So What?
by Shelley Powers09/06/2007
Shelley Powers has been working with, and writing about, web technologies--from the first release of JavaScript to the latest graphics and design tools--for more than 12 years. Her recent O'Reilly books have covered the semantic web, Ajax, JavaScript, and web graphics.
A few weeks back, the book Beautiful Code: Leading Programmers Explain How They Think hit the streets. What a terrific concept: get several prominent programmers to write about their own unique perspective on programming and donate the money to a good cause (Amnesty International). It was, and still is, a good idea and book. What problem could I possibly have with it?
A quick look at the Table of Contents gives you a hint: of the 38 programmers who contributed to the book, only one was a woman. Just one woman. Even by today's standards with few women staying in the field—and even fewer entering—the ratio of men to women in this book, frankly, sucks.
A discussion arose about the lack of women authors in this book, which included the fact that some of the women who were invited to contribute declined. There were the usual statements, the usual questions asked: "Give us lists of relevant women," "Who should we have invited?" Yada, yada, yada, business as usual.
However, there were several comments that I found disquieting because they reflected other discussions we've had in the last year about the issue of the declining numbers of women in technology. The wording used has differed, but the views basically reduced down to, "So what?"
There is only one woman who contributed to the book. So what?
There are no women presenting at the conference. So what?
No women are listed among these top designers/developers/experts. So what?
Before this last year—regardless of the situation and the participants, regardless of the reasons people give for the growing lack of diversity in the tech field, regardless of solutions offered—one thing all participants in these discussions seemed to agree on was that this lack of women was not a good thing. Lately, though, I'm seeing a disinterest in the whole issue; an increasingly vocal opinion that it just really doesn't matter.
I never lack for opinion, but this one has me stumped. Here we are in 2007, in an era where the numbers of women in "non-traditional" professions have been increasing, sometimes even past the 50 percent mark. No longer do women have to stay at home or choose only "soft" professions. We now have more choices, and the only limits we seemingly face are those we bring with us. Women serve in the military and die in action, lead major corporations, argue cases in the Supreme Court, and are anything from rocket scientists to neurosurgeons.
Yet in the IT fields, our numbers are dwindling. Significantly. We all have ideas why this is occurring, but nothing concrete that we can point at and say, "There, that's why!" It's a true puzzle. What's more puzzling, though, is how many in the technology field just don't care. They don't see that a field that is becoming increasingly only male is a problem.
Is it a problem? Probably not, if only men use the gadgets, only men use the software, only men are impacted by the applications, and so on. Yet, we know that women typically use software as much or more than men. Women use the Internet, as much or more than men. Women buy and use the gadgets. What's happening is that all the population is using an increasing number of applications that are architected, designed, developed, quality tested, and documented by only half the population. Less than half, because the tech industry lacks diversity when it comes to race, too.
Maybe I'm just being a woman and all, but I look at this and I think to myself: are we really creating the best software? Are we really designing the best gadgets, the most useful web sites, the superior applications? How can we be, if more than half the population has no input in any aspect of the development and design process?
So, so what.
I've long felt that the IT field is one of the few where the participants are focused on the tools, rather than the tasks. I believe that integrating IT into the engineering field as a complete and separate discipline was a huge mistake—not the least of which is that engineering is the only other discipline where the numbers of women are dropping (big hint, there).
Our field would be better if it were integrated with the librarian sciences, psychology, business, English, art—associated with tasks and topics, rather than grouped around the tools and processes. This makes even more sense when you realize that many people who enter the field do so with no degrees or with degrees in completely unrelated disciplines. It's not unusual to hear from both sexes that they drifted into development or design because of a growing interest that was unrelated to their initial course of study. Imagine how much stronger the IT field would be if we bring in all these diverse viewpoints right from the start.
My recommendation? Break up the computer science programs, split the participants into specialized fields within other disciplines, and stop spending all our time on talking about Ruby and how cool it is. See? There's a solution, and all it requires is basically ripping apart the entire field and rearranging the chunks.
Whatever solutions we arrive at to increase the number of women in technology, none are going to work if there isn't general consensus that the lack of diversity is a problem. That we all, at a minimum, agree that the computer field, as it is now, is broken. That we need to find solutions. More importantly that we all have to buy into the solutions, because whatever we come up with is going to impact on all of us, including those who say, "So what?"
