In my opinion, it's not a question of a need. If women don't wan't to do IT, thatn they just don't, period. Of course, that everyone would apprieciate mixed groups, where there'd be women and men. But now, we're going to opposite direction: from giving a chance for women to study, to force them to learn IT?
I guess that there are many factors forcing women to generally stay away from IT and most of them were unmentioned in attached presentation. I personally know just a few of girls who connect the term "success" to "science career" in their minds. I can really see one major difference between sexes - women are usually more drawn to a "beauty" in every meaning of this world, as beauty lies in the eye of the beholder... They want to create beautiful things or have contact with them - that's why we have many girls studying architecture, arts, clothing, animals, languages (beautiful as well in many eyes, or ears!). This beauty can be also found in helping others - that's for women majority in fields such as psychology, nursing or teaching. Just few of us see the same beauty in coding, physics or math.
The other thing is the majority of men of IT itself, which leads to fear of being the only pearl in the sea of mud. I think every girl has heard about how they treat women in technical highschools - it may be fluttering for some ladies, but it's highly intimidating for others.
I was always kind of unisex in terms of hobbies and clothing (still have some funny drawings of tanks from kindergarden), so when it comes to gender discussions, I always feel a little bit off the subject. I do some coding for my work and I know some girls who do it a lot better than me. I think all the differences are fading away on the yearly basis, so there is no need to do big campaigns concerning this problem.
I would like to address another thing here. For most people IT generally doesn't appear to be the most emotionally uplifting field you can choose. At least that was the case until not long ago. There happens to be a major shift towards IT technologies being more accessible and more user friendly to use and work with. Years ago IT and science in general were associated with programmers staring at numerous lines of code with black/white background or scientists working 8 hours a day with mathematical equations on board, with little human contact. That was how the field was perceived.
The point here is, that in general women are more likely to base their life decisions on emotions, what they feel good about. They like contact with other people and things that make them feel a certain way, they are also less likely to take risks and explore the unknown than men, who have it encoded in their genes and through the way they were raised. That's one of the reasons girls in IT were historically more likely to pick artistic fields or business-related positions with more human interaction while guys were more often the developers.
Things tend to change now, as IT and science seem to become more accessible and emphasis on human relations and user-experience in fields like IT becomes stronger. Also, there's more and more emphasis on gender equality, gender roles are not as highly divided in modern western societies and girls are actually encouraged by guys and other girls to do "geeky" things. I think there's a shift happening and while there are still some gender differences encoded in our bodies and cultures, they're becoming weaker and we can see more and more girls entering the science fields. I believe there are many reasons why it's good. One of them is the fact, that male IT students are no longer going to be like "WOOOW, there's a girl in our group" ;-)
If we consider western societies we can assume that nowadays women are getting more and more possibilites to work anywhere they want. The problem is, they not always want to work in the fields connected with maths, physics or any sort of engineering. It may be somehow a result of the years of evolution - women stayed at home for hundreds of years and it was often impossible for them to go to school or learn any other way. That is why women were excluded from the science world for many centuries. This changed recently - we have equal rights and women can do whatever they want. But apart from that some women may feel anxious about working for IT company, at construction site or so. Most of them, from the day they are born, is encouraged to play with dolls, kitchen or household toys not with cars, tool toys or bricks. It is important to show kids that they can play with whatever thay want and to emphasize their skills in maths or IT. And maybe in the future they will be more willing to take up more 'manly' job.
I couldn't agree more with Simon's post and my personal story shows it the best: I got interested in game development as soon as I found out about beautiful graphic editors designed especially for modern game engines. Suddenly, it became so easy to create a nice game environment! If we stood in the era of black and white DOS screens and miles of type-coding, I wouldn't be so interested in this matter... :D
Collective Intelligence in Human Groups: Slides: http://cci.mit.edu/ci2012/plenaries/speaker%20slides%20ci%202012/Woolleyslidesci2012.pdf or Movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz1dDiW2mvM
Anita Williams Woolley said that more women on the team makes higher and better collective intelligence. I totally agree with that, because women on the team increase healthy competition.
