatever else, but I am saying that a) there's no reason for it to be and b) any employer that actually rejects talented women/etc. or treats them unfairly isn't going to last particularly long at this point anyway.
"My heart is in the work." - Andrew Carnegie
Events like this are good - many girls with potential never even consider computer science as a possibility. While I agree that random people shouldn't be encouraged to pursue this field such talks are necessary because many of these girls will probably never meet any female IT professionals nor will they ever see any female IT professionals portrayed on television etc. This really has nothing to do with accepting the "geek" label or not it really has much more to do with how you interpret what being a geek is. If it means a strong interest in all things scientific and in nifty gadgets designed to make my life easier and/or more entertaining sign me up! The reality is (at least at the 9th grade level) geeks are perceived as people with no social skills who prefer machines to humans. While there is definitely a lot of sugar coating in this talk, it really is necessary for people to realise how IT has evolved.
Mega-dollars usually bounces around inhibiting everyone's creativity. They may change, one day, but until then I wouln't take their advice about how to spend the next N years of my life. Especially if it sounds like 'pay things to Maga-dollars'. I'll make my own mind up.
One wonders if they have considered the stigma associsated with flipping burgers, or working at a checkout, or minding babies, or alll those other 'traditional jobs for girls'.
strangely when I started university comp-sci there were about 400 girls and about 500 guys in the course. by 3rd year 90% of the girls had gone - many over to pure maths, but many just left university. Lat year we were recruiting for developers and I was keen to get some female coders in to gender-balance the team up a bit. no dice. the recruiters told me there was no such thing as female java programmers and that I was breaking the law by asking for them. what a world. Out of 12 candidates I saw one woman and she was not all that skilled compared to the others we saw. and yet i know many female mathematicians; my grandmother was one in fact. and maths is pure geek - computing is merely applied geek.
I used to have a better sig than this, but I got tired of it
I don't think that this is a valid route to accomplish this.
I think that this route sends the message that other fields are not as good.
In terms of investment engineering/science/math are the drivers that move society forward. Art, music, politics, are all great, but a painting does not have the same impact as sequencing a gene.
I think that this route also sends the message that your expectations from (group x... in this case women) are low.
No going this route sends the message that your expectations for group x are higher than what currently exists, and you are trying to address the social roadblocks that might be preventing the group from fully realizing their potential.
I think that if all of the silly pretense was lost, that people would just get on with their lives and do the right thing. I think that building up lots of programs and barriers sends the message "we want more girls in engineering (...because girls are intimidated by it)."
Closing your eyes and pretending there isn't a problem won't solve it. The issues of social stigma are there
"Some issues (the girls) brought up included fears that their friends will think (working in IT) is a geeky thing to do, and that IT work is not very social,"
Some girls may feel they have the technical drive to enter science/IT, but the misconceptions of other aspects of the job may prevent them from pursuing that career path. I don't see the problem in explaining to them of what truly goes on, such that they can make informed decisions.
It's completely backwards, it's discriminatory policies ("we don't think you'll do this on your own, here's a helping hand"), engineered by people who are trying to make up for their past insensitivities.
What is being done is pointing out that technical jobs aren't like they are sterotyped. Apart from social perceptions, there are perceptions of "good ole boy" networks, that you won't be able to become successful because you don't fit in. Bringing in successful women/minorities, helps tear down those misconceptions.
I've mentored hispanic students steering them towards engineering. They had the talent, however, they were discouraged by misconceptions. They were intimidated by silly things like not fitting in with peers because they weren't devoted to Star Trek and computer games, as well as more techinical things like not wanting to live in a cube solving math problems all day. Explaining the hands on of working on machines, the types of problems that you solve, even telling them about my department in college having a soccer team, eased their worries.
If we dropped this nonesense now, in 2050, it would be considered an insult to say "we want to encourage women (who wouldn't otherwise go into math and science) to go into math and science."
If you don't change anything, most likely nothing will change.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
...Connect Four!
