Women Dropping Out of IT 706
Women's eNews has an interesting look at women in tech, with numbers showing that women are bailing out of the IT field at a rapid pace. "Technology jobs are predicted to grow at a faster rate than all other jobs in the professional sector, up to 22% over the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Compensation is also good. In 2008, women in tech made an average salary of $70,370. ... But women's stake in that rosy outlook is questionable. For starters, men's pay during the same time period was $80,357. A study by the National Center for Women and Information Technology ... also finds that women are leaving computer careers in staggering numbers. 'Fifty-six percent of women in technology companies leave their organizations at the mid-level point, 10-20 years in their careers,' said Catherine Ashcraft, the senior research scientist who authored the report. In 2008, women held only 25% of all professional IT-related jobs, down from 36% in 1991, according to the group's report, 'Women in IT: The Facts.'"
why? because.. (Score:4, Informative)
Men talk over us or around us.
If I'm speaking most men will just interrupt and talk right over as if I'm not even in the room.
And if I'm competent, which I am, I'm seen as a threat and treated as "the enemy"..
The pay is lower and we have to put more nonsense than we should.
Bottom line: we are treated with disrespect and disdain. In general. It's the old "Women should be seen but not heard" problem.
I dropped out of the IT world a few years ago because of the afore mentioned reasons.
Re:Women should stick with what they're good at (Score:3, Informative)
Getting the insulation off of cat 5? Seems like a narrow career.
Re:Not just women (Score:5, Informative)
Next time, RTFA. The figure is specifically adjusted for "comparable experience", just to factor out time off for maternity leave and childcare. Paying women less for comparable experience is pure sexism.
But there's a nice unexamined assumption in your post: Why the fuck aren't the men taking parental leave or caring for the children?
Re:Children? (Score:4, Informative)
Child-rearing really doesn't have very much to do with it at all, between school, day-care, a partner and parental leave. .
Spoken like someone who does not have children. Until you do, you have no idea what it takes, especially if it's not smooth sailing.
By the way I'm male, in IT and on parental leave. 2 weeks is all I get per child. I have a newborn daughter, and a boy under 2. My wife's had 4 hours sleep tonight. That's a good night for her. 2 days ago she got an hour and the only thing that got her through is she has me and her parents to take over so she can sleep during the day. I dread what it is going to be like with me back at work and her parents gone. It does get better as they get older but you'll still have shitty days. Like the day my daughter came home but I couldn't go pick her up because my older boy had a fever and had a very rough night (temperate baths etc). I see what my wife goes through and I'm very glad she doesn't have to add work to the mix right now. As they get older the challenges change but if you think a little bit of parental leave and a partner helping makes it all smooth sailing, you're in for a shock if you ever have kids.
Re:Children? (Score:4, Informative)
>>>women are offered shittier salaries on average
False. When you compared men and women of equal years, they make equal salaries. You make the same mistake as those who claim people only lived to 40 in the 1700s. That is the AVERAGE lifespan, and it's drawn downward because of early death, but if a person survived past age 20 his life expectancy was 70-80 years. Same as now.
Likewise women tend to quit early, but when you compared a 60 year old man to a 60 year old woman in IT, you'll find they make the same salaries.
Karma Suicide!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Funnily enough, I'm just reading super-freakonimcs and the authors mentioned a few things about the general male-female wage gap, which confirmed things in my personal experience.
All the research done shows women are are more likely to leave the workforce earlier than men or downshift in thier careers. Even the summary says that.
Basically, most of the factors that affect the pay gap are things done by choice.
On a personal level even a small amount observation will show that most women don't make as much money as men becuase they really don't want to.
When any of my male acquaintances are looking for a job thier first question is always "How can I get a job that pays more money."
With my female acquaintances when they are looking for a job the first comment is almost always "I want to know if i will like it there."
Men value money more on average while women value work environment and quality. Men are more likely to ask for a raise than women. And men are more likely to quit becuase they didn't get the raise while women are more likely to quit becuase they don't like the environment.
All this naturally leads to the conclusion that men will make more money than women but women will enjoy thier jobs more than men.
Can any of you say this isn't true in your own personal experience?
Re:This just proves (Score:1, Informative)
No wonder all worthy Nobel Prize winners, all Field Medal winners, all Chess Masters, greatest technologists, all greatest writers are Men... History has shown which of the genders has the superior mind, and that gender is Male.
Why is it that when we look at the best track runners and see that they are Africans, we are ok that physically whites are inferior to Africans. And we as males understand this, and accept it, and move forward without having to come up with various bs and name calling, and pretend this difference does not exist. Yet when once again, through history and current facts it is shown that one gender, or one ethnicity produces better Scientists/Minds than another, we must quickly try to stifle this fact, and try to pretend the difference does not exist.