Series creator and editor Tatiana Apandi Recommends: Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing by Jane Margolis and Allan Fisher.
Return to Women in Technology.
Showing messages 1 through 10 of 10.
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Re: So What?
2007-09-20 22:28:36 gds1 [View]
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coding is literacy
2007-09-11 02:56:33 hawaiikaos [View]
This may be a tad tangential, but there has been a lot of discussion here about which disciplines or fields CS, IT, and software engineering fits into. This is a specifically post secondary argument, and frankly, mostly irrelevant.
I was plunked down in front of a Mac (with a manual on Logo) in 1983 at the age of 7 by a female librarian. I was left alone with it for a few hours. I've been coding ever since.
I've long believed that coding is just an extension of literacy. It's much like reading and writing, but a heck of a lot more interactive. To sequester the learning of it to high school or college is as about as silly as putting off learning to read until that time. Granted, not everyone needs to know how to code in society, but not exposing children early enough (before the soak up society's biases) excludes many who might otherwise take a shine to it. Learning to code also helps people to solve problems logically, to think critically, and to feel satisfaction in having created something.
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Refocus....
2007-09-10 14:23:18 LenaWest [View]
Shelley:
I agree that what we need to do is retrain our focus from the latest web 2.0 hot stuff app or thinking of cool ways to use Google Earth and start, instead, to focus on the longevity of the industry.
I do believe that the Universe will give balance where it does not exist, but I do think we have to actively do our share.
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Work / Life Balance
2007-09-06 18:19:23 julilb [View]
I think part of what keeps women out of IT is the well known poor work / life balance that is common in many areas of the field. I don't know if they still do, but when I was a Cadet Girl Scout in the early 80's one of the career exploration related badges had a requirement of asking a woman in a field you were exploring how their career affects their marriage and family life. I remember many comments from various sources through out junior high and high school about the need I as a woman would have to balance a career with child rearing. (I'm still not sure why that's only a woman's issue or why that's the only work/life balance issue I was supposed to care about.)
When I worked in a company with a lot of family friendly policies and benefits, the IT department was predominantly female - not because of who was hired, but because of who stayed. Many of the men who stayed for more than a year or two were single fathers or had special needs children.
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Beautiful code and fitness for real life
2007-09-06 12:05:43 Andy Oram |
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Because Shelley starts her quite deep article with a reference to debates over Beautiful Code and I co-edited the book, I'd like to talk a bit about its appropriateness. I appreciate the Shelley summarized the long discussions on the Net about the lack of women in the book, and I'll leave it up to readers to do a web search rather than rehash the efforts we put in to getting woman authors.
What I want to say here is that I absolutely agree with the importance of a program fitting into the real world and into how people work. One of the themes in several of the chapters of Beautiful Code is that code can be beautiful by solving a need in a surprising and elegant way, even if the code itself isn't elegant by textbook standards. While some solutions in the book justify themselves along lines of efficiency or maintainability, many justify themselves by an unusual sensitivity to the context in which the programs are used.
I bet this theme would have been strengthened, had we recruited more women to the book. Luckily, we're doing some follow-up books, so we have more chances.
I'll also mention that a couple of the creators of code in this book have non-programming careers and created the code shown discussed in the book as a side line. So I see a role for people in other fields to contribute to programming.
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Presenting IT as an Option
2007-09-06 11:34:10 kromano [View]
Not only is mixing CS with other degrees a good idea but I think CS, MIS, etc. need to be offered as viable options for young women researching career paths.
I grew up in Silicon Valley with a father in EE surrounded by gadgets. I remember "playing" on his Commdore and writing a Fortran program as a game. And while I enjoyed logic and numbers in highschool, no one ever recommended a degree in CS! I was told "You're outgoing and gregarious, so how about Marketing?" or "If you like numbers, many women go into Accounting." It wasn't until I aced my Intro to IS that my teacher asked me to consider a career in IT. Granted I went middle of the road, opting for Business MIS and a minor in CS, but I've found it very rewarding.
If it wasn't for that one special teacher, I'd be an accountant now instead of owning my own software company!
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pairing CS with other programs is a great idea
2007-09-06 10:32:53 Selena Deckelmann | [View]
I really like the idea of changing the nature of computer science degrees - pairing the theory and tools with a discipline. A friend of mine chose to basically do that. She started out in chemistry and biology, switched her degree to CS and wrote an classification application for botanists for her thesis.