IT in Canada is glorified officeboy/girl. With a university degree (4 years) plus several additional pieces of paper and several years experience to be allowed to vacuum out consoles, move furniture, catalogue software disks, and handle the paperwork for tape archives. The phrase 'Other Duties As Required" is the giveaway. Every other duty is required. In fact, you will be surprised to find out that any other duty --except what you have been trained in-- is required. Expect your boss to be a back-stabbing social climber, your job to be highly repetitive, unchallenging, and expect your efforts of toil to be ultimately unnecessary "oh, sorry, you did all that (boring) work for the last month, but we decided to go with someting else, Undo all that you did." Expect too that if there is a manual or documentation available, it won't be made available to you. You will be evaluated against your boss (who has the products problem resolution list). Betcha he does better than you. Also expect your boss to be an incompetent --if there is a problem, then it's your fault (and if others catch the boss in a lie, expect your life to get even worse). Expect the pager to go off at 3:00AM for false alarms --the user just got impatient waiting for the computer to finish (that you don't get paid for). Expect that your boss will go to the training seminar (for 10 days in another city), but you wind up with manuals to the old version of the software (oh, and it was on another platform). This is what you should expect from IT in Canada. The short answer is: if you really like computers, then do it at home. Software design/development is done in other places. Canada imports software. The best you can hope for is writing 1 or two macros (every 3-4 years). If you really like vacuuming, and being a human fork lift, then you will enjoy a career in IT in Canada.
Hell!!!!
I for one encourage it!!!
Hairdressers are the happiest workers, while civil servants, social workers and architects are the unhappiest, a new poll shows.r eer.happiness/
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/02/25/ca
Dr Cynthia McVey, a psychologist at Glasgow Caledonian University, added: "Blue-collar workers like plumbers get the daily satisfaction of going home having seen a practical job well done, like the installation of a boiler.
"White-collar workers are part of a chain and often don't see results of their labour and so are more prone to stress."
http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=213162005
In terms of investment engineering/science/math are the drivers that move society forward. Art, music, politics, are all great, but a painting does not have the same impact as sequencing a gene.
That statement invalidates the impact of those fields and, despite the fact that I am in a scientific field, I think that that just isn't true. Consider the impact of Capitalism/Communism/Socialism/Democracy/The Republic.
No going this route sends the message that your expectations for group x are higher than what currently exists, and you are trying to address the social roadblocks that might be preventing the group from fully realizing their potential.
Removing the roadblocks is great. I'm all for removing any roadblock in the way of anyone's progress. I disagree though. "Why are we having a Women Should Enter Engineering Day? Because there aren't enough female engineers..." or even "Why are we having a Women Should Enter Engineering Day? Because the number of women entering engineering falls short of our expectations..." is a negative message.
Closing your eyes and pretending there isn't a problem won't solve it. The issues of social stigma are there
I'm not closing my eyes, I'm suggesting that there are better solutions. I don't see cramming IT down the collective throats of high school students as effective. How about just showing them that you care what they're interested in, and supporting their interests?
What is being done is pointing out that technical jobs aren't like they are sterotyped. Apart from social perceptions, there are perceptions of "good ole boy" networks, that you won't be able to become successful because you don't fit in. Bringing in successful women/minorities, helps tear down those misconceptions.
I've mentored hispanic students steering them towards engineering. They had the talent, however, they were discouraged by misconceptions. They were intimidated by silly things like not fitting in with peers because they weren't devoted to Star Trek and computer games, as well as more techinical things like not wanting to live in a cube solving math problems all day. Explaining the hands on of working on machines, the types of problems that you solve, even telling them about my department in college having a soccer team, eased their worries.
Awesome. My initial concern wasn't really that students with a talent for engineering are directed toward it. I would like every barrier broken down that can be. My concern is that engineering is blanketed over education systems as the route that students should pursue, leading to a foreclosure in their decision of what to do with their lives that leads them away from their prefered careers. If someone would rather be an artist, I think that they should be an artist.
If you don't change anything, most likely nothing will change.
I agree. I didn't suggest not changing anything.
I have to admit that I hate discussing matters such as this though. I should not have entered this conversation. I am an open minded person who thinks that everyone should be treated equally. I feel, however, that if I don't say what people want me to say, that I'll be painted as some sort of racist/sexist/bigotted neo-nazi. I'm not one. I acknowledge that descrimination exists... I just don't think that it needs to be balanced out with solutions that don't solve anything. It sounds like in your experience, you helped a lot of kids... I'd rather see something like that than hearding all of the girls with a reasonable GPA into an auditorium and telling them that they should go into computers at age 14!
"I have read a few articles about how mixed gender groups work better together than groups with only males or only females, I'd say that's a more likely reason."
It's simpler than that. Women will accept a lower salary to do the same job.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
...BOFH ;-)
...but I have met several good female candidates for this title...
"IT is a very non-social job. You don't get to routinely gab with your "friends" (ie, coworkers) about this or that, because you invariably need to be concentrating on a monitor if, indeed, you're, well - working."
This isn't really true, from my own experience in IT jobs. I worked as a support technician for AT&T and actually had a very developed social life because I was wandering around two buildings installing hardware and software and talking to everyone I was working around.
