Keeping the Doors Open

[this article was originally written in May 2002]

Information Technology skills are in high demand, yet most young women are choosing not to study computing during their high school and post-secondary educational careers. In the mid-80's, when I was studying Computer Technology at Purdue University, almost half of my graduating class were women.  Today, less than 25% of IT students are female.  The numbers of women working in IT aren't just low, they are decreasing! These women are closing the door on opportunities for high paying jobs, low unemployment, and job satisfaction.  Why?  Because many girls have a misconception about Information Technology (IT) careers.

In Britain, a poll done by The Mail showed that girls would rather become undertakers than enter the IT workforce.  Undertakers?  Are we really that weird? I’m amazed that many girls I talk to tell me that they see IT jobs as being un-cool, isolating, and unrewarding.  What they know about computing careers is what they’ve seen on television and at school.  

On television, they see stereotypical characters of computer hackers, often doing illegal things with their computing skills.  These characters are often socially inept, with no sense of ‘cool’.  Think of the Dennis Nedry character (left) played by Wayne Knight in the film Jurassic Park and you have a picture of what most girls think of computing careers.  These characters work in isolation, often in dark environments with only a glowing monitor, with pop cans and empty bags of chips surrounding their workspace.  Not exactly the type of job I’d want to have and I don’t blame girls for closing that door, either.  But they have it all wrong. My own IT career has opened up many doors and taken me to places in which I never thoughts I’d work - the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada,  Qatar, and the U.S. I've even worked in Iceland. Our IT careers involve working with a variety of people from across the organization to solve problems and offer solutions to business challenges - we couldn't do our jobs in isolation if we wanted to.

In school girls see boys working with computers, often just for the sake of finding out how something works or to see if they can make something work differently.  Most girls, on the other hand, aren’t interested in technology for the sake of technology.  A study done at Carnegie Mellon University showed that young women want to study technology with a social purpose – to study how and why technology can improve our lives.  Through changing how computing courses are promoted and structured, Carnegie Mellon increased the number of young women entering computing studies from 8 percent to 42 percent.  Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher have documented their research in a new book Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing, an excellent description of why young women believe that IT careers are boring, isolating, and just not cool.

We should be encouraging our daughters to consider technology careers. First, it’s important that information technologies be implemented in ways that meet the needs of society as a whole. Think of technologies such as air bags that were initially developed to meet the needs of the average male, instead of society as a whole.  One way of meeting those needs is to ensure a variety of viewpoints are represented in the design and implementation of technologies.

Second, businesses will not be able to sustain competitiveness if half of the population is closing the door to IT careers needlessly.  The Software Human Resource Council reports that just under 25% of the IT workforce is female.  Industry Canada reports that even though 2001 demonstrated a slowdown in the IT employment figures, there will still be thousands of unfilled IT jobs in the coming years.

 Third, IT careers offer a great deal of benefits to those to enter the field:

• IT professionals have consistently been in demand, even in slowdowns of the economy.  Organizations aren’t going be going back to paper and pencil anytime soon.  
• IT workers have consistently seen the lowest unemployment rates in the country.   
•  IT jobs are some of the highest paying professional jobs available.  
• Gender-based salary gaps are lower and they kick in later in a career than in other jobs. 
• Information technologies are everywhere, offering new professionals a wide variety of areas in which to apply their technology skills – art, government, science, agriculture, banking, health care, education, manufacturing, sports, tourism, gambling, financial services, etc.  If you name an interest in something, I can point you to the use of technology in that area.

What can we do to ensure our daughters aren’t closing doors before they see what’s behind them?  First, we can ensure they have opportunities to find out what IT careers offer as far making an impact on society.  Second, we must ensure that girls are taking enough maths, sciences, and computing courses while they are in primary and secondary education.  By completing these courses, young women are able to enter college and university programs to prepare for technology careers.  Third, we need to bring them together with successful female role models in the information technology industry. 

The Canadian Information Processing Society (CIPS) has just finished the second year of our Women In IT Program.  This program culminates in live events across Canada that bring together girls in Grade IX to hear from leading female IT professionals and their careers.   CIPS wants to ensure that girls see the opportunities offered in IT careers.  I'll be writing more about this program in my next article.

You can help by encouraging girls to take more math, science, and computing courses while they’re in school so that they can keep opening doors instead of closing them.

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