Career Corner Discussions
Join the conversation in the Career Corner group to ask career-related questions, find approaches to building skills, and seek career advancements.
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Women in computing... are we such a rarity? How many do you know?

Former Member
0 Kudos

A rarity

Some years ago, my sister who is a programmer, her friend Lourdes who is a programmer, a new co-worker of them and I were having lunch together. Suddenly he said something that was very funny to me.

- It is so weird... I´ve just realized that I´m having lunch with three programmer girls. Programmer girls. You all progammers. Who would have thought of it?  This is so out of this world!

We started at each other in awe.

- What? Do you think we are strange? Why? We are as normal as any of our female colleagues.

Then he proceeded to explain that, when he studied computer science in another country, Mexico, he had never met any female student enrolled in a computers related carreer. Thus programmer girls were a rarity for him.

Statistical facts

A rarity. At least where he studied and many other countries. But I dare to say that in our country it is quite normal.

Women can aspire to computers-related careers  just like women who aspire to become doctors or teachers.

When I was in high school I had a lot of girl friends who dreamt about studying a computer engineering career at Technological University of Panama (UTP). Studying there sounded so prestigious - (And in fact it is) - that it doesn´t surprise me that they liked to play with the idea, even if not all of them liked math a lot.

When studying at UTP I could dare to say that at least 33% in the pre-graduated classroom were females.  And all of them seemed very enthusiastic about this career.  I found a chart on internet showing the percentage of women studying computing back in 2000, but I don't remember where I left it. It was near that number. It kinda had decreased a little bit some years later. (I promise I´ll post that graph when I find it, to make it more accurate )

Now, I found another about the percentage of women enrolled in post-graduate studies and they represent more tha 40%. So I guess those are good news!

https://www.contraloria.gob.pa/inec/archivos/P4401511-49.pdf

However, after reading some articles on the internet, it seems that we might be unique compared to other countries... like USA? (see When Women Stopped Coding : Planet Money : NPR)

Do my country have the secret to make computer science appealing to girls? Do statistics in USA only include women doing low level code stuff like what you do with C, C++, Java not taking in consideration more girl-friendly programming like Visual Basic, .net, Powerbuilder, etc.? Well... I don't know.

But what I know is that during the time I´ve been working in this field I have met a lot of talented female colleagues, not only graduates from UTP, but also from National University of Panama and Latina University. Some of them are programmers, some of them are database analysts, some of them are more into technical support area and they all have in common one thing: they love what they do.


Any example? My sister Yan, her friends Lourdes, Elsa, Vielsa, Mari, Zulay,Ivelisse; and friends and colleagues we've worked with some time, like: Rosa, Zayu, Argeisa, Ilda, Manuela, Fragancia, Katherine, Marlenis, Bibiana, Ina, Dayra, Adilia, Mithzy, Indira, Ismeida, Vielka, Denise, Aidelen, Zayra, Roxana, Margoth and Audrey.

What about your country? Are women in computing a rarity? Can you mention the ones you have worked with?

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

matt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Women have been very much in the minority in the workplace for me in the past 25 years (UK, France, Switzerland). Generally, the women seem to be better at the job, but I think that's because those who aren't quickly find something they're more suited to. Men, it seems, will carry on being useless until they're made redundant or promoted out of harm's way.When I did my degree, about 25% of the students on the Computing courses were female.

I don't really care what gender the people I work with are - so long as they're competent, do their job and are reasonably sociable.

31 REPLIES 31

Matt_Fraser
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Hi Erika,

These are really good questions and observations. I do wonder what you mean, though, when you ask about Visual Basic, .NET, etc, as more "girl-friendly" than C, C++, or Java. Why would these be more girl-friendly and what makes them so?

On my team (in the USA), today, one of our three ABAP developers is female. Expanding out to include the rest of our IT department, we have a near even mix of female and male developers and database administrators, as well as network engineers and IT managers (not so much the network analysts and PC techs, though; that group remains predominantly male, but they report to a female manager). While our current CIO is male, we have had several female CIOs or IT Directors (the title has changed over the years) in the past 15 years. However, I cannot speak to whether we are unusual in this regard.

Cheers,

Matt

0 Kudos

I just made up that term because usually I find that most programmers I've met who love to code with c, c++, etc. are males while many females including me love something more graphic.

0 Kudos

I think girl-friendly means ability to use buttons instead of keyboard shortcuts and code that reads like a sentence instead of formula.

0 Kudos

When I read this I understood you meant "girlfriendly", as in your code is acceptable to your girlfriend, and not women in general. I was trying to work out how your girlfriend got you into such a vice grip that she even checks your code to see what you are up to.

Could anyone solve this problem without using closed source? Please do the needful.

Cheers,

Julius

0 Kudos

Julius von dem Bussche wrote:

When I read this I understood you meant "girlfriendly", as in your code is acceptable to your girlfriend, and not women in general. I was trying to work out how your girlfriend got you into such a vice grip that she even checks your code to see what you are up to.

Could anyone solve this problem without using closed source? Please do the needful.

Cheers,

Julius

This lightened up my today's horribly mondayish Wednesday 🙂

I presume the WDA FPM Framework is not very girlfriendly, since there's some pretty dirty stuff going on.

BTT: Over here, back 5 years during my apprenticeship, there was pretty much always only one woman in one course (around 12 people in one course). In my current work environment (department) I estimate it's kind of 30/70 women/men on the operative level and 40/60 on the management level. Also we are all strange in public sector, so there's nothing gender-related here.

EDIT: @ Colleen. What's that supposed to mean?! Coffee Corner is serious business!

Cheers, Lukas

Message was edited by: Lukas Weigelt

0 Kudos

No question, public sector is a strange beast.