Socialization is a factor of who you are as much as what your job is. Even if you're a programmer it's possible to have a well-developed social life at work.
"Most males are pigs, and by the time a girl is 14 (if she's not physically hideous) she's already learned what men are interested in, by and large: getting their poles slicked, one way or the other."
This is likely to be less true in communities of males who were more than likely tortured quite a bit growing up and therefore are significantly more sensitive than their peers on average.
Also, go screw yourself for making an unjustified generalization about half the human race.
+++ATH0
Among budget cuts, security problems, and outsourcing, you forgot to mention FREE SOFTWARE. All the asshats who produce open source in their free time and give it away are inviting the IT world to take advantage of it, and then reduce salaries. It works in a lot of ways; free software is more familiar to people, making it easier to find lackeys with the skills. They don't need YOU. Free software means fewer product sales for software companies, which kills profits, which in turn is passed on to YOU, again, the lackey who will now work 80 hours a week for 35K a year in IT.
You don't see doctors doing surgery for free, do you? They are creating value in the profession, not REMOVING IT. Until the IT asshats who do this stop devaluing their work, everyone who wants to be in the industry will suffer.
There are concerns amongst experts that there are not enough female bin cleaning personnel. 100 girls interviews said they did not like the idea of hauling garbage around as a living but damnit we need equality!
In other news there are fears there are not enough male mid-wives.
So women do not want to be IT people for whatever reasons. So what? Every job needs exactly a 50/50 split or we should start campaigning for men/women to apply? Is htis another facet of lunatic Political correctness?
...we woldn't be on our way to Mars now...
...we would be on the way to Alpha Centauri... at warp speed...
...and there would be a cure for AIDS and cancer
...and there would be food for everyone in the world
...and all envirnmental problems will not exist
but there are no money in doing all that...
...they're being lied to. ...and that's the observation of a male with 20 years of experience in the field.
If I were more cynical, I'd speculate that they're being encouraged to go into the field because those doing the encouraging know that they'll be paid 75% of their male counterparts.
The main reason they're trying to sucker girls into IT careers is to keep pay rates down by increasing the numbers of available staff. Men are avoiding studying computer science due to the poor prospects.
A second reason is that, for ambitious female executives, this movement provides great media exposure. They get written about and get invited to join government committees.
"i suggest you don't waste yourself toiling amongst such people" ---
so instead of people changing their bad behavior, you want people who dont behave badly to just leave?
well, my friend, that is what women do, and that is why they are scarce in certain industries.
that is not good for society.
and there is no 'mystery' about it. look at the threads on this website. look at them. read them.
would you find that on a website devoted to say
chemistry? biology? sociology?
your attitude is part of the problem.
If there aren't opportunities for Java then I don't want to know!
My Journal
give me a break.
if i came to your workplace every day and started at your breasts and grabbed your ass and asked you on dates... you wouldnt stick around either, mr tough guy
"I dont try to match my cell to my mini"
Of course not. You change your mini daily, but you can only get a cell phone once every 6 months. So you match your mini to your cell.
On the other hand, what jobs are considered cool to 14 year old girls?
"IT usually means you will have to work late to rebuild a server,"
Operations is not "IT". Its related to IT, but its not IT.
A Mechanic may build cars for Schumacher, but he's not a race car driver. Anybody can rebuild a server. It takes genius to be a great programmer.
Australian statistics show that higher proportions of women in the workforce deliver higher profits to management. In 1982, men held 63.2 per cent of all jobs in Australia and wages were 63.1 per cent of gross domestic product. In 2005 men held only 55.2 per cent of jobs and workers's share of GDP had falled 54.3 per cent. As the writer points out, this is no coincidence.
Here's the story
A degree in computer science generally isn't a degree in hardware, or in Microsoft Windows.
Some very good programmers I work with have no ability to use a computer above and beyond the compiler, and a few unix commands. The ability to work with end users, gather requirements and turn them into a working system are distinct from the ability to understand why MS made a "Pro" and "Home" version of Windows XP (something that still isn't clear to me).
I'll grant you, there are a few people who understand everything from the boot manager, to device drivers, to HTML coding, to Java coding. Those people are exceptional, and I don't think that makes other people "bad" or "dumb"
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
2. They will in fact get hit on constantly by naturally deselected nerds, so if by "geeky," they mean "treated like an incidental princess," then yes, their experience will be geeky. Fact is, working in I.T. can provide the popularity which marginal girls have always sought.
