[LINK] Women opting out of Australian IT industry

[Adam Todd]

> >Gosh that's simple!  (Generalised for simplicity.)
> >So Go Girl!  Do your juggling act and keep the men folk in line!
>
>Adam, Link,
>      I say rubbish!
>[adds to ongoing holy war]

<rofl>

>I feel that the stereotypes you have presented are in fact at the root of
>the problems which cause alot of gender inequality.

Yes to a certain degree, I actually agree.

> From birth boys are told to play with trucks, girls told to play with
>dollies.

Not around my house.  But strangely we've not encouraged our boys to go 
either way, but they are instinctively attracted to trucks and such.  Very 
curious.

Can't speak for girls, don't have any - yet :)

>Saying that women are no good at "male style" logical processes is
>bulls***t.

Generally it's true.  It's not going to apply to ALL cases.

>Saying that men are no good at management is equally rubbish!

<smile> In my experience women do run companies better than men.  Men do 
the work better than women.

>I will offer an immediate example against your example:
>In my home, I cook, I clean, I vacuum, I keep things running.

In my home, I do the business work, but have only recently managed to get 
my wife to run my time table.  Since then things have been 500 times 
better, more efficient and productivity is up.

She runs the house, cooks vacuums, cleans, manages me, the two kids, I 
don't envy her at all :)

Other small business associates show the same things and same results.  I 
can't state whether it might apply in a non family business though.  I can 
assume it does to some degree because a client who has a retail chain has 
improved total performance since his wife came on full time.  They have 
expended considerably.  No doubt there are significant contributing 
factors, but the wife seems to be able to keep the focus under control.


>My wife works in the public service as an economist. She loves to do
>"male style" logical things such as number crunching, and in depth
>analysis.

Number crunching is financial, it's emotional.  It's not logical.  The best 
accountants people I've ever come across are Asian, or Female.

The worst are White Caucasian Males.

Look at the difference between a female run small business and a male small 
business.  The female manages the books, runs budgets on a money 
basis.  Male run businesses mostly tend to spend what is in the bank 
account on the day they need a purchase, not thinking about the bills at 
the end of the month.   Maybe I speak too much of ISPs :)

>anyway, personal examples aside, from speaking to some women who were
>enrolled in the same degree i was (B. IT), I feel that women drop out of
>IT after one or two years because IT is an almost 100% male environment.

True.  Hey I'm not saying women can't do such things.  I use to employ a 
very good senior technical officer in the USA, she was brilliant.  Problem 
was she was also excellent and managing and eventually dumped the IT based 
grind for managing the 30 IT Staff - all males.  Advantage was she had an 
extensive Technical knowledge.

>How would you feel as one of three or four women in a lecture of 300
>students?

Pretty proud :)  Who cares.  If that's the excuse them the women taking up 
the role aren't suitable period.  Women struggled for years to get to the 
top of the corporate ladder.  Look at many of the businesses that have 
women at the top - most are very well managed, often more so than 
competitors that are male run.

>how do you feel when your male lecturer makes a sexist joke?

I make one back.  Gimme a break!  I did some female dominated courses!

What about Male Nurses?  You think they get it easy?

>how do you feel when you then need to approach that same lecturer with a
>question on how to finish the next assignment?

I ignore the lecturers lack of personality and concentrate on the issue at 
hand.  It's business, not personal.


>how do you feel when you're in a computing lab doing a tute with 29 men 
>and a male tutor (no other women).


I'd probably feel very much in control.  My wife was in a Science course 
with most male participates, She survived, but honestly has a limited 
aptitude in physics.  I can't explain that - I think she is quite 
brilliant, maybe she is afraid of making a mistake in front of me?

>How do you feel when you are in the computing lab at 3am
>finishing off an assignment while some men who are in the same lab to
>finish the same assignment, are taking a break and looking up some
>pron[sic] on the net? how do you feel??

Amused?  If their lives are so boring they have to look at porn on the net 
and not find themselves a female for intellectual and emotional 
stimulation, let them suffer.  Who cares!  Anyway, my body would probably 
be better than any they'd find on the net :)

>intimidated.

No, I'd not feel intimidated.  I'm not a stereotype.

Which is why I raised the stereotype in the first place.  Because it's all 
utter trash!  And when Women=, with aptitude, stand up and be counted, then 
the stereotype goes away.

I select people for their skills, or to give them a chance to show their 
abilities.  Not because they are male or female.  People create stereotypes 
in their own actions.

>the environment isn't conducive to women studying IT.

Why not?  Men study cooking, sewing, makeup, nursing ...

They don't drop out.  Are you saying women are weaker?

>add this with the fact that in their younger years they were told they
>couldn't do maths,

Yeah big mistake of the 1940-90's.  Women seem to be better at math in my 
opinion and experience, as narrow as that may be.

And they certainly are good at English.  Probably because they have 
traditionally been left to do all the communications with children and 
adults.  Multi skilled at different levels of communications.  "Dads" tend 
to say "Stop that, don't do that.  Sit Down."  Very limited vocabulary :)

>they were good at english... they weren't encouraged
>into computing studies in high school.

My wife TAUGHT computing studies at high school, with a sexist pig of an 
arsehole drop kick who knew far less.

>It's hard to get your mind around
>a concept such as object oriented programming when your mind hasn't been
>excercised in that direction - especially if you haven't had a good high
>school experience with computers.

Are you saying because I failed Year ten and never did any further studies 
I can't program?

> From what I have observed, the women that end up graduating from IT are
>generally one of the following (yes i am stereotyping, but these are my
>observations):
>*from a single-sex school (more specifically, a single sex school with
>strength in Science-type subjects)
>*from an asian background ( to a lesser extent )

That last one is a pretty big statement.  You will note I made a similar 
comment :)

>I feel that this should tell us something. I leave you to draw your own
>conclusions.

<rofl> I'm not 100% sure.  The sample study and personal experience of 
yourself and myself is rather limiting :)  But it's good discussion!