Women in (or Not in) IT: A Variety of Views

Computerworld - A recent column about high school girls' perceptions of careers in corporate IT [Business, Jan. 8, 2001] brought an unusual number of illuminating, heartfelt and downright diverse responses from readers.

I was surprised that the findings of Arthur Andersen's "Growth and Retention of Women" study were controversial. They backed up what I've been hearing from women and girls for years: IT per se is seldom attractive to girls, but when they understand how it can be used as a tool in careers as diverse as medicine and design, many girls begin to see its value. The challenge, I thought, was for the corporate world to show girls that there's more to IT than pasty-faced geeks chained to their cubicles.

Many readers disagreed. "Your reasoning is [an] insult to girls who choose against IT as a profession," writes Matthew E. Ferris of Wheaton, Ill. "Could the reason be that it is simply not what they want? Why isn't it a crisis that boys are not choosing to be nurses when there is such a shortage of them?"

Others accused me of raising the banner of political correctness over one of the last bastions of meritocracy. "The IT world is already the most diverse workforce on the planet," says Ezra Marsh of Baltimore, but "you obviously see IT as a place where we can jam a little more PC down everyone's throat."

Paul Hardy wants us all to relax. "Girls are characterized by nurturing, caring, teaching, loving, home and family-making and relationship-building and maintaining," he writes. Though feminists may pressure girls into IT, he implies, many will find it "unsatisfactory and unfulfilling and will want to pursue something more to their liking: jobs such as doctor, nurse, teacher, professor, musician, writer or, the job of all jobs, wife and mother."

But others report that when girls try IT, they often like it. Jerrell W. Habegger writes that four years ago, Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, Pa., began requiring all business majors to take an IT-intensive curriculum. "It has been very rewarding to see many of our women students go into information technology jobs who would not have even considered it if we had not required it," he says.

A recent IT graduate writes that she is quickly becoming disillusioned by job interviewers who treat her like a Barbie doll. "I have been asked questions like 'Are you comfortable with math?' " Elizabeth writes. "I studied calculus-based chemistry and physics for engineers. I would like to see some attitude changes, but I am not going to hold my breath."

Better not, according to Jeff Younker of Oakland, Calif., who has watched one very high-potential IT woman he knows go underused and unappreciated for years. "She has languished in poor IT positions," he says. "She's had to deal with both sexual harassment and what can only be called institutional deafness."

From the perspective of 20-something years in IT, Jane's view is no rosier. "I have worked nights, weekends and holidays in windowless, too-cold/hot/stuffy ever-shrinking cubicles, squinting 10 hours a day at lousy monitor screens, while being paid less than the men in the department and continually passed over for promotions," she writes. "Perhaps your conclusion should say '...half the future labor pool in the U.S. knows that you can't lead a fulfilling and meaningful life while working in most corporate IT settings.'"

Andrew Wright of Toronto opines that the "Dilbert" comic strip does have it right. "I have found corporate America (and Canada) to actually be about money," he writes. "If the IT industry wants to attract people - not just women - whose goals and metrics do not revolve around money, it is not just a case of the IT community changing their image; they need to change the basis of that image."

Fifteen years in IT has taught Kathryn Kostohryz of Rowayton, Conn., that girls should follow their instincts and let the corporate world be damned. "Corporate America is not for everyone," she writes. "Girls [should be] shown thought-provoking applications of IT in serving people in the fields they are interested in -- not just corporate America."

And as for corporate America, she says, it's time to sink or swim. "If corporate America can't figure out what the problem is," Kostohryz writes, "well, then, f--- 'em."

Kathleen Melymuka is a Computerworld feature writer. Contact her at kathleen_melymuka@computerworld.com.

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