Women in IT [modified]
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Recently I've been reading alot about how women in IT are still being predjudiced against - lower salaries, experience bias from men, fewer in positions of power, the usual stories about how women can't seem to make it in a male-dominated industry. Given my own experience in IT, I'm inclined to think that most of this is rubbish as I've found gender to be mostly irrelevant. I've found that hard work, being good at your job and having the confidence to stand your ground carries far more weight than "being a skirt". Am I alone in this thinking?
modified on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 2:15 PM
Those are only thoughts... but I wear the flame suit... (just in case) :rolleyes: In our company we have had several women working in the IT department. Our experience is as good as with men. It is plain stupid to think that they can't do anything... at least in my company they have worked properly and without any difference than men. The only drawback is that when we have to send some operators to set up a machine if the mechanical engineer that we send to the company is a male, then we have to book two rooms if the IT technician its a girl... of course this means more money, but truly this is not the issue... From the company point of view, it can be a problem when they become pregnant as they will have more off days and if they are in a really critical position this situation could become a problem. (This only applies for small companies). So, summarizing, what you describe doesn't happen in my company... In fact, I don't remember where to find it, but I laughed a lot the day that I heard something in the radio like: "there is a prize that consists of 6000€ that will be given to anyone that could demonstrate that a woman in one working position would earn less money than a man in the same place"... So I guess that there are more "politics" behind that kind of comments than anything else...
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Wenff wrote:
women can't seem to make it in a male-dominated industry
This has been traced to the fact that they tend to work less hours over the year versus men. EDIT: Here is an fresh anecdote for you naysayers... Just 5 minutes back I completely made NCoverExplorer/MSTest/Visual Studio my bitch after hitting a brick wall with it today, and have stayed late in the process. My wife leaves work early because she does not want the boy to stay at pre-school past 4:30ish. Me? I'd leave him till 6. The kicker? Wife makes more than me. Granted, she is in HR.
modified on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 5:17 PM
Can you prove this fact? I've know many women that completely out work their male counterparts.
And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning. --Isaac Asimov Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. --Ralph Charell
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Recently I've been reading alot about how women in IT are still being predjudiced against - lower salaries, experience bias from men, fewer in positions of power, the usual stories about how women can't seem to make it in a male-dominated industry. Given my own experience in IT, I'm inclined to think that most of this is rubbish as I've found gender to be mostly irrelevant. I've found that hard work, being good at your job and having the confidence to stand your ground carries far more weight than "being a skirt". Am I alone in this thinking?
modified on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 2:15 PM
Most of the women I studied and worked with were very, _very_ good at their jobs; some quit university early in their studies because it was not what they ultimately wanted to do, they moved to other scientific domain or changed completely (and that was about the same number as men). I've known a lot of them who stopped for months to have babies (parental leaves) and came back with no ill-effect on their careers; maybe because I'm in a field where things does not change too fast and we do not use new technologies that often. But I've found that a lot of them don't "think" like we do, they are not as geeky as we are, they are technical but usually will not go all crazy when a new technology is released (unless directly related to the work at hand) and their work ethic is strong (they come to work). In general, working with them is good.
Watched code never compiles.
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Recently I've been reading alot about how women in IT are still being predjudiced against - lower salaries, experience bias from men, fewer in positions of power, the usual stories about how women can't seem to make it in a male-dominated industry. Given my own experience in IT, I'm inclined to think that most of this is rubbish as I've found gender to be mostly irrelevant. I've found that hard work, being good at your job and having the confidence to stand your ground carries far more weight than "being a skirt". Am I alone in this thinking?
modified on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 2:15 PM
I've actually had quite a balance during my career. Twice working under female CIO's, and currently working in an IT Dept that is ~60-40 split. IT just isn't an area where you want to work with someone just because of their race, gender or sexual orientation. I think I speak for 95+% of us when I say I'd rather work with someone smart, knowledgeable and friendly than any other characteristic, and I'd be willing to trade friendly for the other two. That being said, I went to Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference and there were only about 20 women there, and I may have been counting feminine looking guys, and possible some conference center staff ;)
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Wenff wrote:
women can't seem to make it in a male-dominated industry
This has been traced to the fact that they tend to work less hours over the year versus men. EDIT: Here is an fresh anecdote for you naysayers... Just 5 minutes back I completely made NCoverExplorer/MSTest/Visual Studio my bitch after hitting a brick wall with it today, and have stayed late in the process. My wife leaves work early because she does not want the boy to stay at pre-school past 4:30ish. Me? I'd leave him till 6. The kicker? Wife makes more than me. Granted, she is in HR.
modified on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 5:17 PM
Being physically at work for many hours does not equate working for that many hours.
Watched code never compiles.
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Being physically at work for many hours does not equate working for that many hours.
Watched code never compiles.
