I’ve spoken to several people at universities and most people admit that they don’t really know what drives women into (or away from) IT careers. There are a number of assumptions that form the basis of recruitment drives, but it seems that very little research has been conducted amongst female IT professionals to learn what they find genuinely rewarding about their work.
Here are a number of assumptions that I have encountered so far:
- Young women don’t think IT careers are cool, and still imagine the industry to be populated with uncool ‘geeks’ and ‘nerds’.
- High schools struggle to present up to date, interesting IT classes and fail to engage the interest of young women.
- Women want creativity and meaningful human interaction in their work, and they don’t feel that IT careers provide either.
- Women enjoy using gadgets (eg mobile phones) but are not interested in the technology behind them.
These seem fairly reasonable, and widely held theories, but while so few people in education really know what women find rewarding or off-putting about IT careers, and while they base their recruitment drives on assumption it is no surprise there are so few ladies entering IT careers.