President and CEO, The Anita Borg Institute

Comments (17)

Paid Hacker

by George 8/11/2008 12:00:00 AMAlthough I am male, I can understand why so many women (and more than a few men) are leaving IT careers. IT's very much a dog-eat-dog world with high pressure, no real job security, and no real respect or support. That last item may be the most important. I am lucky that I have a certain amount of control over my work environment. Very few IT people do. Accountants, lawyers, etc. all work hard but don't seem to have the same 'voluntary slave' attitude found in IT.

Consultant

by Richard 8/11/2008 12:00:00 AMAre we still rehashing men vs women in 2008? If you are qualified you get work if not you don't. Period. Give the 'us vs them' a rest please.

IM/IT Programmer

by Andrew 8/3/2008 12:00:00 AMHere's my hypothesis as to why more women aren't entering the IT field: Kids in high school (boys and girls) are being encouraged to chase after their dreams, make a career out of what intersts them, etc. I remember my guidance counsellor saying 'What do you want to do for a living?' Then when I told him, he basically said 'Okay, here are some schools that teach that.' I don't remember him saying 'Sorry, you should consider a field where men are underrepresented. We're trying to balance things out here.' Whenever I see one of these 'There's not enough women in IT/science/math/some other traditionally male-dominated field' I can't help but wonder 'Where are the articles and ads to get men into traditionally female-dominated fields?' We're facing a dangerous shortage of nurses. Where's the propaganda encouraging boys to go into nursing? Was I the only person who grew up hearing 'You can be anything you want if you put your mind to it.'? Was my high school the only high school saying 'When deciding on a career, you should combine your interests with your aptitudes and go for it!'? If so, I think others should adopt that approach, try to get people doing what they love, and are good at, and stop whining and complaining when the population breakdown in every area doesn't look like the poopulation breakdown of the country. Nahhhh.....that'd never work.

Senior Sys Admin

by Scott 8/11/2008 12:00:00 AMThe remarks from James strike true to the mark. As a career, IT caps out fairly quickly, and one can argue the pay vrs. responsiblity/time requirements are not all that great. According to ITWorld Canada's salary survey, an 'average' senior sys admin makes roughly $65-$70K/year. Before any aspiring sys admins jump at the opportunity, that wage doesn't necessarily reflect: - the sys admin is required to be 'on-call' at all times, and are not always given a premium for doing so - any major work that is required -- upgrades to the system, patching, etc -- must occur at a time such that it doesn't impact the business -- ie early morning and weekends - the job not only requires constant learning as new products come out, but must also be able to maintain legacy systems The good workers often get 'rewarded' with more responsibility, but not necessarily more compensation. It is not uncommon for an IT team to have those one or two stars that outshine the rest of the team and are responsible for maintaining and deploying those complex systems. In those conditions, it is no wonder that the 'exceptional' IT workers sprint for the consultanting route; it pays better for less hours. And echoing what James said, it isn't the super scripting or mad net admin skills that cause those workers to rise to the top, it's the project planning, communication skills, and being able to see the forest despite the trees.

Software Developer Tester

by Nigel Goddard 8/11/2008 12:00:00 AMIT is a dying field to work in so both men and women should leave now. It is impossible to get work in IT now and I would not encourage anyone to even contemplate doing IT as a career. I have had to leave Canada and the USA and now the UK to find work.

IT Architect

by CN 8/11/2008 12:00:00 AMIT is a thankless job and I for one would not encourage my daughter, or son to pursue a career in it, period. Experience makes you a good consultant, which means you have to put in some time in operations and hopefully if you are lucky you get some opportunity to grow with some project involvement. I have been this lucky but I am becoming disillusioned with the career as I see IT as babysitting faulty products (operations and/or implementations) or trying to overhype other narrowly focused products in order to sell them (consulting). If you have any ideals at all, you can't do this indefinitely...it takes a toll on you for sure.

Network Administrator

by Stanley Lui 8/11/2008 12:00:00 AMDespite the title of this article, there is practically no talk at all about women leaving early. Almost all the discussion is about the usual subjects: getting women to enter the field, and why it's good to have more women. And this is a terrible shame, because the phenomenon of exiting women completely negates the other efforts, and needs to be addressed more. Like the cell phone industry, it's time we faced the truth, that a model based on bringing in lots of customers (or women, in this case) and not caring if they stay, cannot sustain itself indefinitely. Also, the comments here bring up an interesting point: does leaving a system admin job for a consulting job constitute 'leaving IT'?

RE: Ms.

by Al DV 8/11/2008 12:00:00 AMYeah, men are making the workplace miserable for women. It's just such a horrible place to be. Please give me a break. There is another side to the coin. - Women can't stand authority and take orders (sometimes without question) - They can't handle the pressure and don't have the stamina to duke it out when the pressure is high and time is up. You know men have been in this environment for a long time and have endured all kinds of stuff and have persisted. So lets just say that this environment is new to a lot of women and they just have to adjust to it if they want to survive in it. Women haven't figured out how it works in the battle field yet, but they will. Lets stop blaming men for everything. We have not made it miserable for women nor do we want women to run away from it.