It is a fact that Males in general have much greater physical and mental potential than females. Deal with it, no matter how much you whine, or make up excuses, and for whom you spread your legs will change this fact. The best Scientists will always be male, all greatest inventions will always come from males, originality and reasoning is what males have evolved for because of the necessity to struggle with the varied environments, and needed strategies for big game hunting. Females have evolved to simply sit in caves and try not to screw up raising a child by accidentally killing that child through some stupid mistake.
Re:This just proves (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Children? (Score:5, Informative)
In the US. In Norway, the fathers in my company is home just as often as the mothers.
In Norway, fathers get 10 weeks paternity leave. He also gets 2 weeks leave just after the birth to take care of the mother and child (not counted towards the paternity leave).
There are still more men than women in IT in Norway.
Re:Dilbert? (Score:5, Informative)
It's men who are dumb enough to tolerate the aspy-programmer types, the sneering arrogant IT guys, the mailing lists full of flaming personal attacks leveled by closet bullies empowered by semi-anonymity, the phallic-compensating gadget consumerists, constantly "helpful" types who manage to insult while trying to rescue, and the sexually inept who use pinup wallpaper and leer at any woman in eyeshot. Membership in (or at least tolerance of) a repellant boys' club is an almost-mandatory feature of our industry.
In a 20 year career as a software developer:
1. I haven't met any programmers suffering from Asperger's Syndrom (I assume this is what "aspy" means, correct me if I'm wrong)
2. I haven't known any "sneering arrogant IT guys". The IT guys I've met have been normal, helpful human beings.
3. I have seen some harsh emails, but not often and nothing like the venom you describe
4. I can't recall any "phallic compensation gadget consumerists", but perhaps I'm not looking hard enough...
5. I haven't met any "constantly helpful types who insult while trying to rescue"
6. I have seen some teenage male type usage of naked women pictures, but that's been quite rare. Do you think that teenage male types only exist in the tech industry?
Do you think that "boys clubs" are more prevalent in the tech industry than other industries? The problems that you cite probably exist in most companies to one degree or another.
Your problem is that you don't work in the make-believe world of television shows and movies - which is pretty much the only place I can think of that has the characters/stereotypes the GP seems to be railing against.
Re:This just proves (Score:3, Informative)
IT doesn't have release cycles. That's software development.
IT builds and keeps the infrastructure working that other people need to do their job, such as develop software.
Even though your example doesn't apply, what you say is still entirely true though. The same problems are evident.
Re:Some things I noticed (Score:1, Informative)
Um, I don't think it's safe to generalize based on your experience with one woman working in IT.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This just proves (Score:3, Informative)
Another interesting fact in that report shows that IT union members show no significant differences in salary from non-union members.
As to the Nordic economy -- correlation is not causation (as we like to blindly mouth on Slashdot). There are so many other factors to take into consideration - starting with the very basis of the economy - that neither health of the economy nor the quality of life cannot be compared on the basis of union membership.
That aside -- it's a bit of a non-issue since nowhere did I say that unions are responsible for all of our economic ills. I only said that I've seen how modern unions are abused.
Re:That explains the pay difference... (Score:4, Informative)
There's a huge difference between having the option and whether the number of men actually doing it is statistically significant.
I don't have any statistics, but in my culture here in central Europe, it's pretty much unthinkable that the man stays at home raising the child while the mother is out earning the money. That's not even considered by anybody (except in hypothetical discussions), even though the laws are there.
And no, that's not sexist, that's just perceiving and analyzing the culture.
Re:This just proves (Score:3, Informative)
Indeed! My wife joined WeightWatchers recently, and got access to their forums. Even these forums that are populated mostly by women are full of flamewars and hate (and all the other good stuff that shows up in a forum). The only difference is that they're heavily regulated, due to the fact that you basically have to pay to get in.
Re:This just proves (Score:1, Informative)
Seeking simplicity and ease of understanding is not anti-intellectualism.
If you need to use convoluted phrases to assert your intellect, then you're probably not someone most people would want to be acquainted with.
That's not the point that was actually raised though. The OP used a concise, well-defined term to describe the idea that he wanted to get across. The child poster under him accused him of being too verbose, when in reality it only appeared to be too wordy because of the child's poor vocabulary.
"Simple" words generally don't encompass the idea that you are communicating properly, requiring you to say MORE to try to explain what you actually meant, leading to an unnecessary, long post that could be easily shortened with a broader vocabulary.
Imagine if every time you wanted to use a scientific or technical term, you had to describe it in the ~100 word vocabulary of a high school dropout. It would be absurd.
So fuck off, using "rapid ambulation" was fine.
Re:This just proves (Score:3, Informative)
"He" is still the proper gender-indeterminate/neutral pronoun.