Slashdot Mirror
Women Dropping Out of IT
Women's eNews has an interesting look at women in tech, with numbers showing that women are bailing out of the IT field at a rapid pace. "Technology jobs are predicted to grow at a faster rate than all other jobs in the professional sector, up to 22% over the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Compensation is also good. In 2008, women in tech made an average salary of $70,370. ... But women's stake in that rosy outlook is questionable. For starters, men's pay during the same time period was $80,357. A study by the National Center for Women and Information Technology ... also finds that women are leaving computer careers in staggering numbers. 'Fifty-six percent of women in technology companies leave their organizations at the mid-level point, 10-20 years in their careers,' said Catherine Ashcraft, the senior research scientist who authored the report. In 2008, women held only 25% of all professional IT-related jobs, down from 36% in 1991, according to the group's report, 'Women in IT: The Facts.'"
I have never met an IT person nor worked in a place of IT where I can honestly say we have ever put down a woman that works in the field. But keep in mind, there is a difference here. Something so many women seem to forget.
IT nerds don't have to give you respect *because you're a woman*.
IT nerds give respect *when you know what you're doing*.
This is a key difference, because we (used to) have a ton of women in our company in IT that commanded a lot of respect. These smart, knowledgeable, and powerful women left the job not because of the men, but because of the pressures of the job (our DBA left because she was having to get up at 12AM to do database maintenance stuff because of a contracted developer we had).
In 2008, women in tech made an average salary of $70,370...men's pay during the same time period was $80,357.... Fifty-six percent of women in technology companies leave their organizations at the mid-level point, 10-20 years in their careers
It's cool and trendy these days to make women look good even while they are making themselves look bad. Speaking in purely financial terms, they are really screwing themselves over by leaving at the mid-level point. You need experience and maybe some seniority to earn the real money in this field, since at the lower level jobs you are easy enough to replace.
Maybe women make less money because they are less serious about this career path. That's OK and not a bad thing. They are choosing what's important to them and they should be free to do that. All of that is fine, until some well-meaning but thoroughly misguided jackass writes a summary making it sound like these poor innocent women are being financially abused and taken advantage of by those big evil savage men. That whole "damsel in distress" thing is far too easy to play up and gets lots of attention every time, even when the damsel herself is not the one doing it. Just look at the approval of this sexist post because it portrays women as smarter and more sophisticated than men even though the same people would find reverse sexism repugnant like the hypocrites they are. If that's really their IT culture then they're working for some bad companies. Anyway, that's how powerful that "knight in shining armor" thing can be whenever the "damsel in distress" card is played.
The other thing that needs to be accounted for is the options women have that men don't. Women see having a family or having a career as a choice. They can do one, the other, or both. Men don't get to view that as a choice. For men, they must have a career, period. If they want to also be a father, they do it after they come home from the office. Just leaving the working world mid-level through your career is not an option for men unless they win the lottery or want to go on welfare. Of course this is going to result in a pay discrepency. Really at around $10k for this industry, I'm amazed it's as low as it is.
Bottom line, I have known women who were very serious about their careers. They were good at what they did and well respected. They did as well as the men and tended to do a little better. This might be because some of them had the perception that they had to outperform men to be respected, a notion that is really no longer the case because of political correctness. It might also be because management looks more "diverse" and "inclusive" and non-discriminatory when they preferentially promote women and give them raises. Either way they worked like men, they took their jobs seriously like men, and they put in overtime hours like men. Coincidentally they were paid like men and promoted like men.
I have. From a male manager at one job - just out of the army - thought every single female manager didn't know what the hell they were doing.
At another job as a sysadmin, pretty much the entire male help desk was against the lone, new-hire female because she assumed people calling for help actually knew what it was they were calling about, or at least treated them that way.
And yet at another job, my mostly 20-something male co-workers thinking a new female sysadmin was hot and not much else.
Maybe you just haven't worked in enough bay area places yet (Well, that last one was in Chicago).
What you're reflecting here is a story that's very common: When men are faced with the choice of a lower-paying but more satisfying career versus a higher-paying but unpleasant career, they tend towards the higher pay. Women faced with the same choice tend towards the greater personal satisfaction.
That's why you'll find more men doing jobs that are really unpleasant but well-paid (relative to their education level), such as mining, logging, or firefighting, and more women doing jobs that are often lower paid but very personally satisfying, such as nursing, cooking, and teaching.
Now, what's interesting is that a career in IT ought to fall into the low-risk personally-rewarding camp (the physical risks are minimal, and there's a lot of joy in building things), but instead falls into the higher-pay less-reward camp due to the way IT employees are treated.
I am officially gone from
1. I recently taught an upper-level undergraduate math course with an exceptionally bright female math major and an above-average male math major. For a while, they both did less work than they ought to have (and knew it -- they both had advanced Senioritis); but in the end, the male kicked in to a higher gear and earned a high B. The female did some triage just before the end and earned a low B. This, and similar situations, has made me wonder if females by-and-large react differently to work-related stress than males, i.e., the male will allow the pressure to motivate him, while the female will attempt to escape. If this is true (and I freely admit it may not be), the opposite may occur domestically. Personally, I'd rather spend a 12-hour day "at the office" than spend eight cooking, washing, cleaning, child wrangling, etc.
2. My wife worked at a company that was, indeed, sexist. There were multiple instances of this, although it was mostly irritating rather than soul-destroying. At one point when we were discussing whether she should move on, I asked what she wanted. "To be treated as one guy treats another", she replied. I responded, "Machiavelli wrote a book on how guys should treat each other 'in the workplace'. Is that really what you want?" That turned the lightbulb on. In the end, she made the correct call and left, but she was no longer suffering from the effects of wearing rose-tinted glasses. I would not be surprised (although, again, I could be flat out wrong about this) if one reason for what's being reported in TFA is that women just don't enjoy working in a social setting where male rules of interaction dominate. I can't say that I blame them at times. But the male perspective has its advantages -- I've worked with female professors who are unable to distinguish between students who should go forward and students who should be encouraged to change their major. This is especially an issue when a bad student is an elementary education major.
Has anyone else had similar experiences?
"But there's a nice unexamined assumption in your post: Why the fuck aren't the men taking parental leave or caring for the children?"
Well, some of us are. At my current position at least 3 top male engineers have taken time off to care for their wives and newborn children.
This is well regarded and considered a given for women, but there is still palpable prejudice against men doing the same.
In my particular case, I even got a direct ridiculing, sneering comment from a female co-worker,
along the lines of "you must be the next winner of the most dedicated father of the year award".
This kind of sexism against men, specially in highly technical disciplines goes often "unnoticed" by the same
journalists who relentlessly lament how "poorly" women fare in the workplace.
My dad had me working on cars before I was old enough to drive, and I've never stopped working on them, so 20-some years later, I can fix just about anything. When I have to take a car in for work, I'm a wonderful customer. "I need this done. Here's the parts, just put them in." And, I've done both arc and gas welding.
I've been rebuilding small engines lately as something to do. Being that I live down in the land of hurricanes, I've been picking up a few generators that are "broken", and fixing and/or upgrading them. The one I'm keeping, I decided it was too loud, so I picked up a cheap mapp/oxygen torch (bought by a friend in exchange for fixing their car). It's nice what a cheap car muffler and a bit of welding will do to the noise output of a cheap generator.
I'm just waiting for the first hurricane to hit. No one cares to buy a generator until the day before a storm hits, then it's "OH MY GOD, I NEED A GENERATOR!" :)
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.