:~(
1. The hot ones will always manage to end up at some company other than mine,
"why would MS be so interested in women joining the IT sector"
This is going to sound terribly cynical...
Women tend to work for less.
Hold on...think things through. The whole point of the MSCE program is to get lower cost workers involved with IT. The whole point of getting women involved in IT is to increase the supply (by almost 100%). So this is an attempt to get more people involved. Its that simple.
And of course, since women generally earn less (there are many reasons for this), most employers see women as a good thing in the workplace.
but they usually just slap me and walk off!
Not to sound sexist, but by-and-large, the women I know who've been successful in IT are of as much a technical bend as a piece of stale bread. They are usually very attractive and social, and use their charms to get males around them to do the actual technical dirty work. I went to school with dozens of girls who would shove their breasts in a guy's face and with a pouty look ask a male computer geek for help on a programming assignment or some other classwork. The nerd, flattered at having someone with shimmering eyes and large knockers deign to acknowledge his existence, would trip over himself in pretty much doing the work for her. This is repeated in the workplace. The vast majority of women in the field rise through the ranks by dint of their social graces, not their technical acumen. As with most things in life, there are exceptions but they are just that -- exceptions.
'He who has to break a thing to find out what it is, has left the path of wisdom.' -- Gandalf to Saruman
Amen.
To those who posted about "going into business, it's more profitable..." I am in business. I went here because I listened to what my parents and guidance counselors told me to (stupid me). Now, I'm going back to get an MS in... User Interface Design. Why? Because it's what I should have done to begin with. IT is challenging and fascinating - to some people. They should pursue it. The money will follow the quality of work they do, and no one can do quality work in a subject they find boring or repulsive - which is why I've had to accept the fact that I'll never be a stellar accountant.
Late in the thread, pbly won't get read but no one seems to have mentionned this aspect so I'll give it a shot anyway.
As a foreword, in case anyone here thinks that I'm writing this because I'm a woman-hater (he hates feminists, he must hate women), I have two female colleagues (1 JDE Whitehouse expert and 1 Service Mgmt person) who are amazing women who are extremely competent at what they do and a great laugh to boot.
The feminist thinkers are bothered that the IT space disagrees with their world view.
They're trying and failing to prove that IT is somehow prejudiced against women.
They need to show that women are being discouraged by some kind of chauvinistic attitude in the profession. Unfortunately, there is no evidence to that effect simply because there are no girls trying to enter the field.
In the absence of a state of gender prejudice, they are hoping to create one so that they can occupy the political stage that will emerge.
What the feminists refuse to admit is that no woman who has wanted to work in IT has ever been chased away. Sure, they may not like what they find but there is no more a chauvinistic attitude in IT than anywhere else. If you were going to be put off by male pigs in IT, you were going to suffer the same way (if not more) in a auto repair shop.
So all I see here is politics at work. I'm particularly amused by the frantic attempts at creating a crisis where there is none.
Remember that "sexist" Harvard president who talked about innate abilities of women awhile back?
One of the things he discussed was that being a stay-at-home parent for a year or two may significantly impair a person's career. Since mothers tend to be the stay at home parent, guess who's career suffers? Imagine quitting your job in 1999 to raise your baby, and re-entering the IT field in 2004? You'd have missed the release of Windows 2000 and Windows XP, a linux kernel or two, new stuff on the Cisco end, new security issues, etc.
When questioned about why women in Europe had more success in there careers, he mentioned that the shorter European work year may be a factor. (Makes sense -- imagine working crunch weeks in software -- a man is expected to sacrifice his family during that time, a woman is not.
(He also did ask for more research on innate abilities, which is why he was called sexist. He questioned if some fields don't appeal to women. He might have a point -- parts of the IT industry seems to require solitary behavior and an obsessive streak. Maybe more men then women are inclined that way.)
What a backward society. Here in America men and women can return to work within mere days of the birth of the new child. For the first couple years of the child's life they leave him or her with strangers at an all day care facility. What a wonderfully uplifiting, social experience for the child. After that, our advanced technology has allowed us to use television, video games, and an excess of overly competitive sports and pointless hobbies to develop the child's intellect, keep them from trouble, and raise them to be wonderful members of society. Caring for your children directly is such a thing of the past, leave it to professionals is what I say.
Dekker said ... "I just got lucky when I was in high school; sciences and math came easy," said Dekker, who holds a B.A. in computer sciences and statistics from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. "It is not because I received a lot of direction (that I ended up in IT). It was really by chance that I ended up in the career I am in today."
