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Why IT really is women's work

Posted on 16 Jun 2008 at 17:22

Burnett agrees that the industry does itself few favours. "There are so many reasons and so many things we could do something about - for example, the perception of what it means to be an IT worker. Quite often, there's an image of a geek with sandals and an anorak and that isn't an image many women are particularly able to relate to."

Even those women who ignore the stereotypes and successfully pursue an IT career for themselves face resentment in the workplace - and not only from men, according to Eileen Brown, manager of Microsoft's IT Pro evangelist team. "Women in the industry were resenting other women who had children with comments like 'Why should she go home early just because she's had a child? I had to sacrifice that.' We should be supporting each other. Women are their own worst enemies but their own best allies," she said following recent research into these gender issues carried out by the software giant.

And the reward for those who overcome the many obstacles strewn across their career path? Considerably less to look forward to at the end of the month than their male colleagues, with e-Skills UK research suggesting a staggering 20% gender pay gap across the IT industry. The robust minority that stick it out often say they can only go so far before they hit a glass ceiling preventing them from moving further up the career ladder, purely because they're not male.

A woman's place?

With today's technology company boardrooms so bereft of women, there are seemingly precious few female role models about, yet the computer industry has depended on the female workforce since its inception. It's a much under-publicised fact that many of the code breakers situated at Bletchley Park during the war were female, and their use of early computing equipment to obtain results was pioneering to say the least. No-one dare argue that the female touch wasn't valuable in that instance.

The British Computing Society's Women's Forum is highlighting the valiant work of the women at Bletchley Park as part of its current drive to encourage the industry to be more inclusive.

Other organisations are also pushing hard to redress the balance. e-Skills UK's Computer Clubs for Girls is trying to eradicate girls' negative perception of IT at an early age by engaging them with activities such as designing web pages and newsletters for pop groups. The organisation claims that pupils involved in Computer Clubs for Girls are already showing improved marks in subjects such as the sciences and maths, which are often the educational foundation for computing students.

Beyond industry bodies, those same multinationals with so few female executives are making renewed efforts to eradicate the gender gap. Many are spearheading initiatives and offering more flexibility in how employees across the board carry out their roles. Microsoft, for example, is championing a networking initiative called Connecting Women in Technology, which brings females in the industry together - both physically and virtually - to share problems and success stories and gain support from the knowledge that they are not alone. The initiative has already proved a hit and has gained the backing of other technology companies, including Cisco, Dell and IBM.

"Attracting new people, especially women, to a career in IT is something we're all working hard to do," said Microsoft's Eileen Brown, who came up with the networking idea over a glass of wine with a female friend. "This isn't just the right thing to do, but it makes good business sense. Creating a forum for women already working in technology represents a great opportunity for them to network and share knowledge, helping them individually and collectively - which in turn helps the industry."