Reader Feedback on Why the Number of Women in IT Is Decreasing

Published: January 22, 2007

Last week's story by Mary Lou Roberts, entitled Why the Number of Women in IT Is Decreasing, took on a delicate issue, and explained how the analysts at Gartner were taking a hard look at the issue and offering what might seem like unconventional advice. Roberts is working on a sequel that looks specifically at women in the i5/OS and OS/400 community, which will be published soon.

In the meantime, here's some feedback from readers as well as an interesting link to a radio broadcast I heard last week concerning a new book published on the very issue of being a geek and being a woman, too. Feedback first:

Hello my name is Sonja Bernhardt. I am the innovator behind the Screen Goddess IT Calendar. It wasn't a group in Australia, it was one person (me).

My history is as follows: I have founded various groups, for example, WIT, short for Women in IT, and AWISE, which is for Australian Women in IT and Science Entity. However, the calendar was an effort outside a group. But based on a wealth of knowledge of the real issues gained by eight years of voluntary activity trying everything else--role modeling, mentoring, career guidance, regional tours, board readiness, workshops, etc. The calendar is not the answer; it is part of a solution. We must approach the now long term issue in different ways to get results desired. And the calendar is one different approach.

Also, I fully support flexible work environments where people are valued for delivering results, not hours sighted at an office building. Yes, I agree and also do activities around that.

People who genuinely want to make a difference in this area ought to support the calendar as it carries a significant diversity message. The "models" have diverse careers in IT; their ages age range from 20 through 60 and higher; various ethnicities, hobbies, and body shapes are also represented. The calendar shows women of all ages, races, hobbies, and so forth have one thing in common: a passion for IT. And we now have proof that the calendar has attracted women in IT careers and girls to take up studies--it has worked and in fact overachieved in its objectives except the hard objective of raising funds for not for profit groups to run traditional activities.

Regards,

--Sonja

I think part of the reason for the decline is that there are so many more opportunities for women today.

When I entered the field almost 40 years ago, almost the only careers open to women were teaching, nursing, and banking. Women were found to have very logical minds which also made them suitable for data processing, so that was about the most lucrative career a woman could have then.

--Rebecca

Mary Lou:

Thanks very much for your important and perceptive article today in IT Jungle.

My daughter spurned a career in IT and is about to get her PhD in sociology instead. None of her female schoolmates, at any level, selected IT as a career for the very reasons you and Gartner articulate in the article.

I was so hurt and outraged at the current situation and at the stupidity and backwardness of IT, and those think-tank people who cover IT, that I wrote a book that focuses on eliminating the very geeky technical requirements of corporate programming. Then, I patented an electronic program auditing invention that did eliminate those geeky technical programming requirements. The need to guess, speculate, play "What happened" or "What if this happened" in a programmer's mind is now not only not needed, it is now not desirable. (See www.harkinsaudit.com for more on this.)

Inventions and paradigm changes (like eliminating the manual cranking of a car engine with an electric starter) provide more and better opportunity to all men and women to participate with their intellectual strengths.

Apparently, Gartner can observe and document the IT gender staffing problem, but is unable to conceive of a possible solution (full electronic program auditing) that is already proven and available to solve this problem, and would save tens of billions of dollars annually spent on wasted programmer activities.

Thanks again for showcasing this critical and costly problem.

Best Regards,

--Paul

Editor's note: Last week, as I was working on various IT Jungle newsletters, I heard a broadcast on the local NPR radio station here in New York talking about a new book, called She's Such a Geek!. The book is a collection of essays that were put together by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders, who are hard-core nerds and who gathered up the experiences of other girl geeks to talk about what it is like to be in such a boy-dominated field. You can listen to the broadcast here.

I am buying a copy of the book for my wife and my daughter--both of whom are serious geeks, but lovely, warm, and affectionate, too. I am buying it for me, too, so I can get a better grip on what my wife faced and on what my daughter faces.

--TPM

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Why the Number of Women in IT Is Decreasing

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