Dekker, from her scientific studies knew about the mating and social rituals of the human species, and knew that in order to increase her chance of mating and rising socially she could leverage the satistically low representation of women in IT; e.g. low number of competitors. She made the calculated move and has come out on top for it.
Summary: She did it for the boys.
Summary for male moderators: This is a joke, mod funny not troll you dim-whitted better-then-though morons.
Summary for female moderators: Hey baby, how you doin'?
I for one welcome our new younger female coworkers. :)
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
After reading this thread I just have to wonder, what kind of boring places do you people work at!
Everyone seems to think that everything relating to the computer field is network management or coding alone through the night. Engineering of all kinds are usually very social, it involves working together with diverse, almost allways interantional teams of people and very little of it is actually the alone time on the computer writing code, specifications or blueprints.
I work in the automotive field writing software for the embedded systems in the car. On a normal day I discuss design decissions with my work mates, troubleshoot problems with the hardware guys and/or discuss feature request with the customer. I probably write more e-mail than code and I definately spend more times in meetings than coding alone.
I would have thought that was the norm rather than the stereotypical jolt drinking hacker, but aparantly I was wrong.
I guess my advice to women fearing that the CS fields are too antisocial should make sure they go inte SW engineering.
Why is microsoft encouraging Canadian girls to go into I.T. when microsoft and many firms are outsourcing their I.T. jobs overseas? What is in it for microsoft, let alone the girl's career prospects?
"t's *tough* when you are faced with working 75 - 90 hours a week, and then have to go home and raise a family and care for a home. But we do it, we do it gratefully, because it's afforded us girls a chance to stand on equal footing for once. At least I did."
why is it that the woman has to spend time with the children? I totally understand the 75-90 hours bit, but why is raising a family raised as a female specific thing? That doesn't sound like 'equal footing' to me, that sounds either like a perversion of equality or wage slavery. If it's the later, then I feel sympathy but I suspect the former.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
Too lazy to look up the link.
I think the US there's a bigger stigma against guys doing girls stuff - with remarks like "girlie men" and so on....
Over here it's probably more the money factor. As you said there's not much money in the "girl jobs". It's probably because as a study indicated - most women just don't ask for more - they settle for what they are offered (they may grumble later but it's in the contract by that time).
Also I dunno if I could do nursing - cleaning patients of their shit every day isn't something I'm interested in. It's an honourable profession and probably more useful to society than all these IT stuff, but... Nah not for me.
I wouldn't mind taking care of little kids. BUT seems like half the girls in my church would probably do it for _free_. They just love carrying the cuter little kids, etc.
Seems IT jobs don't pay that well relatively in the US.. So must be some US nerds do it just coz they get nice toys to play with...
Over here IT definitely pays better than nursing. BUT a Montessori certified kindergarten teacher can draw in significant bucks...
I agree totally. IT in North America has imploded. I don't know if any other career area has expanded to compensate. Maybe healthcare?
This person should be extolling the benefits of IT jobs to Indian and Pakistani girls. At least until the global market moves everything to Subsaharan Africa - or Detroit.
I disapprove of discrimination. Even positive discrimination, as that's someone elses's negative.
In my 25 years of experience as a software developer, I've never seen any female developers discriminated against purely on their gender.
On my CS degree course there were 4 women out of 30 students. 1 eventually got kicked off becuase she just didn't ever bother turning up. 1 got pregnant, took time off then came back, worked hard to catch up and still got a degree. The other two just flirted with the nerds and got them to do all their practical assignments.
I believe that the psychological makeup of MOST women makes them unsuitable for computer programming. Women like to work in groups and need continuous feedback and praise. Programming on the other hand is a solitary occupation with little or no apprecation for a job well done. Sometimes , in server programming for instance, the only person that can truly appreciate the work is the author. I do not think a woman can handle that on a regular basis.
That's because you are a guy and you don't see the stigma because it doesn't affect you.
As a woman in IT, I deal with:
Not all guys do this...I actually work with a bunch of guys who see me as one of them. Not "one of the guys", but as a techie who has something to contribute.
But they act suprised when I point out other people's behavior...they don't notice because it doesn't happen to them.
The way to get more women in the field is to get the message out that you don't have to have a certain set of sexual organs to do this sort of work. This message needs to go to young girls as well as the stupid boys that already work in IT.
I think of XP Home as a "crippled XP". When I got my windows, I wanted it to be pro. More admin stuff, more tools to maintain my compy, etc.
If this guy had Pro to have a dual boot, he should stick with Pro anyway.
Since Women make 59 cents for every dollar earned, encouraging them to go into IT is simply a way to reduce labor costs.
