investiGaming is a publication of the Serious Game Design group in the Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media at Michigan State University, 2007
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Author: Twentyman, Jessica
Date: 2008
Source: Financial Times Digital Business (05/14/08)
Full Text Link:
http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto051320082327374013
Keywords:
IT, programming, workforce
Abstract:
Despite being heavy users of technology, women widely avoid studying IT even though there is great demand for female skills in the field. "I'm always urging my human resources department to get me more resumes from women and encouraging my managers to bring their daughters into work," says Managed Objects CEO Siki Giunta. "We need to make young women understand the scope of this business and the excellent pay and promotion opportunities it has to offer, regardless of gender." Only one in five members of the IT workforce worldwide is a woman, and research suggests that statistic has declined in recent years. Research in Motion (RIM) vice president Charmaine Eggberry says news of the declining participation of women is troubling because of the increasing influence technology has on our lives and the fact that women make up half of the working population. "There's a growing disconnect between who's using technology and who's delivering it and that needs to be addressed," says Eggberry, who adds that the situation could get worse before it gets better. A recent RIM survey found that 90 percent of young people of both sexes between the ages of 11 and 16 say they think using technology is cool, with respondents saying they regularly chat with friends about technology, but only 28 percent of girls have considered a career in technology, compared to 52 percent of boys. In addition to providing role models, experts say people in the industry need to show that not everyone in the technology industry is an engineer, and that companies need people from a variety of backgrounds that can lead projects and analyze how businesses run.
...
This is controversial territory, but like Ms de Rojas, most senior female IT professionals broadly acknowledge vital general differences in the ways that men and women in their industry approach their work - allowing, of course for exceptions.
Take Ms McGrattan at Ingres: if shown pieces of code, she believes she could guess whether it was written by a man or a woman, and be right "at least 80 per cent of the time".
"In general, code written by women is more straightforward and more practical - it's clear what problem the functions are meant to solve and why. Male programmers are more likely to hide clever tricks behind complicated code and incorporate functions for the sake of it," she says.
These differences, she adds, can be complementary if blended correctly. "Where men and women work on technology projects together, you tend to get a far better, more balanced result," she says. This rule, she adds, applies to numerous projects and tasks that go on within the IT industry.