Quite! I mean look at all of us, all we're doing is pissing about on here ;)
062142174041062102
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I've actually had quite a balance during my career. Twice working under female CIO's, and currently working in an IT Dept that is ~60-40 split. IT just isn't an area where you want to work with someone just because of their race, gender or sexual orientation. I think I speak for 95+% of us when I say I'd rather work with someone smart, knowledgeable and friendly than any other characteristic, and I'd be willing to trade friendly for the other two. That being said, I went to Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference and there were only about 20 women there, and I may have been counting feminine looking guys, and possible some conference center staff ;)
Jeremy Hutchinson wrote:
and there were only about 20 women there, and I may have been counting feminine looking guys
Don't worry, that'll be countered by the manish looking women you missed.
062142174041062102
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Proof please.
Join the cool kids - Come fold with us[^]
Do you argue that they don't (relative to men) spend more time doing house work spend more time with their kids? Not sure how good this is (I don't see a citation), but... The gender gap in earnings has decreased substantially since 1980. From 1980 to 1994, the ratio increased from 0.6 to 0.74, although the ratio has stagnated since 1994. Thus, in the fourteen years from 1980 to 1994, 35 percent of the preexisting gender gap in pay was eliminated. Moreover, these annual earnings data overstate the size of the gender gap because women who work full time actually work about 10 percent fewer hours than do men.[^] probably more reliable... However, even among full-time workers (those usually working 35 hours or more per week), men worked longer than women--8.3 versus 7.7 hours. (See table 4.) [^]
Opacity, the new Transparency.
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Can't speak to the salary issue, as I've never been on the management side, but dunno about the rest... I haven't worked with many female techies... I can recall two programmers (One talented, one waste of oxygen), and I think two or three in QA (Not sure of their skill level). Back in college (University, for you non-USians), I don't remember seeing more than three or four women in all of my Computer Science classes combined... At least when I went to college (Right around 2000), very few women were going to school to learn how to program, and the few I knew really weren't very skilled. Obviously this isn't definitive proof of anything, as quite a lot of good developers are self-educated. Honestly, I wish we had more (talented) female developers, and not for the reasons you think... Men and women tend to think about problems (And everything else) differently, so it would be good to get some new perspectives on things. While it's good to be on the "same wavelength" as your team members, it also usually means you're all attacking the problem from the same side, and possibly missing a much better solution.
Proud to have finally moved to the A-Ark. Which one are you in?
Author of the Guardians Saga (Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels)Ive worked with a few programmers in my time... 1 Excellent COuld not Fault. 2 Amazed that they managed to get out of the Primeval Soup. 3 Trainee with future potential But only with one Female Developer and she was damn good at her job. Its odd as there was no shortage of Female Computing Students at my University.. So where have they gone to?
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Recently I've been reading alot about how women in IT are still being predjudiced against - lower salaries, experience bias from men, fewer in positions of power, the usual stories about how women can't seem to make it in a male-dominated industry. Given my own experience in IT, I'm inclined to think that most of this is rubbish as I've found gender to be mostly irrelevant. I've found that hard work, being good at your job and having the confidence to stand your ground carries far more weight than "being a skirt". Am I alone in this thinking?
modified on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 2:15 PM
It does, but women in tech professions are definitely perceived differently (even by other women, who can't understand us either...). That can be both an opportunity and a hurdle, of course; I've got an unusual perspective on this because of my trans past. Given how male dominated "IT" is it isn't surprising that so few women choose it as a career. It can't have helped that it wasn't pushed to girls as a career option when I was in school, either. I hope that's changed since, but quite frankly I doubt it. The prevailing envivonment in one company I worked for before transition was incredibly sexist, and the one female engineer who worked there besides me was constantly subjected to comments which would put most people off. In another company (which was completely supportive) I was the only woman in my department. I really struggled with that at times, and as a result my work suffered. If you were to ask any other female developers for their experiences I suspect they'll be able to tell similar stories. Ultimately it depends on the organisational and team culture though.
Anna :rose: Tech Blog | Visual Lint "Why would anyone prefer to wield a weapon that takes both hands at once, when they could use a lighter (and obviously superior) weapon that allows you to wield multiple ones at a time, and thus supports multi-paradigm carnage?"
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Quite! I mean look at all of us, all we're doing is pissing about on here ;)
062142174041062102
True, but I am at home doing it.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
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Recently I've been reading alot about how women in IT are still being predjudiced against - lower salaries, experience bias from men, fewer in positions of power, the usual stories about how women can't seem to make it in a male-dominated industry. Given my own experience in IT, I'm inclined to think that most of this is rubbish as I've found gender to be mostly irrelevant. I've found that hard work, being good at your job and having the confidence to stand your ground carries far more weight than "being a skirt". Am I alone in this thinking?
modified on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 2:15 PM
Immediately after university, Jen got a job with a clothing manufacturer in their IT department. Despite being the most qualified person in the department and having a 2:1, she was quickly moved to running the help desk so that the work could be left to "the real men". It's lucky for her manager that I was working in a different country at the time; I'd have ripped his dick off and made him wear it as a tie for such misogynistic crap. Shortly after that, Jen left the company and came to work for me. She was a damn good coder (when we had the kids, she decided to leave the industry and is now a teacher and photographer).