Colleen
Advisor
Advisor
0 Kudos

this would have made for a good blog in the Careers space You might want to consider republishing. It could get a bit more serious thought that coffee corner banter

Former Member
0 Kudos

Thanks for your suggestion... Yep, I agree I should republish it ther not just because careers space sounds more appropriate but I have some typos and name mistakes and I can't edit this once it is posted and I wanted to correct it

former_member186277
Participant
0 Kudos

Interesting analysis Erika, I enjoyed reading it along with the comments. I think this would be a great topic in the Business Trends space as well.

matt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Women have been very much in the minority in the workplace for me in the past 25 years (UK, France, Switzerland). Generally, the women seem to be better at the job, but I think that's because those who aren't quickly find something they're more suited to. Men, it seems, will carry on being useless until they're made redundant or promoted out of harm's way.When I did my degree, about 25% of the students on the Computing courses were female.

I don't really care what gender the people I work with are - so long as they're competent, do their job and are reasonably sociable.

Former Member
0 Kudos

So basically, women are smarter than men and less stubborn.

I think I got it now  - it literally feels as if the lights went on here in Juliusland!

Cheers,

Julius

matt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Not really. I think you'd find the same with men in a female dominated field of work.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Which profession would that be which is dominated by women? Even Heidi Klumm's Next Top Model Show has more men in it than women.

Perhaps one could conclude that women have a higher barrier to entry and progress in their careers. They also have more "better things to do" options than men have. Hence there are less women in many professions, but when they are there then they are on average really good at what they do (compared to men who are more like meat lying around in a butchery)?

Cheers,

Julius

0 Kudos

Your butchery analogy is making me smile on this gloomy Wednesday in NSQ

matt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

To answer your original question, On LinkedIn, about 10% of my IT connections are women. In my office, there are 2 women. The boss and a project manager.

Former Member
0 Kudos

Matthew Billingham wrote:

To answer your original question, On LinkedIn, about 10% of my IT connections are women. In my office, there are 2 women. The boss and a project manager.

I have a pet-hate against Project Managers who do not have a user ID for the system and also claim that they don't need one.

In this case women are on par with men and have the same handicaps.

Cheers,

Julius

matt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Oh I don't know. It can have its advantages...

Former Member
0 Kudos

They are tuly idiots if you ask me!

Jelena
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Women are definitely in minority in IT (and programming in particular) in the US. I'm not quite sure what is the reason for that. Some comments to the linked article suggested that it could be a problem with stereotype of the profession not being feminine and girls preoccupied with image issues (because that's what media tells them is important). But then others commented that being a "girly girl" didn't prevent them from becoming programmers.

I guess this leaves us with the school and parents to blame. But if I was raising a daughter it would be very much like swimming against the current in the sea of pink glitter, unrealistic expectations and outdated views on what is "appropriate for women".

Matt_Fraser
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Former Member
0 Kudos

The funny thing is that at least in my country there are no that kind of steorotypes about all computing careers. At least in my generation a lot of female classmates loved the idea of studying computer systems at college.

On the other hand, it is not very common to find a lot of women working on fixing hardware like computers, printers and stuff like that. I studied a subject related to fixing computers and I hated it, even if the tools were pink it was not something I felt a vocation for.

Jelena
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Erika Atencio wrote:

The funny thing is that at least in my country there are no that kind of steorotypes about all computing careers.

That might explain it. The general career decisions are usually made in the teen years. And teenage girls are very impressionable. When I was growing up, IT barely existed and the images of people working with computers (mainframes at that point) were the ones of sophisticated, smart professionals in lab coats. But if you look at the Hollywood movies or modern TV shows - it's usually a male "geek". In rare cases where it's a female their images are not quite attractive and also couldn't be farther from the reality. (Personally I don't have anything against body piercing, tattoos and strange hairdos but I have yet to see one such female programmer in real life.)

It's tough to compete with big media, but if we keep giving the actual female professionals more visibility and exposure (and not just when they have a legal dispute with their employer), I believe in the long term it will help.

0 Kudos

Personally I don't have anything against body piercing, tattoos and strange hairdos but I have yet to see one such female programmer in real life.

Someday we'll meet, Jelena. ^^

But I have to agree, that I'm kind of the only "nerdy" female IT person I know. All the other women look and are absolutely non-geeky.

Former Member
0 Kudos

According to Hollywood we look like this:

According to Disney's:



I think I'm more Disney-like.







Matt_Fraser
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Heh, I totally had Lisbeth Salander in mind when I read Jelena's comment, and then Steffi.... Steffi IS Lisbeth Salander! Admit, Steffi, you're a super-hacker, aren't you?

Former Member
0 Kudos

Erika Atencio wrote:

I think I'm more Disney-like.

Ok, if we are going to go down that route then I think I am like Dirty Harry but I will take Chuck Norris anyway because that is where I want to get to  (of course not better - he is perfect for me).

http://midia.iplay.com.br/Imagens/Fotos/014955.jpg

0 Kudos

I hope you know, that is Mister Bean's face on Chuck Norris body.

@Matt: Nope, no super-hacker. And I really don't even look close to Lisbeth. ^^ But I'm not Disney either (even though I absolutly have several Disney dvds in my collection). *g*

paul_bakker2
Active Contributor

Matt_Fraser
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Sometimes, one does wonder if executives really think that way.

matt
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

My daughter (17) spent some time yesterday installing Eclipse on her (female) friend's computer. They're learning Java at school as part of the general curriculum. Apparently they're quite good at it.

former_member190267
Contributor
0 Kudos

Hey girls,

look at this FAQ on behalf of all women in tech:

Completely Truthful Answers to Lady Engineer Questions — Medium