Slashdot Mirror


Women Still Underrepresented in Information Security (betanews.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Women make up only 11 percent of the cyber security workforce according to the latest report from the Center for Cyber Safety and Education and the Executive Women's Forum (EWF). The survey of more than 19,000 participants around the world finds that women have higher levels of education than men, with 51 percent holding a master's degree or higher, compared to 45 percent of men. Yet despite out qualifying them, women in cybersecurity earned less than men at every level and the wage gap shows very little signs of improvement. Men are four times more likely to hold C and executive level positions, and nine times more likely to hold managerial positions than women, globally. More worrying is that 51 percent of women report encountering one or more forms of discrimination in the cybersecurity workforce. In the Western world, discrimination becomes far more prevalent the higher a woman rises in an organization.

26 of 374 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...garbage disposal and off-shore drilling too! Come on women, WTF!

    1. Re:Yeah... by sycodon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What is with these SJW's incessant push to make sexes equally represented in ALL industries???

      There will be more women in some industries and more men in some industries.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
    2. Re:Yeah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well.. in the early days of computing, it was a field dominated by women. So it's not that they can't do the job; we know, intellectually, women are more than adequate for IT. The question becomes: why did women fall out of IT/Programming roles?

      Or maybe the question is, why do women tend to choose other careers, and how can we force them to choose things they don't want to choose just so things will be "equal"?

    3. Re:Yeah... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ...it was a field dominated by women

      Sorta. Women in programming were basically computers, had to be good in math but
      able to handle really, really redundant and repetitive computational calculation tasks. It
      was basically a secretarial pool. Over the years that reality has been exaggerated to make
      it appear as it was a female dominated industry at first; and it, sadly, was not. That's not to
      say there weren't brilliant and capable girls, but that's the historical reality. It was probably
      a slightly cleaner job than being a conventional secretary, but that's how it was.

      Now there were a few who really rose to the top and actually did software design and execution,
      but they were definitely the minority of them, but those who did really made their mark and
      will be remembered for their contribution and achievement in the field.

      IMHO, these types of stories really detract from genuine female pioneers in the programming field.

      CAP === 'presence'

    4. Re:Yeah... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I will now wait for you to strike down upon me with great vengeance and furious anger

      No, you post is just bland stupidity. It's not enough to invoke hugely strong emotions. The best you'll get is a very mildly dispairing sigh followed by a slight head shake. It will soon be fogotten, save to add another grain of sand to the huge pile of asshat on the internet.

      --
      SJW n. One who posts facts.
  2. Enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Shut the fuck up already. If there are fewer women it's because fewer of them are interested not because evil men want to keep them out.

    1. Re:Enough by BlueCoder · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Correct.

      IT and engineering in general is an anti social interest. The best people in the industry are very independent and highly socially deficient if not emotionally deficient. Being on light on the autism spectrum is actually a job qualification.

      Women simply are predominantly more social and less aggressive. Women are suited for IT management. The fewer women that are doing it the fewer women that want to do it.

  3. This is old territory... by Frosty+Piss · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yet despite out qualifying them, women in cybersecurity earned less than men at every level and the wage gap shows very little signs of improvement.

    Hereâ(TM)s an idea I'd like to float, something that I've never heard considered before: Perhaps there simply isn't a legion of women who want to work in the cybersecurity world?

    --
    If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
    1. Re:This is old territory... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Only 0.3% of dry wall installers are women. We need more female drywall installers! Over 95% of office assistants are women. We need more male office assistants!

  4. And the outrage clickbait by waspleg · · Score: 3, Insightful

    continues unabated.

  5. Pushing towards any different than pushing away? by drnb · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Don't women get a say? Must they be 50/51% of every field? Maybe pushing women towards a particular field is no better than pushing them away from a particular field. Remove any barriers but let them choose. Maybe some fields are not inherently interesting, we have evolved to have different capabilities and perspectives. If this results in preferences so be it. Let people do what they prefer.

  6. questionable study by gravewax · · Score: 3, Insightful

    comparing education levels and pay in cybersecurity makes me immediately question this studies conclusions. Anyone working in this industry will be aware that beyond your first job interview your degrees mean less than nothing. Experience and industry knowledge is what earns pay levels in cybersecurity and I am not aware of any of my female colleagues that get paid less for the same job.

  7. Individual Choice by jimmifett · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not all ppl, let alone girls, are capable of IT related jobs, especially security. For most individuals, a career in IT comes from a passion about tech at a young age. If a child is not passionate about some aspect of IT, no amount of funding of gender discriminating STEM programs is going to entice someone into the field.

  8. So what? by JustNiz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    >> Women make up only 11 percent of the cyber security workforce

    So what? Thats called FREEDOM TO CHOOSE. Everything shows that's actually by their choice, partly because women are just not mentally as suited as men are to doing jobs like programming.
    https://www.netnanny.com/learn...

    If you're gonna get up in arms about numeric gender equality, you should be more bothered about why only 9% of nurses are men. Yeah thought not.
    http://www.beckershospitalrevi...

  9. Possibly not the cause you think it is by NotARealUser · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I remember having a conversation with a woman tech executive at a very large company. She told me that she has done everything in her power to attract women into the field and specifically into their workplace. Yet, she was unable to break through this imbalance. And this was the top tech exec at the company and she said they just could not maintain the levels of females in the workforce in their company that she wanted. It was, in fact, far, far, below the levels she wanted.

