Chicks in IT: Any statistics available? 2

[jimoblak]

Please excuse the title: no disrespect is intended toward the ladies (or any men that consider themselves as 'chicks'). I just wanted a catchy 'must read' title...

I just received an advertisement for MS Windows Server 2003 which pictures a 20-something woman standing in a room full of rack servers. I've noticed a lot of women appearing in IT advertising lately. Are advertisers picturing women for the same reason that they do in beer & automotive commercials or is there a growing market of female IT professionals that advertisers are trying to relate to?

When I started teaching computers, my classes were nearly all male. I'm noticing a growing female student population and was curious if this is part of a greater trend. Does anyone know where I could find gender (and possibly ethnic/race) data on the IT workforce? As an instructor that wants to diversify classes, it helps to market the classes by demonstrating the growing opportunites for all in IT.

- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?

 

[jimoblak]

Looking for a date? <giggles> Push your thick black framed glasses up your nose and pop your head above your cubicle. Why would anyone want to associate with those other geeks in adjacent cages in a social way?

- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?

 

[jimoblak]

After re-reading my feeble attempt at humor I realized that it could be inferred as shoving something up one's nose (a derrogatory or insulting statement). The post was made to humorously visualize glasses that had slipped down the nose, not as an insult.

I'm an IT professional, not a comedy professional.


- - picklefish - -
Why is everyone in this forum responding to me as picklefish?

 

[CajunCenturion]

In that case jimoblak - don't quit your day job.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[Onyxpurr]

Comedy professional? I dunno, it takes a sense of humor to deal with our clients, doesn't it?

And I knew what you were saying. ;-)

 

[Gatorajc]

Hmmmm. I dont think there are enough chicks in IT. There are 4 programmers where Im working. 2 are chicks so the view is very nice. Just another reason to come to work.

AJ


If at first you do not succeed, cheat!

 

[Onyxpurr]

Hmmmmm...maybe there just aren't enough studs to attract them to the profession?

 

[Stella740pl]

As for me, I've always been analytical and loved math, so I went to a high school specialized in math. As a package deal, I got there a programming class (Fortran!), but while in high school, I never really understood, why we doing all this, since we didn't have a chance to see real results. We were programming without computers, on paper! But in my senior year a friend's mother, who was working as a mainframe programmer, invited me to her workplace, because she thought that this field might be of interest to me (and because her own daughter wasn't willing to follow her footsteps). She was right! Those green-on-black blinking monitors, rolls of printer paper, funny pictures on the walls made of small symbols, the whole environment, got right to me then. I went to a technical school and graduated with Applied Math/Computer Science major. In my graduate years I was working as an intern with relational databases, loved what I was doing, was invited to work there full time after graduation, and from this moment on it was pretty much straight forward. I strayed once into Lotus Notes (and loved it, too), but my next job was with relational databases again.

 

[rosieb]

Boring

Got into IT because it just seemed to suit.

Did a BSc in Chemistry, covered minor programming in BASIC (but got it right each time - easy). Segueed thru' sales into Electronic Data Product management, help desk plus development. Ended up pulling chunks of coding into my department 'cos our (outsourced) programmers couldn't handle the work.
[/boring]

Why do I do it? Low boredom threshold. OK,real programmers would snigger, but I learn something new each day.

I enjoy

A) producing apps that cause users to be really enthusiastiac about what I produce. Each app actually saves time and effort.

B) learning, each app is better than the last (I cheerfully &quot;borrow&quot; vast quantities of code and modify it to my needs).

One day I'll be really good at what I do .

Opioniated, always; correct, occasionally; so, enlighten me.
Rosie

 

[Gatorajc]

Hmmmmm... Maybe there are just not enough smart women to get in IT.




AJ


If at first you do not succeed, cheat!

 

[Gatorajc]

Just kidding.

Laugh a little.

AJ


If at first you do not succeed, cheat!

 

[CajunCenturion]

or maybe they're smart enough not get into IT.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[lionelhill]

Benlinkknilneb, yes, you've convinced me games can make a person into a data-base character. Hadn't thought about it.

As well as the things people have said above, two things have always attracted me to computing:
(1) as an amateur, the fact that I can produce a useful mini-application (for the work environment) that does a specific job the big, costly applications don't quite get right. People never believe it can be done, which makes me feel Very Smug.
(2) The neatness of a nice bit of code. I've always been fascinated by finding general solutions that don't depend on 120 extra &quot;ifs&quot; to deal with special cases. Getting a chess move-generator down to a loop with only one branch at the end and no special cases for en-passant, castling etc., is quite a chalenge, or if I'm not feeling so ambitious, just finding out if a pacman is at a cross-roads using only a single branch.

