Hi, I'm the author and I've written a follow-up post on this topic - One simple suggestion to encourage more women into IT http://trishkhoo.com/2013/05/one-simple-suggestion-to-encour...
- Trish Khoo
I knew exactly how she felt
291–294 of 294 posts
Re: I knew exactly how she felt
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 15 years ago, I would not have said software developers, software engineers, or test engineers were part of IT. IT was that department that kept the corporate computers working and worked for the CFO, not part of the department that shipped products and worked for the VP Engineering. When I worked for an enterprise software company close to 15 years ago, there was clear recognition of both IT-as-internal-organizati…
> (This shouldn't be surprising, since IT-as-industry is effectively just the outsourced version of IT-as-internal-organization.) You're right. I've never thought of writing the software for a self-driving car as the outsourced version of configuring Active Directory for IE7, but when you put it that way it seems so obvious!
> > (This shouldn't be surprising, since IT-as-industry is effectively just the outsourced version of IT-as-internal-organization.)
> You're right. I've never thought of writing the software for a self-driving car as the outsourced version of configuring Active Directory for IE7, but when you put it that way it seems so obvious!
"Configuring Active Directory for IE7" is only (in some organizations) what is left for the internal IT organization to handle because they've outsourced the rest (like "implementing operating systems, web browsers, etc.") to other firms in the IT industry, whether via purchasing COTS products to meet common requirements or by having custom development done by contractors to fill less-common requirements.
Re: I knew exactly how she felt
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many women not being interested in the field is not a _cause_ of the male-oriented tech culture; it's a symptom (although it is self-perpetuating) The idea that 'most women just aren't interested in the field' because they're women, and not because the male-dominated culture _makes_ most women uninterested in the field, is harmful. Making that statement on a male-dominated community site perpetuates and constructs th…
> The idea that 'most women just aren't interested in the field' because they're women, and not because the male-dominated culture _makes_ most women uninterested in the field, is harmful. I suspect that most women aren't interested in the field the same reason most men aren't. Despite how interesting it is to those of us -- women and men -- who have chosen the field, the fact is that most people just don't see (or s…
The language I used was not clear.
most women are not interested in the field because most people aren't interested in the field.
I was speaking more towards the fact that less women go into STEM than basically any other major field.
Suggesting that it could be because of actual sex differences is ignorant and totally preposterous.
The hypotheses that a) the culture is male-dominated[1] and b)that the gap is due to that culture is well supported by sociological research.
[1]http://scholar.google.com/scholar_url?hl=en&q=http://onl...
Re: I knew exactly how she felt
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many women not being interested in the field is not a _cause_ of the male-oriented tech culture; it's a symptom (although it is self-perpetuating) The idea that 'most women just aren't interested in the field' because they're women, and not because the male-dominated culture _makes_ most women uninterested in the field, is harmful. Making that statement on a male-dominated community site perpetuates and constructs th…
I do not think what the field do about the internal culture matters since women are discouraged long before they have any encounters with the IT industry. The internal culture rarely matters for the outward appearance. What we instead should do is focus on schools and activities for young women interesting din technology.
I think that both are issues, and that dismissing the internal culture because external discouragement exists is counter-productive.