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
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That is a risky topic... (Bring on the Univoters...) But I know from my days at IBM, that quite the opposite to discrimination is the case... The company had a policy (as do many UK companies) to employ a certain percentage of women, no matter if there were better qualified men applying for the positions. I'm not saying men a better, just that there are more of them in the IT industry. And as such UK companies find it hard to meet their quota for employing more women... The only sexist thing I have to say is, we could do with more Eye Candy in the IT workplace!!! :-D
Alan Beasley wrote:
we could do with more Eye Candy in the IT workplace!!!
Got my 5! :)
We are using Linux daily to UP our productivity - so UP yours!
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My wife found that there is a small "good ole boys" attitude in some circles. They exclude her on stuff and it has angered her. Of course her answer to this revolves around making them so incapable of working without her that when she goes on leave they are pretty much doomed, so they are going to have to acknowledge her soon, or suffer for months. It's funny to watch the look on someone's face when he realizes he can't do several everyday tasks because she never taught him how. Let's see, 50% of our architects, 60% of our section leads, 20% of our programmers and 50% of our tech support and 50% of the temp people are female. They aren't really outnumbered by much here.
If I have accidentally said something witty, smart, or correct, it is purely by mistake and I apologize for it.
I've experienced the same attitude your wife has at some places and to be honest I don't want to have to resort to tatics like that. This often happens in places where people think the world owes them success and that they don't really have to work for it.
Join the cool kids - Come fold with us[^]
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Immediately after university, Jen got a job with a clothing manufacturer in their IT department. Despite being the most qualified person in the department and having a 2:1, she was quickly moved to running the help desk so that the work could be left to "the real men". It's lucky for her manager that I was working in a different country at the time; I'd have ripped his dick off and made him wear it as a tie for such misogynistic crap. Shortly after that, Jen left the company and came to work for me. She was a damn good coder (when we had the kids, she decided to leave the industry and is now a teacher and photographer).
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
I'd have ripped his dick off and made him wear it as a tie for such misogynistic crap.
:cool:
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
she was quickly moved to running the help desk so that the work could be left to "the real men".
Now as you know I'm not one to cause trouble but... isn't this a perfect example of how emotional men are? I.e. crying is seen as emotional but violence and agression isn't?
Join the cool kids - Come fold with us[^]
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Recently I've been reading alot about how women in IT are still being predjudiced against - lower salaries, experience bias from men, fewer in positions of power, the usual stories about how women can't seem to make it in a male-dominated industry. Given my own experience in IT, I'm inclined to think that most of this is rubbish as I've found gender to be mostly irrelevant. I've found that hard work, being good at your job and having the confidence to stand your ground carries far more weight than "being a skirt". Am I alone in this thinking?
modified on Wednesday, May 5, 2010 2:15 PM
When I worked for a big company, I once asked the boss why we had not one female programmer. He told me not one had ever applied. I've still never worked with a female programmer, but I know a few through CP. I was also in the MSDN forums at a time when one of the female moderators raved about sexism in IT. She was real nut job. There was one other prominent female in the group, and she studiously avoided the conversation. My overall feeling is that there can be sexism anywhere, but it's not necessarily endemic, not today. The flip side of the coin is that an incompetent woman can always call on sexism to explain her lack of success in the workforce.
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. Read my blog to find out how I've worked around bugs in Microsoft tools and frameworks.
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Do you argue that they don't (relative to men) spend more time doing house work spend more time with their kids? Not sure how good this is (I don't see a citation), but... The gender gap in earnings has decreased substantially since 1980. From 1980 to 1994, the ratio increased from 0.6 to 0.74, although the ratio has stagnated since 1994. Thus, in the fourteen years from 1980 to 1994, 35 percent of the preexisting gender gap in pay was eliminated. Moreover, these annual earnings data overstate the size of the gender gap because women who work full time actually work about 10 percent fewer hours than do men.[^] probably more reliable... However, even among full-time workers (those usually working 35 hours or more per week), men worked longer than women--8.3 versus 7.7 hours. (See table 4.) [^]
Opacity, the new Transparency.
Thanks, I am at work and cannot prove anything. I am greatful that codeproject.com is allowed. All sites are blocked unless categorized by work site higher-ups.
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I'm guessing that you live life as an onanist having such progressive views. :rolleyes:
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.
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Can you prove this fact? I've know many women that completely out work their male counterparts.
And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning. --Isaac Asimov Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. --Ralph Charell
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
I'd have ripped his dick off and made him wear it as a tie for such misogynistic crap.
:cool:
Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
she was quickly moved to running the help desk so that the work could be left to "the real men".
Now as you know I'm not one to cause trouble but... isn't this a perfect example of how emotional men are? I.e. crying is seen as emotional but violence and agression isn't?
Join the cool kids - Come fold with us[^]
I have no problem acknowledging my emotional side. When my children put on a performance at school or in their dance school, I am the dad with the wobbly lip. When Newcastle were relegated, I was properly emotional (in fact, I was as emotional as a newt) - when they were promoted again, I was emotional again.
"WPF has many lovers. It's a veritable porn star!" - Josh Smith
As Braveheart once said, "You can take our freedom but you'll never take our Hobnobs!" - Martin Hughes.