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Women Leaving I.T.
Deinhard writes "NewsFactor is running a story on the exodus of women from the I.T. field. According to the article, women made up 41% of the I.T workforce in 1996. That number dropped to 35% by 2002 and that "the downward spiral is gaining momentum." While this is certainly a concern, what are the overall effects of such a mass departure?"
Or you could stop calling people geeks for being into computers. You people might have tried to turn it into a compliment because you were bullied with the term all through school, but for real people, the term is an insult.
Okay, so i'm the first 'barbie' to reply. I'm a 31 yr old female and i've worked in IT since 1998. As always, i'm in the minority as a chick, varying from 10% to 40% women of the workforce of the company (and the 40% was in a web/graphic design company). Don't forget that career choices are motivated by social stimulus and peer pressure which begin in the perambulator all the way thru educational career. It's still not hot for girls to go for science/technical careers. My dad always told me how good I was in languages. My tests showed that I had a natural affinity for mechanical insight. I ended up studying English lit. and autodidacted my way into IT. This illustrates how girls in general are hence less confident of their abilities. Recent studies actually promote the separate education of girls from boys in computer and science subjects at grade/primary school to counteract this not genetic, but social issue... Because of the growth in specialisms, and different programming languages, girls i reckon "perceive" IT to have become more difficult. And besides, how much fun is it to be the only girl out of a 100 geeks in CS? :)