Could a Change In Wording Attract More Women To Infosec? (csoonline.com)

itwbennett writes: "Information security is an endeavor that is frequently described in terms of war," writes Lysa Myers. "But what would the gender balance of this industry be like if we used more terms from other disciplines?" Just 14 percent of U.S. federal government personnel in cybersecurity specialties are women, a number startlingly close to the 14.5 percent of active duty military members who are women (at least as of 2013). By comparison, women are well represented in other STEM fields: "As of 2011, women earn 60 percent of bachelor-level biology degrees. Women also earn between 40 and 50 percent of chemistry, mathematics and statistics, and Earth sciences undergraduate degrees," writes Myers. Why the difference? Myers points to a comment from someone who taught a GenCyber camp for girls: "He found that one effective way to get girls to feel passionate about security was to create an emotional connection with the subject: e.g. the shock and distress of seeing your drone hacked or your password exposed," writes Myers.

Comments

Speechless

[Elledan]

As a (female) senior developer my only response to the summary was a stunned 'WTH'. Now I'm certain this is a The Onion article... *checks*

Re:Speechless

[rwa2]

Eh, as a male dev who ran 3000 miles away from the defense-industrial complex surrounding the Washington DC partly because of the terminology (though the actual "warfighters" I worked with were the most remarkable people with awesome life stories), I have to admit that just about all of our security officers I've reported to over the decades were women. To the point where I believed the ISSO was the new pigeonhole to stash any and (and almost every) female employee.

My soviet-raised wife always laughs at all these equality efforts and doublespeak here. Both her grandparents were naval engineers (they met in University where degree programs were assigned to students by lottery to fill military quotas for WWII). Her great-grandmother had a doctorate back when women in the West were still being eclipsed and ignored by their male counterparts. Maybe someday the pendulum in the US will swing far enough that we'll be where the Russians were in the 80s with regards to gender balance in the workplace.

Re:Speechless

[AmiMoJo]

I wish the editors would edit these summaries. The story is interesting but the summary is flamebait. Someone trying to undermine efforts to get more diversity in tech on ideological grounds, and twisting articles to suit their views on the (correct) assumption that most people don't read them.

Re:Speechless

[BarbaraHudson]

Ah. You must have a penis.

These stories are important to people that don't. Maybe.

These articles perpetuate the paternalistic stereotype that men have to help women do what they want to do, and if the women aren't doing it, it's because they're too ignorant to know what's best for them. And that the careers women choose to go into are somehow of lesser value.

One of the premises of the article:

Among the findings, the authors of the report found that in the U.S., 67 percent of men and 77 percent of women said no high school teacher or career counselor ever mentioned the idea of a cyber security career.

... means absolutely nothing. Kids in high school don't get told about the possibility of a career as a veterinarian, underwater welder, garbageman, town councilor or mayor, crop duster, backhoe or hydraulic shovel operator, etc. And yet, there are people working in all these jobs. You're not going to discuss a career in information security with your English teacher, and how many people even talk to a career counselor in high school? Mostly just the ones who are obviously not going on to higher education and will probably drop out of high school.

Yet another study trying to force on women that we can't make our own career choices because we don't know what to do. Statistics say otherwise - more women than men are going into professional careers, just like more women than men are getting degrees.

Yes, becaue women are bundles of unbridled emotion

[JoeyRox]

I'm the furthest thing from an SJW but could this be any more insulting toward women?

Wording, really?!

[holophrastic]

A sensitive bunch, to be sure. Perhaps, if a group isn't interested in a subject, just maybe you shouldn't try to con them into it? There's nothing wrong with someone being disinterested in something.

In other words...

[halivar]

"We could attract more women to infosec if we fool them into thinking it's not really infosec." Guys, Dice, get it through your thick skulls: the ladies just aren't into you. Accept their decision and move on.

Re:Yes, becaue women are bundles of unbridled emot

[neoritter]

An SJW would actually promote this tactic. There was an article from CNNMoney a year ago that honestly said that we'd have more women going for IT jobs if we changed the wording of the job description. For instance use cooperative instead of competitive. Or don't use hard work in the description.

A better question

[Crashmarik]

Could a change in wording repel the parasites trying to turn software development into a political football ?

Re:Yes, becaue women are bundles of unbridled emot

[Anonymous Coward]

Something I've noticed is that the SJW diversity push is effectively pushing skilled women (and skilled minorities, for that matter) OUT of tech.

Partly it's because it's become a self-fulfilling prophecy that "women don't do tech." Where as before a technically inclined woman would do the same things that technically inclined men do, now they've been taught by SJWs that they "aren't welcome in tech" no matter what they experience. So they just don't enter because they've been told again and again that they're not welcome, without realizing that the people telling them that don't even work in tech in the first place.

It also means that where before, people knew a woman in tech was there because she had earned the job, now you have to wonder if she's a "diversity hire" who's there not because she was the best for the job but because she allowed the company to check off "employs women" on the SJW score-card.

I've seen women actively leave where I work not because they didn't enjoy the job but because my employer has started doing this whole "encourage women in STEM" thing and all they've really accomplished is crapping all over the accomplishments of the women who work there. They're no longer "the best in the field" they're now "the best women we could find." Turns out being told "you're only here 'cause you're a woman" is really demoralizing to technically skilled women.

And so now, they're leaving the field entirely, giving SJWs even more to whine about.

Re:What did they do for science

[JustNiz]

More to the point, what are they doing to fix this terrible gender imbalance and attract more men into Biology degrees?

Re:Yes, becaue women are bundles of unbridled emot

[lgw]

I find the whole concept of Penis-and-Vagina Accounting applied to software development insulting toward women. The whole attraction of geeky fields (at least to me) is that they're about your mind, not your body. Do you have the geek mindset? Bright and intellectually curious and fearless? Welcome about. Reducing that to "but how many penis and how many vaginas" soils the field. That aspect shouldn't be important, and focusing on some unimportant aspect of biology is certainly insulting: it's reducing people to their junk.

Re: Yes, becaue women are bundles of unbridled emo

[guruevi]

They already get paid more than men on an absolute level. The statistic used in unfair wages arguments is the estimated lifetime income which tends to be lower for women because they tend to stay home with kids while dad goes to work.

If you hire someone and explicitly pay them less based on gender, you're a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Re:Yes, becaue women are bundles of unbridled emot

[BarbaraHudson]

Brianna Wu is the embodiment of someone who is so voraciously pushing the SJW shtick because she doesn't want people to ever *dare* question her identity.

"The madame doth protest too much", as it were.

And of course, she's been self-promoting, including with a lot of fake claims (like saying she had been forced out of her place by haters when she in fact had signed up months ago to attend a con that day), and bogus drama (OMG they have the picture of where I live!). Like nobody can use google earth ...

Her artwork depicted women as if they had been drawn by an adolescent male (complete with camel toe in one instance which has been removed from the site after I made a bit of a stink about it and her portrayal of women in general).

Fortunately, she does not represent the majority of us. Unfortunately, not everyone will realize that. Even though she won't admit to being trans, she still depends on it to get a free pass from criticism.