Best Buy can have you arrested
It is always the right wing nuts who dish out the crap about how they are so superior that they will never be unemployed. That is plain old horseshit. Thank you for telling it like it is!!!
or encourage them to fields that actually NEED people in: math and sciences. Wonder why you keep seeing doctors from India in our hopitals, clinics, and interviewed on Discovery shows about molecular biology? It's because we americans are so brainwashed by our MTV that we have to import people for the trades that really matter. No offense against them, its a win-win situation, they get some great experience, often great perks like training and so on, and their native country gets great doctors and researchers when they return.
Try accounting or HR, which is usually filled mostly by women, anyway (at least in the firms I've worked). Yeah, dealing with debits and credits or with a complaint about someone's body odor is WAYYY more exciting than setting up an OBSD firewall or watching a script kiddie trying to break in. Gosh, can I transfer departments???
Encouraging young women to go into IT seems insane. Whoever does not lose their job to the 3rd world in the next decade will surely lose it to a combination of model-driven architecture and intelligent machines in the next 2 decades.
that women are as good programmers as guys, asks the software developer/Unix/Linux sysadmin/cfg. mgr, 24 yrs experience, with one of his daughters BS, CIS, Martha Washington College, 2004, now working for Boeing....
mark
I graduated from PennState in the early 80's, and there was no programming required for a degree in computer science.
I understand the marketing why's.
I just don't understand the technical difference besides the fact that "home" can't connect to a domain (and some differences in file sharing).
I guess I could look on Google, but I just don't care .
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
In general, women's logic is very different from male logic. I'm not saying women have no logic whatsoever, that wouldn't be true, it's just most of the times their logic is completely opposite from men's. I think anyone who ever has to deal with women on a regular basis would agree.
Computer science is built on male logic. It was invented by men, practiced by men, and perfected by men. One of the reasons I love it is because EVERYTHING MAKES SENSE (to me, as a male). At the same time, everything about women DOESN'T make sense. Therefore, women have a hard time understanding, loving and doing good at computer science.
It's called White Male Privilege.
No, it's called a lie.
Like many lies, it has a purpose, and that purpose is to convince women that they're victims so they'll demand sympathy and special treatment, privileges, and protection, something you seem all too eager to give them.
It's almost hidden
In other words, you can't prove it or give any legitimate examples of its existence, but I should just assume it exists anyway because a bunch of man-haters with an agenda and a long, detailed history of spreading other lies (e.g., "rule of thumb") say so.
You don't have to consider sexism in the workplace
No? So female bosses never give special treatment to their female employees? And some companies don't actively seek to hire women, regardless of their qualifications, just so they can say they hire lots of women?
you don't have to be aware that it's possible you're being underpaid compared to the WM sitting next to you doing the same job.
Ah, one of the oldest feminist lies ever told rears its ugly head again. That women make less money for doing "the same job." That they only make $0.76 for every dollar a man makes.
That statistic comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and it's a comparison of the average salary of all full-time employed men in the country and the average salary of all full-time employed women. It's not a comparison of salaries between men and women doing the same job, working the same hours each week, doing the same amount of overtime, with the same amount of job experience, in the same city, for the same company... And surprise, surprise, when some of those factors are taken into consideration, the wage gap disappears.
Men make more money on average because they work more hours on average each week, are twice as likely to work overtime, and seek out higher-paying, less-fulfilling jobs because they rightly assume that society (read: women) sees them as nothing more than walking wallets and determines their self-worth based on how much money they have. Men also do the dangerous jobs women won't, and makeup 93% of on-the-job fatalities.
So yes, of course men make more money: they deserve it. There's a new book written on this very subject called Why Men Earn More.
Even Patricia Ireland had to back off this lie when confronted with the facts. Watch her squirm once she gets called on her bullshit by the head of the Cato institute.
Once you realize that you already have special privileges (just because you're a WM) then it doesn't seem so unfair when others are given the same.
White women are and have always been a protected class of citizens with special rights and privileges their male counterparts do not have. The entire concept of chivalry revolves around men sacrificing for women; that women are weak and defenseless and that men need to protect them and provide for them and give up their lives for them.
It still persists to this day, and I can give numerous examples, like the Violence Against Women Act, the federal Office of Women's Health (no office of men's health), the fact that women get custody of children more than 85% of the time (even though they initiate the divorce three-fourths of the time), a 6-7 year "death gap" between men and women no one seems eager to correct, exemption from the draft and combat service in general... The list goes on.
