What do we need to change to attract more women into IT
A critical area of focus is on adolescent girls.
- Educators should focus on what is wrong with the computing culture and how to change it rather than on why girls don't like technology. Educators must also focus on teaching girls complex technology skills beyond the traditional word processing and presentation tools
- Girls are influenced against technology at an early age by computer games that are designed and marketed toward boys. These games are violent and often boring. They are not attractive to girls, who want games that are more interactive, engaging, and creative.
Once we do engage women and attract them to the profession, we need to keep them. The hiring organisations have a responsibility, as do the women themselves.
- As women, we need to take personal responsibility for making change. We need to take the best practices that men have developed and learn to make them work for us in our own way. Take networking as an example. Men spend more time networking to further their careers. Women network too, but we tend to network with people whom we like and who share our value systems. We need to retain those aspects of our networking but incorporate this style into the business world.
- Women must mentor other women. We must help them learn early what it took us years to learn, and we must find as many ways as possible to share what we know.
Organisations can contribute by putting reasonable work and family programs in place. Practices such as telecommuting and flextime help everyone achieve balance.
- Women often do carry extra family burdens, and managers can help by supporting creative scheduling. Several years ago, when I was programming and raising children, my manager let me leave early to care for my children and then return to work after the children were in bed and finish my hours. This was very innovative at the time.
- Work/life balance will always be a challenge, and it is up to us to keep working on better ways to achieve it.
Why do some women prevail and others do not?
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.