Looking at the sea of white males at the Expo Hall, I noticed that it was the population of the white female that was conspicuously small. My guess is that if we separated out the minority races, mainly the Asians and Indians, the ratio of women in that crowd would be substantially higher. I thought for a minute and realized that all white women I know that work in the technology sector, are either in Sales or Marketing. In fact, I could not think of a single white woman, famous or otherwise, that was/is a developer/programmer or a pure IT junkie.
Is there a cultural difference between east and west? Is there a stigma that prevents white women in the US to enter the field of technology? Are they deterred by certain stereotypes in high school that is deemed uncool? Growing up in India, I surely didn't feel it. Sure the ratio of women in my Engineering college was about 25%, but none of my non-techie friends from high school sneered at me. If anything, they respected and even admired me.
I think we need a geek version of Hillary in the US to crack the glass wall that prevents white women from crossing the technological divide. While I may complain about how women in technology don't get much respect, I am certainly not helping their cause. Here's an embarrassing story from today: I asked this guy hovering near our booth, what the "PHP" ribbon stood for? His expression told me that it must be the dumbest question he has ever heard. He replied, "It's a language" (duh implied in his tone).
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3 comments:
1. Women at the top/ executive positions in the IT/ tech sector: do you think the cause is a result of not so many women choosing tech professions in the past? You see, even in India, i see an abysmal % in executive positions. Look at Infosys/ Wipro or even Microsoft in India. I haven't heard of any big timers.
2. But, yes, there are many enroute. Call them young/ upcoming/ preparing for those positions in years to come. In a 400+ person delivery org at MS, there is ONE tech woman at a mid-level . ofcourse there are others ( read like myself) that are in various non-tech roles.
am not sure how many women in the US are currently in the stream to be leaders tomorrow. Having said that, i know this is not a "leadership" conversation, but women in general.
Hey :)
Just checking out the blog. I've got a colleague at OSCON presenting: Jeremy Ruston. http://en.oreilly.com/oscon2008/public/schedule/speaker/4681
(Sorry this is off subject - nothing to do with Women in Tech, but had to comment :) )
Sure, while this is a trend, I would not entire agree with the statement.. I know plenty of women (albeit originally from former USSR) but nevertheles considered to be white, who took up programming during the Dot Com boom. I even tryied studying programming, just to realize I was not goot at that.
Oh, and btw, I also working in Technology, while being a financial analyst and our EVP of Tech. is a woman (a white woman)! I think you would find more white woman in management positions than as engineers (recorded statistics).
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