Women in Tech

[SimonMac]

Just listened to a podcast on how to get women in tech (four hour drive and I ran our of episodes of The Archers) and while in principle the theory is a good one, its utter bollocks to listen to, a group of angry feminists saying we need to get women in tech because things are done better when not an all male environment, but without explaining why things are done better when not an all male environment.

One of the over arching themes was that women, are steered into not tech roles with in IT (Product Owners, Project Managers etc) so wanted to know what the split was here, not gonna define what classes as a tech role, will leave that to yourself to define (I know some Test Monkeys think of themselves as tecies, while others just think they press buttons and make reports)

Poll to follow

[Mich the Tester]

Just listened to a podcast on how to get women in tech (four hour drive and I ran our of episodes of The Archers) and while in principle the theory is a good one, its utter bollocks to listen to, a group of angry feminists saying we need to get women in tech because things are done better when not an all male environment, but without explaining why things are done better when not an all male environment.

One of the over arching themes was that women, are steered into not tech roles with in IT (Product Owners, Project Managers etc) so wanted to know what the split was here, not gonna define what classes as a tech role, will leave that to yourself to define (I know some Test Monkeys think of themselves as tecies, while others just think they press buttons and make reports)

Poll to follow

So why didn't you give us a dedicated test monkey poll option? What's a 'tecie'?

Poll fail 2/10
Must do better.

[Dominic Connor]

Just listened to a podcast on how to get women in tech (four hour drive and I ran our of episodes of The Archers) and while in principle the theory is a good one, its utter bollocks to listen to, a group of angry feminists saying we need to get women in tech because things are done better when not an all male environment, but without explaining why things are done better when not an all male environment
Poll to follow

I'm writing a pair of articles for The Register with working titles of "Why women shouldn't do IT" and "Why they should"

My personal position is the same as my C++ compiler (we agree on politics too), neither of us really care whether the person writing the code is wearing a skirt, if it's tulip, it's tulip, ditto good.

I've never seen any evidence that the sex mix of a group of ITPros has any positive or negative effect on what they deliver, though I have a strong piece of negative data.

If you look at any 10 news items saying "women are better than men at X" or "men are better than women at Y", I'd bet good money all 10 say this about the women. I can believe on average women may be better at many things than the average man, it may be the case that there are more measurable things that women average better ability with.

But when I see uniformity like that it's clearly biased and does rather beg the question of why if they are better than us 10 out 10 times they are measured they get away with claiming that men run the world ?

So if there was a case the sex mix affected the quality of IT in any way that could possibly look good for women, I'd have expected it to be shoved down my throat, the silence is deafening, even if that is far short of any proof.

I have found abject sexism in schools, resources are taken away from coloured working class boys and given to middle class white girls in the form of "girls only" computer clubs etc. This sexism and racism goes all the way through, a recent large article in the Times talked about the lack of diversity in UK boardrooms and illustrated it with 4 blonde middle class women, one of which had a hyphen in her name.


Although I don't care how many women do IT, not preferring 50% or 5%, IT would be a better choice for girls instead of the tulip they choose, frankly I can see a case for not letting girls choose their careers at all.

That's a strong statement and I have the data to back it up.
First look at the degrees girls choose, note I say "girls" because you choose your degree before 18 and you self indulgence and unrealistic expectations based upon both inadequate research and gullibility of girls. For whatever reason, they fall for the lies of modern language teachers that they qualify you for anything other than a secretary or a spy and since French is the most common language in UK schools you have to ask yourself how many agents MI6 really needs in Paris and Quebec.

However I have a really good algorithm for avoiding a crap job, women are the mining canaries of the job market, the more women do a job the worse it is, the lower the pay and the worse you are treated.

It's especially bad in the media, but the gap in pay for IT work is one of the very lowest in any major line of work (I recall vets are reasonably even, but sticking your hand up a cows bum isn't a mass market activity)

[TheFaQQer]

Hybrid functional / technical role.

Current role is mostly technical, with a little functional thrown in. In the past, it's been 100% technical, and in some projects 100% functional.

I'm not fussy as long as the rate is right.

[vetran]

i would suggest the vast majority of women don't find Coding or technical subjects very interesting. My experience is that they prefer the organising, communicating and managing they are also frequently much better at that.

My sisters are both very clever but went into Finance & documentation rather than raw tech. My Brother joined me in IT.

They also have seen the commercialisation of IT and figured out they can do fewer hours in other jobs. They are still by default the main carers. My wife has many times lost me to a crashed server or a knee jerk project, someone has to look after the kids.

[vetran]

The thing with women in the Board room is that most of the existing incumbents need to die off or retire first as most of them are likely to be at less than 50 years old if they started a career in computers then its dead man's shoes. The female in IT drive is about a decade old.

You might as well bemoan sexist selection in the Chelsea pensioners its due to history!

Chelsea pensioner - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of course you can comment on Carly Fiorona

Carly Fiorina - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A management trainee not an IT qualified person. How many CIO's are truly IT geeks or are we suffering the Jen from IT crowd situation? (a woman who knew little about computers put in charge of the geeks because she fitted 'the management profile'.) Many senior managers I have known are moved across from Sales / Accounts because 'any fool can manage IT'.

possibly the problem is not enough geek women in IT boardrooms but not enough women in any boardroom?


your rule of thumb should prick the commentards.

[mudskipper]

I have observed a correlation between women who work in IT and women who drink pints.

Most of the IT laydees I know drink pints in the pub. Very few of the non IT ladies I know drink pints (I honestly can't think of any, but I'm sure I must know some).

So, to get women into IT, get them drinking pints.

(There is a serious point somewhere in this post I think)

[SimonMac]

I have observed a correlation between women who work in IT and women who drink pints.

Most of the IT laydees I know drink pints in the pub. Very few of the non IT ladies I know drink pints (I honestly can't think of any, but I'm sure I must know some).

So, to get women into IT, get them drinking pints.

(There is a serious point somewhere in this post I think)

One of the points in the podcast was that when a women joined a dev team, the meeting was always Beer and Pizza, I am sorry but if a team is working late into the night odds are its going to be hard to find a deli salad bar that delivers

[dmini]

There are very few women in my field (server support) - I've only ever worked with a handful over the last 8 years. Probably mainly due to hours required on regular occasions, and stresses of the environment. . The other reasons - sexism (blatant & open or otherwise) - I've been told I have to be far better than any man in the same role to be listened to, I have worked in some horrendous environments with regards to the conversations going on around me, I have had project managers walk into a room, see there are only female server engineers there, rather than the male ones and walk out, and people get all stressed because the senior techie is female. All those examples come from different work places as a contractor
I enjoy the work, but it can get "interesting" at times. Maybe if there were more women, especially at the upper end of server support it would be less of an issue.

[mudskipper]

One of the points in the podcast was that when a women joined a dev team, the meeting was always Beer and Pizza, I am sorry but if a team is working late into the night odds are its going to be hard to find a deli salad bar that delivers

So a laddish environment might be a turn off for some women? Well I never...