Within an overall workforce comprising over 50 percent women, only 20 percent of the IT workforce is female, and an even smaller portion of CIOs is female. Something definitely appears to be wrong with this picture.
It has been clearly demonstrated that many women bring valuable skills to IT organisations. Moving into the new millennium, companies that can learn to recruit, develop, and retain women CIOs and managers will be far ahead of the others. How can we better tap this vast resource? I explore this issue in detail, based on my real-life experiences as a CIO as well as the experiences of others. In this article, I'll discuss some possible answers to questions such as:
- Why IT is unfriendly to women?
- What IT is really losing by limiting women in the workforce?
- How IT can change to attract and retain more women?
- Why some women have been successful despite the constraints and limitations?
- How can we learn from the experiences of other women CIOs?
While women appear to face some unique issues, many of these issues arise from common problems that all CIOs face — man or women, young or old. This article highlights the importance of looking at common issues from different perspectives. Successful CIOs do this every day.
Why single out a particular group of CIOs?
According to a study by the US Department of Labor Women's Bureau, women receive only 9 percent of engineering-related bachelor's degrees and fewer than 28 percent of computer science bachelor's degrees. This represents a decline of 37 percent over the past 20 years. Several other recent surveys indicate that few women become CIOs because the lifestyle and the work environment are unfriendly to women.
Women CIOs have success stories, but the truth is that most people — including those in our own profession — don't hear about them or seem to care.
My belief is that it is important to take a closer look at why IT is unfriendly to women, what IT is losing by remaining unfriendly, what we can do about it, and most importantly, to highlight the attributes of those women who, in spite of all this, have been successful.
Talkback
RE the statement "Moving into the new millennium, companies that can learn to recruit, develop, and retain women CIOs and managers will be far ahead of the others."
Why? Are you saying that Females in these roles are superior to Men of the equivelant education and experience?
Surely with any job these days, and certainly in any company I've worked in, the best person gets it regardless of Gender. I've worked under a female IT manager, and I'm related to one, so perhaps it's more about a lack of female desire to be a CIO than any perceived barriers.
Regardless, the statement made by the author is ridiculous.
I can't help thinking the reason IT is dominated by men is juts simply because computers and the like are just more attractive to men (generally). It has been said that women are more social beings than men and IT can, in some sectors, be very unsociable work.
I am sure it is a point that has been raised already but in trying to attract women to *certain* roles in IT we may, in certain cases, be trying to push square pegs into round holes.
There are many roles in IT which benefit from female input but let's not try to force an issue on misguided notions of sexism when it could really be a simple matter of people gravitating to roles/jobs they enjoy and are more suited to.