Women in IT

Women in IT are becoming a rare breed.  "Researchers" at NYPL (does that mean librarians?) were commissioned to find out what they could about women in IT: what positions they're holding, and if they're here at all.  Jeff Zeldman writes about it in Women in Web Design: Just the Stats.  There are not stats on web design specifically (odd, eh?), but lots of stats on IT.  What did they find?

Women make up less than 1/4 of the IT workforce, and that number is shrinking, and the women in the field aren't promoted as often or as highly as their male counterparts.

Speaking as a newer techie, I can say that it's unusual to encounter women doing tech jobs--even in libraries.  Most IT folks are still male, and the few women I've encountered in library tech are in managerial positions like mine--kind of the "we'll oversee what you do, not that we understand it."  I have had more than one experience with people being shocked that I actually understand the jobs of those that I supervise...that I know what a network is and how it works, that I can code, that I know how to build a computer from bits and pieces.  Now, I don't know if that's because I'm female of that's because people are used to managers who don't know squat.  I don't know.

Since it's unusual to meet women in library tech, a traditionally female-dominated field, I'm not at all surprised to hear that overall, "women in tech" is a declining number.

found via A Passion for Puters