It is SOO REFRESHING to see an honest perspective given on the role of women in IT! It’s fantastic that someone has taken to publish the truth about the industry.

I have worked in the industry for 5 years and have now decided to take a new route as I felt as though I have been walking around with a bulls eye target around my neck for too long. I commend the women that stay however for my own sanity AND most of all safety I am looking forward to a new direction.

In my institution the IT dept is led by a woman but the other five or so members are men. The admin staff as a whole are majority female. I think you'll find library systems is where quite a few techie women end up – librarianship generally is woman-dominated, systems specialism less so but still a sizable female contingent. Not sure why this happens – perhaps because there's a route into it that doesn't require undergraduate/graduate level *computing* training, so those of us who realise later on we want to go down the IT route can get started there.

There's a similar discussion going on elsewhere at the moment about why women aren't doing as much political blogging as men. I think one look at the bile and personal insults posted as comments on some women's political blogs gives an idea of why – who in their right mind would choose to put up with and engage with that? Stella Creasy makes some interesting points on the subject:

http://www.labourlist.org/stella-creasy-internati...

I also think in our society (blame patriarchy or whatever) there's an undercurrent that damages women's self-esteem and makes them think their opinions are less valid or that they're not qualified enough to write on particular topics. I don't think the gender imbalance has anything much to do with brain wiring – as Deborah Cameron says in her excellent book The Myth of Mars and Venus, the variation within sexes is far greater than the variation between sexes.

Edith

I'll check out your presentation; thanks for pointing me at that too And boo to IntenseDebate for screwing with the links. Sorry about that.

Will the Semantic Web have a Gender? is at

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/will_the_sem...

My presentation video is at:

http://vimeo.com/3553527

My presentation notes are at:

http://maymay.net/blog/2009/01/22/gender-and-tech...

I'd like to point you at a recent video of a presentation I gave called "Gender and Technology" which touches on a host of these issues. (The slides of this presentation along with my <a hef="http://maymay.net/blog/2009/01/22/gender-and-technology-at-ignitesydney-with-presentation-slides/">presenter notes are also available on my blog.)

Again, I think you're spot on and this really needs a lot more exposure. I thank you for bringing this topic into the limelight here on your site!

The end of your post brings up some tremendous questions though, about technology in our culture and who shapes them. Does the developer shape it or the need of the audience he is developing for? I don't think you can lay the burden of development for an app/social network/site on either party exclusively. I think it is this constant feedback loop that occurs. This should mean that as long as men in the industry are listening to their audience and the audience is participating in testing and development then a mutually beneficial product should emerge.

Now, do I think we need to help balance the representation of women in tech? Sure, I do, at least until that saturation point reaches a level that equal representation becomes unavoidable.

Thanks for a great post!

Means that all-male is not status quo anymore, but something worth commenting on. I think that was a big first step – your blog entry is another – we're getting there, and every little bit helps.