The IT 'culture is corrupt'

by Carla 10/27/2008 12:00:00 AMWomen leave IT because it is infiltrated with male chauvanists and bullies. I should know because I am a female who worked in the IT industry for almost '15 years'. I had very good technical skills before I left and come from a highly successful family of marine and mechanical engineers. I now drive a London taxi for a living and I'd rather be 'beaten up' and stabbed rather and go back into the IT industry again. I addition to my taxi company I also runs another business and my salary is now ?60K+ a year. I was too thick to realise that working for someone else was a complete 'waste of time'. I must have been a self employed person trying to escape a 'rat race' of vicious 'no marks'. Must admit that there seems to be a 'culture' that exists within any specfic industry and the male IT workers almost always exhibit the following: 1. Automatically think that woman cannot be technical. 2. Sidelines, bullied and undermines any female IT workers. 3. Is threatened by any woman who knows 'something' about IT. Don't get me wrong.. the men in the Taxi trade are 95% OK and yes there are the 5% of moody male cabbies. I like my male cabby counterparts 500% more that my ex IT male counterparts.. So... there may be some truth in the statement I've just made about the IT culture being 'against' women. Carla

Ms.

by Susan White 8/3/2008 12:00:00 AMHaving experienced for myself the 'old boys network' attitude in IT I believe your article is right on in identifying the hostile attitude as one of the reasons women leave IT. The frustrating thing is this attitude carries over into the hiring process, making it extremely difficult for women to be hired in the first place. Since being laid off in 2003, I have been routinely rejected for many IT positions. My skills are top-notch, I am suitably certified and available, and have glowing references. The only thing I can guess is that my gender works against me.

RE: Network Administrator

by IT Guy 8/11/2008 12:00:00 AMMaybe women are just smarter than men and realise faster that getting into IT was a mistake in the first place? They bail early because it means a better chance to re-skill and restart in a better place.

Women leave IT...

by Don Thompson 8/11/2008 12:00:00 AM... for the same reason they leave other jobs - they are more connected to visceral reality than men. Women realize earlier in life how superficial are the rewards from most occupations - IT being a particularly good example. What real value did you bring to the world today? Worked all week-end to deploy new workstations so the accountants would be happy? They aren't. Even if they were, does it really matter if the corporation can think faster and make an extra buck this week? Does it save any lives? Help anyone in trouble? So you built the banking system and transactions happen instantly - when the credit/debit machines are down for a day or so does the world really end? As much as if there were no firemen? Or doctors? Did the code you worked on for the last month light up a child's future? Will it be there in three years? It has been said no man dies saying 'I wish I had spent more time at work.' Fewer than none will be saying 'I wish I had written that extra routine ten years ago.'

Bad Stats...

by Not Sure... 8/11/2008 12:00:00 AMThese concerns are driven from University stats that do not count the amount of women in non-degree, post-secondary education programs. What about specialized diploma programs, corporate training schools, etc? Myself, being in the industry for over 10 years, I still see a Computer Science degrees being 4/5 years of learning how to be a programmer... Of course women dont want programmer jobs... Who really does?!??!?! Plus, who would put themselves through 4/5 years of university to get an IT job paying the same as someone with a few specialized IT diplomas/certs who got them in half the time? Most IT jobs capout at 90k (max.). If you want to make more $, you'd have to move into an upper management/consultant position which doesint seem to count as an 'IT job'.

ex-IT guy

by KW 8/11/2008 12:00:00 AMI'd say in general there is no gender bias in IT. You can either do the job or not. Advancing beyond being a code-monkey is a different story. If you want to advance you either move towards management, project management or consultancy. All of which require building up the soft skills and emotional intelligence and none of which are taught in any school. The bosses above never promote based solely on your technical capability. They promote based on perception of you on the whole. I'd dare to say that women are leaving IT for the same reasons men are. They want more than what is currently perceived possible in the current position. No mystery here, move along citizens.

Wheres the women?

by Steve 8/11/2008 12:00:00 AMJust noticing that only 1 reply to this is from a female. Perhaps the best way to find out why they are leaving is to ask. I know some pretty savvy women techs and one thing i have noticed is they rarely seem to rise from the support desk to where they can flex that IT brain. Pity. I have to laugh at the claim that there are not enough IT workers out there. Frankly I think there are to many, and that is why IT jobs are dropping in value/pay. So on that note, no tears here for the women. A nurse makes better money than I do anyway, and I run the IT show for the company i work for. Hows that for pathetic. But I love my job, so that is really whats important to me.

RE: Ms.

by Stephen 8/11/2008 12:00:00 AMAl DV, from Canada wrote that women are wimps or some such drivel. Where is it carved in stone by the fiery finger of God that the brutal world Al loves so pathologically is the only way to do business? I enjoyed Al's violent imagery as much as the next killer ape but I still don't understand the presumption that 'duke it out' belongs in the 'battle field' of the business world. I'd write more but I need to polish my long-range cruise missles ahead of tomorrow's telecom

Owner

by Gordon Wilson 8/17/2008 12:00:00 AMI started working as a self-employed IT consultant, not because I wanted to, but because I had to. Clearly I'm not female, but I am older and I had to contend with age bias. I do very little IT consulting work now. Basically I fix computers. People understand when their computers are broke, and that is about all they understand. The business owners I have worked with over the years had about the same level of IT comprehension. What people don't understand they tend not to respect. Two things have to happen before the IT environment becomes more enticing for women or men. First, business owners and managers need to have a greater understanding of the business value of IT and the technical complexity of implementing those systems. This must translate into more money for training IT staff and more IT staff to do the work. These all night or weekend system restore marathons is usually a direct result of lack of resources (intellectual and/or number of bodies). Secondly, IT workers must become more business savvy. It is all about profit. If you can't show how your work translates into improving the bottom line, why would you expect someone to pay for your work? This industry is still very young. The technically astute, the technically ignorant, the IT professional, the non IT professional all need to make a greater effort in understanding the world outside their comfort zone.

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