I’ve been thinking a lot about sex gender. While I’ve never encountered any glass ceilings because I’m a girl…the recent discussions (boys clubs , man whitey & sexist goes to alaska) about “where are the women of the web” got me to thinking. What are the statistics for women in the high tech field?
When I look around my work place (University of Texas at Austin, Information Technology), I see more women than men. In fact, my current team (web technology team) used to have only one guy…and we jokingly called ourselves “the harem”.
According to the US Department of Labor’s report on Women in High Tech Jobs, in 2001, 30 percent of computer systems analysts, engineers, and scientists were women. In addition, 25 percent of computer programmers were women. By comparison, among all other engineering specialties, women represented fewer than 11 percent. So, in my eyes, girls are making wonderful progess in high tech careers and being the optimist that I am, I expect this trend to continue.
But it does take more than optimism to make progress. I personally believe the keys to appropriately increasing the numbers of women in the high tech field are as follows:
- Early empowerment in school – encourage all children to develop their skills in mathematics, science and technology. A great example of a program geared for girls in Austin is GirlStart.
- Role models – provide positive role models that inspire any child with the ability to pursue their dreams.
- Focus on Ability, Talent and Quality Results.
Because when it gets right down to it…it doesn’t matter a bit what equipment we have below the belt (at least when it comes to getting things accomplished on the web). What matters is the quality of your braincells and your ability to “make it so”.
Thanks Glenda, for your always wonderfully positive perspective. We are making progress, and the web has so much potential to break down these barriers, that it’s hard for me to not point out issues when I see them. I mean, they could potentially disappear overnight with the reaction time and good vibes this community puts out.
Things I have learned: 1) never assume your posts aren’t read, 2) one post can cause a lot of good discussion, 3) John Oxton rocks, 4) it’s easy to seem accusatory in writing.
Thanks for the facts Glenda. Good to know that women are making some headway.
Glad to have found your blog, I always get excited when I find a blog/site run by a woman. :o)
~Rea
Rea, your comment got me to wondering. Would there be more women blogging if weblogs were part of high school and college.
‘Why aren’t more women promoting themselves harder in the web design community?’
And…if they are not – what are they doing instead?
There’s no gender-orientation in regards to how good a web-site is made…or how someone promotes themselves online.
I would love to see more women web designers achieve the success of their male associates. Are enough women bothered about it though?
Ask any woman in public about this topic – and you (as web designers yourselves) would probably be disappointed with their lack of enthusiasm. It’s that very level of ‘enthusiasm’ that forced women’s rights issues in the past…because women cared about it.
If there aren’t enough women web-designers anyway – then that is the real issue that would need to be addressed…and not ‘why aren’t there more successful ones?’
The web-design community shares a lot of similarities with other IT industries – software development, tech-support, and data-management roles are all under-represented by women.
So whatever is effecting the success of women in web-design is also effecting women in other IT industries….and no, I don’t think it is as simple as to point the finger at men, and say ‘oh, there’s more of them – so it’s their fault!’
I’m sure you’ll agree it is a combination of factors.
Thankyou for reading my post – I wish you all the best with your web-designs, you are all wonderfully creative and gifted! :)
Glenda, I honestly think there would be. Maybe not so much in the high school level (as there are many young, aspiring designers in that age range) but more so at the college level. I think that if there was a course/workshop/etc. that delved into web design/blogging and such, more women would be into it. I know that of my peers, I am one of the very few (if not the only one) women who are into web design and learning about blogging, standards, accesiblity, etc. So in all chance, I would say that if it was something that was focused on early on, there would be more women bloggers/web designers.
whew…I hope that all made sense.
Oh and Matt, I don’t really think it is about pointing fingers at men and saying it’s their fault. It’s more about pointing fingers at women and saying “oh we need more women!”
~Rea
Rea: “Oh and Matt, I don’t really think it is about pointing fingers at men and saying it’s their fault.”
*coughs*
My words were: …”and no, I don’t think it is as simple as to point the finger at men, and say ‘oh, there’s more of them – so it’s their fault!’”
That’s what I said!
Rea: ….”It’s more about pointing fingers at women and saying “oh we need more women!â€
Exactly!
Raising the question – ‘why isn’t this happening?’
As your figures show, there are plenty of women out there. The problem is, those of us who have never hit that “glass ceiling” don’t think of ourselves as anything special, and historically rarely speak out on gender issues.
What this means is that the viewpoint of women seeking technological advancement that gets publicized is the whining about unfairness. Pointing fingers at women and saying they need to get in there isn’t the answer either, however. People should do what they want to do, and more importantly what they’re good at. Forcing women into technology when they aren’t suited for it to meet a quota is as counter productive as forcing them out of it for having the wrong “equipment below the belt”, and is equally harmful in the long run as incompetent women pretending to technical competence only help support the stereotypes of women as incapable of handling technology.
Role models are very important. A good first step would be to quit telling our daughters they’re princess and cute little ballerinas, and start from an early age telling them they’re competent human beings who could run the world if they want to, study hard, and learn well.
Matt, I’m so sorry! I completely misread your comment there. Sorry! :)
My personal experience tells me that I’m the master of my fate. When I hit brick walls (not glass ceilings), it is my responsibility to figure out what to do next.
I wonder if the successful folks on the web are the more resilient. So in addition to making sure all kids have access to technical training, I think we need to add resilience training. Our culture of instant gratification can be detrimental to “if at first you don’t succeeed, try, try again”.
You got me thinking (which only really happens every few days,) as you mention, there aren’t that many women in tech, yet most of those you work with are. What’s the cause?
Is it because women attract other women?
Is it because women prefer working in an academic setting? If this is the case, it might be worth noting and paying attention to since such jobs pay less and may offer less mobility on average relative to industry jobs. Women might end up catching up on numbers but not in other categories. (Of course other nice things result from taking a university job, but that stuff doesn’t make it to the news like salary does.)
Rea: That’s okay….thanks for saying sorry (although you didn’t need to) :)
Just thought I’d say that I made a post about this on my blog. It’s more of “does anyone have an idea of what to do?” type of post. :)
http://blog.letmefall.com/?p=40
Check out this awesome post by SQurl When did gender become a qualification to speaking about technology. You are sooooo on the mark!
In reference to earlier instruction of technology and weblogging, you might be interested in the ATDP summer program at Berkeley, which my friend Lloyd works on. It isn’t gender-specific, but he works with kids (boys and girls) from 12-13 all the way up to high school age. They learn XHTML, CSS, and standards-compliance, and they start writing weblogs on the topics of their choice. His summer program is getting underway. See l.editthispage.com to see the program in progress.
From the film, television, web and mass media to the video gaming industry, there are numerous women out there who pursue their passions despite the lack of exposure. Maybe what it takes for more of us to get out into the limelight is to pull a Mulan kind of stunt and pretend to be men…
But what do I know? I was raised to be a good lawyer/doctor/businesswoman, but instead I’m doing untraditional, unorthodox things like IT and web design!