    After being in the tech industry for years, I can honestly say that I really do not encounter the implied institutional discrimination in the tech industry. Is there an imbalance in representation? Yes. However, I feel like these imbalances are indicators of other things. It could be cultural things. It could be something else. Maybe even in specific companies, there is a problem. But I feel like these statistics are more of indicators of some other cause than discrimination within the tech industry as a whole.

  10. If we had unions to fight for work-life / family t by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If we had unions to fight for work-life / family time in IT jobs! then would we be having this talk?

  11. Re:Pushing towards any different than pushing away by TimothyHollins · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Letting women choose as individuals would run contrary to modern feminism where women must exist only as representatives of the group.

  12. Bull fucking shit by PeeAitchPee · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If women were really cheaper, companies would be hiring them in droves to reduce cost.

  13. Not just that by s.petry · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Women are obtaining 61% of the Masters degrees in the US, the majority of which are NOT STEM RELATED! A PoliSci degree does no good for IT, let alone a specialty like IT Security. Can I take my 4 year Mathematics degree and instantly work in the Medical field? How about being a Sociologist? Journalist?

    Once again we have pure propaganda creating a false narrative with a single fact where hundreds would need to be analyzed. Do sane people actually have to contemplate why many people call "Leftism" a mental disease?

    --

    -The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.

  14. Ah, the 1:1 fallacy by Chas · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Sorry, but any job category that has an actual 1:1 male:female ratio is a statistical fluke. Period.

    If women want better representation in a given field, the jobs are there. They simply need to have the qualifications to earn them.

    And "has a penis" isn't among the qualifications.

    Women have equality of opportunity in this country.
    But that's not enough for some. They want equality of outcome. Regardless of how stupid the idea is.

    In short, anyone, man, woman, any of the umpty-zillion and one self-defined whatevers, if they believe in equality of outcome over equality of opportunity, please do humanity a favor and make sure these people never breed.

    The human race is already collectively stupid enough as it is...

    --


    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!
    1. Re:Ah, the 1:1 fallacy by Thelasko · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Women have equality of opportunity in this country. But that's not enough for some. They want equality of outcome.

      If women have equality of opportunity, then with a large enough sample size, why don't you expect an equal outcome?

      --
      One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  15. Those tired old lies again... by gweihir · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Women earn about the same for the same work. Deviations are below 5% and it is unclear whom the favor, as this is below the margin of error of such studies. Women are generally not "higher qualified" than men, even if they have more degrees in absolute terms. There are degrees that are easy to get and those that are a lot harder to get. Women have more of the former than men. This whole thing is just a specific type of women trying to make it easy for themselves and get things for free.

    That said, these claims just show one thing: It is easy to lie with numbers if you just leave the right bits out. And it shows that people with an agenda like this one are not above lying.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  16. Re:Few in numbers but kick ass as leaders.. by gweihir · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This piece of fake news is not about those women. Those women compete on merit and do not need anything given to them for free because they happen to be female. I know quite a few women engineers and scientists in the same class. No, this news is about a type of woman that wants a high salary and a leadership positions solely because she happens to be a women.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  17. Re:If we had unions to fight for work-life / famil by jimmifett · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A very large number of IT ppl would never join a union, because they have analytical minds and can see the pointlessness of giving a chunk of their paycheck to a group that only claims to look out for them, but instead makes themselves comfortable.

    A lot of IT ppl believe in meritocracy, not socialism, and would rather avoid the industry destruction they've seen in the automotive market. Bad enough when an incompetent manager is kept around to lead a group, worse still when you can't shake off an incompetent team member skating by bc unions.

  18. Re:Pushing towards any different than pushing away by Thelasko · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Letting women choose as individuals would run contrary to modern feminism where women must exist only as representatives of the group.

    It also runs contrary to modern statistics. The data suggests that women as a statistical group have different career experiences than men. The question is why?
    Do women have different capabilities? Why?
    Do women have different preferences? Why?
    Are women given fewer opportunities?

    We have seen these stories over and over, but we haven't seen answers to these questions.

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  19. Re:Why is "they don't want to" not accepted? by Grishnakh · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think part of it is because women are smarter than men. Honestly, look at the work environments that we men in IT/programming have to put up with; there's another article here on /. just above about how shitty open offices are. Why would a woman want to go into this profession? The work environment sucks, the coworkers suck, the stability sucks, the tools and technology suck, etc. There's lots of better careers out there for them. These jobs are *especially* bad when you think about the demands of having children, as many women do.

    My girlfriend, by contrast, works in legal. She has a (get this) *office*. Not an open-plan office, but a real office to herself so she can concentrate and get work done. Apparently, this is just beyond imagining for IT/programming companies. But in legal, it's perfectly normal. Other women I've dated in legal fields were the same; they all have offices. And they have lots of job stability too.

    Face it, this industry just sucks, especially for women. It's no surprise women are avoiding it these days (it wasn't always this way). One female tech exec trying to bring in more women isn't going to make a dent, because she alone doesn't control the culture across companies in this industry, and reputation is something that takes forever to improve once it's been dragged through the mud, and here it's not just one company's reputation, it's the entire industry's.