« Will Wright on gender-inclusive design | Main | Women in games conferences »
February 03, 2005
Women are still a minority!
Yesterday I came back from a conference in Manchester (UK), Symposium of Gender and ICT.
This event started as an 'ad hoc' invitation in 2003, with organizers expecting 10-20 participants, but received more than 100 abstracts, and participants arriving from 'all over the world'. And so was it this year, with people from Scandinavia, Australia, Korea, USA as well as Europe. A great opportunity to meet researchers as well as women working in the IT-business. (I did not see any men there!)
However, the overall picture from this symposium was rather pessimistic:
"Why do we still discuss women and ICT - after more than 20 years with efforts to change the situation?" Many of the same issues are still there, after so many years with research and initiatives to 'bridge' the gender gap in computing. The number of women in IT education and the IT business has not increased, but is rather once again on its way down. The IT profession is still dominated by 'young, single, males' (although we did not get an answer to the question of where these young, single males go when they grow older or have children). Women within the IT-business still don't advance to higher positions as easily as men, and many women still drop out. Children's images of work and occupations are still very much gendered in 'traditional' ways, and this guide them when they chose their own education.
Although there are numbers of initiatives and projects to recruit (or keep) women to IT education which have positive results, we still haven't been able to change these trends.
According to 'Statistics of Norway' there were 24% women starting education labeled as 'technological' in 2001, and 30% in 2003. These numbers covers some differences. For instance we have normally had between 60 and 70% women students at my department (Dept. of Humanistic Informatics), while CS departments normally have less women - between 10 and 30. Last term the number was down to 5 and 10% at CS at two of our universities!
There are also big differences between countries, and I learnt at the conference that there were only 3-4% women going into CS in the Netherlands! It would be interesting to learn more about the international differences (or the similarities ;).
Do you have statistics for your country?
Posted by Hilde Corneliussen at 07:31 AM | Permalink
Comments
Slightly peripheral to this, but may be of interest, is that colleagues of mine working in music technology tell me there are very few women in that field, with only a small number of women students and very few applications from women for teaching and research vacancies in music technology. They are keen to attract more but attempts to find the right people have failed. (Of course there are questions about what constitutes a 'right' person in such an established culture) But does anyone know where women working in music technology may be found? And if there really are very few, can anyone suggest why?
Sorry this isn't a direct answer to the request for more general statistics.
Posted by: Sue Thomas at Feb 4, 2005 2:03:10 AM
Did you hear anything at the conference (or is there any buzz anywhere) about older women in technology? Among people I know in the U.S., if you're a woman and you're over 45, you might as well plan on staying in your job, or think of something entirely different to do.
Posted by: Amy Bellinger at Feb 10, 2005 12:34:13 AM
Sue, I don't know anything about women and music technology, but would like to hear more about it. However, fields like 'instrumental jazz' are also male dominated, at least in Norway, and music technology might have 'inherited' the gendered code of instrumental music?
Amy, yes, there is a tendency for women to drop out of the IT-business at middle age (in England). But there were (as far as I could understand) no clear answers to why. We could guess that the long working hours as well as the dominant culture ('young, single, male') has something to do with it.
Posted by: Hilde at Feb 10, 2005 3:42:06 AM
Hilde--I can get you the stats for women in IT in the US.
A recent article in the Wallstreet suggested women are
dropping out of IT because they feel it isn't as secure.
Of course, that was after the burst--which makes sense.
Woemn are taking more traditional jobs--ie--
teaching and accounting. However, OB/GYN and Pharmacy and
nursing are up.
As far as why they aren't in IT, I can attest that
since I was a MCSE, MCT and now run a business, women
aren't are rarely seen on my business circuit
at networking events, etc... I'm always in the minority
when I give a pitch for my company. If you'd like to
discuss more, let me know.
Thanks!
Margie Anne
Posted by: Margie Anne at Feb 10, 2005 10:51:54 PM
re-Sue Thomas and her comment on music technology
hi im a student who does music technology and wishes to continue it, although this has really nothing much to do with the post in general and im going into a tangent, i have noticed a simular problem in terms of students studying the subject who are women.
last year i was in a group where there was myself and 18 guys! the 'all' male feel and banter to the group made it hard for me to progress and has such turned me into a bit of a feminist....due to the fact they never let me on the equipment - i can use gaffa tape like a pro however-
if at this level (im doing a BTEC National Diploma, 2 yr course resulting in 3 alevels worth of results) then i guess the lack in teachers and women in this environment is going to be a knock on effect- womens roles are still making an impact now! silly really...its 2005 not 1905.
ah well, sorry for anyone who wasnt really intrested in all of that,
on a side note - im doing an assignment on the overshadowing of women in music technology and trying to find anything is really hard (i wonder why!?) any help or pointing in the right direction would be grand.
thanks
Victoria Walsh (student in Manchester, UK)
Posted by: victoria walsh at Mar 10, 2005 5:35:57 AM
Hi Victoria
I mentioned your query to my colleague Professor Andrew Hugill at DMU and he is very interested to hear more about this issue as it's something he would like to see explored. You can contact him via http://www.mti.dmu.ac.uk/ - and yes, all the teaching staff are currently male! But women like you will change that..
best
Sue
Posted by: Sue Thomas at Mar 13, 2005 1:14:47 PM
RE-- Sue Thomas reply
hello Sue, i apologise for the lastness of my responce, lost this page somehow and
have only just found it again!
thank you for the contact i will send a email to your colleague Professor Hugill today
with references to both our posts.
still finding it very difficult to obtain information so thank you so much for your
help.
kind regards
Victoria Walsh (andraiauk@hotmail.com) Manchester
Posted by: Victoria Walsh the music student from above at Apr 6, 2005 9:37:59 AM
Read "Night of The Living dead: Brain Damaged Is Death" at http://nuitmortes3.site.voila.fr/ on the overuse of women in brain-damaging experiments by the CIA.
Posted by: C Wehrle at Apr 13, 2005 7:30:24 PM