Give me examples of the special treatment men receive. It's very simple, actually. The game works like this: "x law affects women unfairly because..." See if you can play it. If not, then stop trying to claim victimhood for them.
I realize there is female stigma in every job, But I was only trying to say that (from my experience in several places) there is no IT stigma for females.. Everything you mentioned can be applied to every other job out there except serving food or other female dominated jobs. No offence, but there will always be a female stigma for a job which has a female minority. That is just how the current social practices in the US work. But I don't buy it is an IT stigma. You take an office of IT workers and put 51% female and you won't get those issues.
Personally I blame it on fundamentalist "christians" that seem to be dominating certain social circles. The males grow up to believe males are dominate over females in all walks of life. The females are raised to know nothing of the sort because it is hidden from them. They always seem to be the ones ignoring women (except when they want something from them) and generally talking down to them. Believe it or not they are a very large portion of the US workforce.
I currently work in a fast paced IT job where none of the people are christian and females make up slightly less than half. None of this stigma happens and the females don't get their job done by lifing the skirt or smiling pretty or smelling good. And when a male comes into our office and needs help, they have no problem going to whoever stands up and helps them first. Nobody treats them differently through email or IM or over the phone (except the obvious male client female employee interactions which still yet will always exist when you have that type of male client in any job, IT or not)
I have worked in several other IT jobs where the female stigma is sevear, such as a grocery store. Try working there to see the female stigma. It is blatant and ridiculous.
Then again I live in middle US so my viewpoint could be skewed. And this coming from a male, I'm sorry if you think I'm minimizing the issue but honestly I don't see how females can say there is a stigma specific to IT when it isn't related to IT at all IMO... I'm not trying to bad talk you or your viewpoint so please don't take it that way...
Your ignorance is infinitely greater than you realize.
That statement invalidates the impact of those fields and, despite the fact that I am in a scientific field, I think that that just isn't true. Consider the impact of Capitalism/Communism/Socialism/Democracy/The Republic.
I agree those fields have impact, leadership, entrepreneurship, even philosophy are important aspects to society. I see science/math/technology as the means by which society drives forward, the social sciences is how we reconcile within society the changes brought about by discovery. A balance is needed between the two, however, social pressures tend to work against technology. Perception is everything to teenagers, and the idea of becoming that "nerdy IT person" discourages otherwise talented individuals.
I disagree though. "Why are we having a Women Should Enter Engineering Day? Because there aren't enough female engineers..." or even "Why are we having a Women Should Enter Engineering Day? Because the number of women entering engineering falls short of our expectations..." is a negative message.
I think they are more along the lines of "we know you believe IT is X, this is what IT really is" type activities. Encouraging somebody isn't necessarily a cheerleading activity, these forms of encouragement are really ways to educate people about reality so they can make their own informed decision.
Awesome. My initial concern wasn't really that students with a talent for engineering are directed toward it.
I agree sometimes things go too far (look at the number of untalented people in the 90's). When you see that a group that is very underrepresented, and when you analyze the reasons and find that it's not technical aptitude or interest, that's when programs such as this should be pursued.
I have to admit that I hate discussing matters such as this though. I should not have entered this conversation. I am an open minded person who thinks that everyone should be treated equally. I feel, however, that if I don't say what people want me to say, that I'll be painted as some sort of racist/sexist/bigotted neo-nazi. I'm not one.
Even though we disagree I would never call you racist/sexist/etc. It's good that people can intelligently debate such important issues, because we should consistantly review and challenge existing ideas. These issues are complex, and really the only way to come up with good solutions is debating, and understanding the problem from many diffent views.
You are posting semi-anonymously on a website, yet you still feel doubt about what you should say because how others will perceive you. These are similar to the doubts teenagers have about how their friends perceive them. These are real issues, and historically affect some groups more than others, that's one of the reasons there is such discrepency between what is expected and what is happenning.
I do think you are right, maybe instead of a Women's Engineering Day there should be just an Engineering Day to tear down the myths for all people. Not only would it help encourage students, it would also educate the other students, such that they wouldn't create a negative environment.
However, I still think there needs to be some targetted activities, since there are specific issues that affect specific groups (ie women speakers talking about the ability to succeed in a male dominated work environment)
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Despite what some right-wing
Opposing the depredations of feminism does not make you "right wing". Go find a single statement from Glenn's columns or radio show that could honestly be considering "right wing". You seem to be thinking of these guys, but those guys are not Glenn.
I recommend that you start looking at reputable sources like the Census Bureau
The sources he sites are the U.S. Deptartment of Labor and the International Labor Organization, run by the U.N., not some right wing think tank. RTFA and then STFU.
