Women in IT
Women in IT are becoming a rare breed. "Researchers" at NYPL (does that mean librarians?) were commissioned to find out what they could about women in IT: what positions they’re holding, and if they’re here at all. Jeff Zeldman writes about it in Women in Web Design: Just the Stats. There are not stats on web design specifically (odd, eh?), but lots of stats on IT. What did they find?
Women make up less than 1/4 of the IT workforce, and that number is shrinking, and the women in the field aren’t promoted as often or as highly as their male counterparts.
Speaking as a newer techie, I can say that it’s unusual to encounter women doing tech jobs–even in libraries. Most IT folks are still male, and the few women I’ve encountered in library tech are in managerial positions like mine–kind of the "we’ll oversee what you do, not that we understand it." I have had more than one experience with people being shocked that I actually understand the jobs of those that I supervise…that I know what a network is and how it works, that I can code, that I know how to build a computer from bits and pieces. Now, I don’t know if that’s because I’m female of that’s because people are used to managers who don’t know squat. I don’t know.
Since it’s unusual to meet women in library tech, a traditionally female-dominated field, I’m not at all surprised to hear that overall, "women in tech" is a declining number.
found via A Passion for Puters
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