In my opinion, it's not a question of a need. If women don't wan't to do IT, thatn they just don't, period. Of course, that everyone would apprieciate mixed groups, where there'd be women and men.
ReplyDeleteBut now, we're going to opposite direction: from giving a chance for women to study, to force them to learn IT?
I guess that there are many factors forcing women to generally stay away from IT and most of them were unmentioned in attached presentation. I personally know just a few of girls who connect the term "success" to "science career" in their minds. I can really see one major difference between sexes - women are usually more drawn to a "beauty" in every meaning of this world, as beauty lies in the eye of the beholder... They want to create beautiful things or have contact with them - that's why we have many girls studying architecture, arts, clothing, animals, languages (beautiful as well in many eyes, or ears!). This beauty can be also found in helping others - that's for women majority in fields such as psychology, nursing or teaching. Just few of us see the same beauty in coding, physics or math.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing is the majority of men of IT itself, which leads to fear of being the only pearl in the sea of mud. I think every girl has heard about how they treat women in technical highschools - it may be fluttering for some ladies, but it's highly intimidating for others.
I was always kind of unisex in terms of hobbies and clothing (still have some funny drawings of tanks from kindergarden), so when it comes to gender discussions, I always feel a little bit off the subject. I do some coding for my work and I know some girls who do it a lot better than me. I think all the differences are fading away on the yearly basis, so there is no need to do big campaigns concerning this problem.
I would like to address another thing here. For most people IT generally doesn't appear to be the most emotionally uplifting field you can choose. At least that was the case until not long ago. There happens to be a major shift towards IT technologies being more accessible and more user friendly to use and work with. Years ago IT and science in general were associated with programmers staring at numerous lines of code with black/white background or scientists working 8 hours a day with mathematical equations on board, with little human contact. That was how the field was perceived.
ReplyDeleteThe point here is, that in general women are more likely to base their life decisions on emotions, what they feel good about. They like contact with other people and things that make them feel a certain way, they are also less likely to take risks and explore the unknown than men, who have it encoded in their genes and through the way they were raised.
That's one of the reasons girls in IT were historically more likely to pick artistic fields or business-related positions with more human interaction while guys were more often the developers.
Things tend to change now, as IT and science seem to become more accessible and emphasis on human relations and user-experience in fields like IT becomes stronger. Also, there's more and more emphasis on gender equality, gender roles are not as highly divided in modern western societies and girls are actually encouraged by guys and other girls to do "geeky" things. I think there's a shift happening and while there are still some gender differences encoded in our bodies and cultures, they're becoming weaker and we can see more and more girls entering the science fields. I believe there are many reasons why it's good. One of them is the fact, that male IT students are no longer going to be like "WOOOW, there's a girl in our group" ;-)
If we consider western societies we can assume that nowadays women are getting more and more possibilites to work anywhere they want. The problem is, they not always want to work in the fields connected with maths, physics or any sort of engineering. It may be somehow a result of the years of evolution - women stayed at home for hundreds of years and it was often impossible for them to go to school or learn any other way. That is why women were excluded from the science world for many centuries.
ReplyDeleteThis changed recently - we have equal rights and women can do whatever they want. But apart from that some women may feel anxious about working for IT company, at construction site or so. Most of them, from the day they are born, is encouraged to play with dolls, kitchen or household toys not with cars, tool toys or bricks. It is important to show kids that they can play with whatever thay want and to emphasize their skills in maths or IT. And maybe in the future they will be more willing to take up more 'manly' job.
I couldn't agree more with Simon's post and my personal story shows it the best: I got interested in game development as soon as I found out about beautiful graphic editors designed especially for modern game engines. Suddenly, it became so easy to create a nice game environment! If we stood in the era of black and white DOS screens and miles of type-coding, I wouldn't be so interested in this matter... :D
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI highly recommend this lecture:
ReplyDeleteCollective Intelligence in Human Groups:
Slides: http://cci.mit.edu/ci2012/plenaries/speaker%20slides%20ci%202012/Woolleyslidesci2012.pdf
or
Movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bz1dDiW2mvM
Anita Williams Woolley said that more women on the team makes higher and better collective intelligence.
I totally agree with that, because women on the team increase healthy competition.