My sister's school, when we were little, was very keen to encourage girls to look at careers in engineering. They sent her on several courses about how engineering wasn't all greasy rags, and she got quite good at making bridges out of rolled up newspapers (we suspect the chap who ran the courses was also made of rolled up newspaper and ran on two AA cells). But she really wasn't interested in engineering, even though she showed aptitude. I'm not sure how effective gender-targeted recruiting is. There was always a slightly artificial feeling about it.
(by the way, I'm not a woman, so I didn't get it first hand).

 

[Gatorajc]

Very true CajunCenturion

AJ


If at first you do not succeed, cheat!

 

[Stella740pl]

lionelhill,

(2) The neatness of a nice bit of code. I've always been fascinated by finding general solutions that don't depend on 120 extra &quot;ifs&quot; to deal with special cases.

Oh, I so agree with you, it's one of my favorites!

Stella

 

[SpiderBear6]

I just attended a Microsoft Seminar about smart clients (very interesting) and there were two &quot;chicks&quot; out of about 20 people.



--------------------------------------
&quot;We are star-stuff. We are the universe made manifest trying to figure itself out.&quot;
-- Delenn in Babylon 5 - &quot;A Distant Star&quot;

 

[sleipnir214]

lionelhill:
On general solutions...

There is an anecdote where the original Henry Ford asked an efficiency expert to look at his organization and recommend improvements. After several weeks, the expert reported to Mr. Ford that he could only recommend minor improvements, with one exception.

The exception was one guy who, every time the expert walked by, was leaned back in his chair with his feet on his desk, apparently daydreaming. The expert recommended firing this person.

Henry Ford said he could not, and when asked why, told the efficiency expert that that man had once come up with an idea that saved the Ford Motor Company a million dollars. And that when the guy came up with the idea, he was doing exactly what the expert saw him doing.



I've found that when a programmer starts adding uncounted exceptions in code, he's forgotten that what happens at the keyboard isn't programming -- it's just typing. Programming happens in the programmer's mind. Evidence that a programmer is programming can be seen when the programmer is wandering around the office, bumping into furniture with a blank look on his face.

Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!!

 

[Onyxpurr]

Yes, I'm known for my tripping episodes at work. It's horribly embarrassing when people ask what you tripped on and all you can say is your own two feet.

I get really focused too when I'm programming. My school buddies joke around all the time about it. We would always sit with me in the middle (for reference for the other two). I would start coding and half an hour later look up and both of them would be staring at me. They had been trying to get my attention the whole time.

Need to be extremely focused to be a programmer.

 

[SQLSister]

Well I walk into walls. And we did finally get one of our web programmers to stop programming while he was driving his car, so now it's safe to ride with him.

 

[lionelhill]

Ah, that's one of the reasons I stick to a bicycle. The world goes slower on a bicycle, so there's more time to think about other things. Also I find the shower a useful place (except it's not very environmentally friendly on hot water).
Seriously (but off topic), on the subject of generalisation and getting rid of special cases, yes, that I like very much because it's fun, and because it makes a program both more efficient and often more easy to read (certainly more worth reading). But I'm not a big fan of generalisation beyond what makes the problem more efficient. When I'm playing pacman, I only care how good the pacman is, not how easily the code could be reused to write space invaders. Obviously if code can be reused it's likely to be well-maintained, good code; but when I find my application is slow and bloaty because it's a re-vamp of something totally different, that doesn't impress me.

 

[wyatt1erp]

Hello all,

I found the stats about the ratio of male:female in IT intriguing. Until reading this post, I would have said that the number of women in IT was increasing at an increasing rate, based on my own experience. I am somewhat discouraged at the information provided here.

My Experience: I work for a State Government agency. Currently there are a total of 10 females to 26 males in the IT division. The Asst Director (formerly the head of Application Development) is female. The head of Desktop Support is female. 15 years ago, there would have been only 2 females and no female managers.

I got into IT when I was working for an oversight bureau that did QA/QC on the Welfare case load. The Feds had changed from a CPM-based computer processing to IBM Compatible and my boss (male) wanted nothing to do with it. I figured out how to use it and later promoted into a Desktop Support capacity. Later I became manager of the group that handled both Desktop and Networking (I found I enjoyed the management of IT more than the technical side.)I am definitely analytical and detail-oriented but where I am best is looking at the big picture and seeing how pieces fit together. Last year I became the Project Manager for an ERP implementation.

Further, as the mother of two G/T children, I see a heavy emphasis for both sexes in math, science, and going to college in our school district. I guess I didn't realize how good I had it.

Happy New Year!