Still, I think there is value in in the study of computer science in a concentrated and separate way (disclosure: I have a CS degree). For example, I think that, despite many obvious similarities, there are important and fundamental differences between programming and human communication languages. And there is enough difference that academic study of programming languages just doesn't seem to fully fit in linguistics departments. I think you can argue the opposite - but academics have already separated the departments and degrees. An interim step may be to encourage more dual degree programs like this: http://www.dcs.qmul.ac.uk/undergraduate/programmes/languages.html.
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So What?
2007-09-06 10:15:08 Capecoder [View]
I wonder if anti-female attitudes in tech are generational - any comments on this? Are younger folks better than older people at ignoring gender? Personally, I've found that to be true in companies or departments which value actual job performance instead of hierarchy, and those have tended to be environments with younger managers.
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So this
2007-09-06 09:44:54 MarkWood [View]
"Who can say why women don't enter or stay in IT?" The person who has gone out and measured it, of course. Has anyone interviewed several thousand women who have the necessary aptitudes why they did or did not choose to work in computing? What did the stat.s look like?
May I also say that computing is not one field. "Computing science" is a branch of mathematics, and properly so. "IT" is running wires and installing and fixing stuff -- it's construction and maintenance, like plumbing. Programming is like commercial art except the artists have their brains installed backward. :-) User Interface design (including website design) is graphic art, and the artists are normal (for artists :-) . Maybe some of these should be spread over other disciplines, and some should not.
I left out "software engineering" because I'd like to hear opinions from current Professional Engineer holders as to whether software engineering is engineering. Whatever it is, it's a management discipline, about as far from science, design, or plumbing as you can get.
All of these disciplines interact and inform each other, so if we part some of them out it's still important to have a common identity overlay for them all so that all the practitioners still talk to each other now and then.
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So What ?
2007-09-06 09:21:42 dmarsh26 [View]
Can I just say 'So what?' ;)
I'm really not sure I agree with the tone of this series. Who can say why women don't enter or stay in IT ? I've witnessed numerous failed attemps to attract them, if they don't want it thats their right is it not ? Should we force more men to become nurses ? Is it really useful to artificially positively discriminate on sex, race etc to boost then ranks ?
Theres always been female characters in IT, its just they have always been in the minority. I don't think we should turn it into another subject that women find more palatable, like s soft science like Psychology.
Lots of people are held back in IT by lack of access to education, or too structured career paaths etc. Changing this might not alter the balance between the sexes, many men will be disadvantaged by this too.
As far as the women have to be twice as good argument, I've often had to be twice as good as my peers to get promoted and I'm a man, I also had some pretty bad female bosses.
These sterotypes to me really serve to do us no favours. If women were the best people to write the book and they put themselves forward I'm sure they'd be in it. I think IT is pretty close to a meritocracy, even though a true meritocracy will never exist. In a meritocracy it may well be fair for there to be an imbalance. Ironically many women in business seem obsessed by copying the worst traits of men, I find men and women succeed when they use the best traits of humanity regardless of sex.
WRT the meritocracy of CS, there is a justified reason for this: computer software runs on real systems that require real resources. I don't feel there is an anti-female or anti-feminist agenda here. The way that the arguments for or against certain design choices are articulated is often criticized as anti-female. I agree and think this is unfortunate. It has no doubt driven many promising women out of the field.
Whether CS (or SE) is a "real" engineering discipline is a highly contentious topic. Given what has happened to the industry of late - jobs have been lost in the US to low-income, low-wage countries, licensing and certification has been proposed as a solution. There is backlash to this argument, claiming that certification does not imply qualification, and that it stifles innovation. But the software industry does not currently have a way of articulating to those outside of the industry what it should be expected to do.
I don't have any good ideas on how to encourage women to pursue CS (or SE). In all honesty, I can't fault any woman for choosing another field, given the loss of long-term viable career options, the high stress, etc. However, in other countries, especially the low-wage, low-income countries I mentioned earlier, this seems to be much less an issue. In these countries, there is parity in numbers between women and men. An argument I've heard from Jane Margolis is that these women see entrance into the software industry as a means of economic liberation. Women in the US have more options, and exercise them.