Men get paid more because they work more, and in more dangerous situations, not because of any sexism. Deal with it.
I really think people should be allowed to do what they WANT to do... I also believe that really mature people tend to do the right choices... at least if they don't, they only have themselves to put the blame on.
I take myself as an example... when "reality" struck me, as a computer enthusiast, I dreamed of having a job in IT. My father, then, encouraged me to seek his carrer, and not having another option, I did it.
You know what? Now I have no regrets. With 21 years, I earn more than I would if I tried the IT carrer. Sure I have some potential, but one day I realized the thing I almost did wrong thing. Now, in a carrer that isn't boring either, I can separate my job from my hobby, and in that way my hobby never gets boring (I don't take work home thinking it was my hobby).
Moreover, my enthusiasm with computers have awarded me quite some opportunities in the carreer I am now, because of the lack of more people with this kind of knowledge.
OK, go for IT, I'm just happier now in another carreer that, guess what? one of the parts (because of my knowledge) is IT.
Explore, try different things to see what you enjoy doing, then try to pursue a career in that. IT is drudgery, and nobody should go into it unless they really like computers.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
Women techies - for a more meaningful discussion of nurturing girls' technical abilities, join the Systers email list: http://www.anitaborg.org/projects/systers.html
well if this will be done by Microsoft, then they'll still be losers in the IT world, using Windows ""advanced"" server 2004 and mssql...
Hell...i expected to see the real reason my friend (female) got a linux server administration internship....i'm still pissed naomi >:P
men have a larger brain [than women]...
This is true, but irrelevant.
Intelligence is a function of brain mass to body mass. Men have larger brain than women; but men have larger bodies. The ratio is the same.
The brain/body mass ratio as a function of intelligence holds true across a wide range of species.
See The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan for details.
-kgj
-kgj
... we [males] use 100% of that extra brain-space (plus about 90% of the overlap) thinking about girls, either what they look like naked, or what they are thinking about, or sometimes both.
True -- although thinking about what women are thinking about is a futile task. I scarcely bother any more. Better to spend that brain energy on picturing them naked.
-kgj
-kgj
The only thing that is wrong there is men being discriminating against women who are often more intelligent than they are. I myself am a 5.9' trim blond and extremely enjoy computer science, IT, and all things related to computers. I have a rather lively social life and find stupid uneducated and close-minded men (however attractive in their overal appearance) quite a turn off. We (me and other women in technology) are working towards making 9th grade girls see technology as a career of their future. Now, if only someone has put an effort into making 9th grade boys to gain some respect towards girls who are not silly air heads obtaining their popularity by the ease of their pants coming off, then we should be on our way to a better generation of tomorrow.
...because now, most IT managers are in their early 30's. They've squandered their lives on MSCE tests, CCNA exams, late night D&D sessions with their co-workers, and all that it geekdom.
They've simply missed the boat on dating, partying, sleeping with random and unknown strangers. They'll never know the touch of a young and svelt female. What a tragedy.
However, if they can convince some younger girls to work in the field, then they can influence and manipulate them, and work their jedi-mind trick on them at office parties, and cook-outs to maybe one day get them to go out with them so they can relive the parts of their lives they missed, (because that b*tch Janet in marketing sure as hell won't go out with them, they know, they've asked....)
hehe anyway, just thought I'd make an attempt at humor here, and I'm sure I failed miserably.
Who cares about the ozone layer?...thanks to CFC's I can write my name......IN CHEESE!!!
But ones working for Microsoft can choke on dick.
SUPPORT OPEN SOURCE
There's way more IT guys than girls, and that it's entirely likely that a girl who takes this "geek" route could become the only girl in an office. Popular? You bet. No competition.
I don't know about you, but as a guy, that is almost enough to make me want to go into some female-dominated industry. Maybe become some sort of seamstress or something. But it's too late for me.
Now, last I checked, being popular with girls has little to do with a career choice. Take the Computer Science courses, join the cheerleading squad. Best of both worlds.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
At 70 I look back on a lifetime enjoying women of intelligence and creative nature. Many were physically beautiful but that was never a main attraction. The best thing about intelligent women is their sense of humor, the ability to find subtle meaning in curious everyday anomalies. Reading what Larry Summers said more carefully than most news reporters -- or blog-o-philes! -- it appears he wasn't assigning relative quality, merely speaking of differences which those of us with any maturity salute and champion. Vive la difference
Those who trade freedom for security will soon have neither.
Women earn less than men.
Clear, Dark Skies
Answer: Not married and not a fucking prayer of it.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.