January 6, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Wow, I just read about Jen's problems as a woman in IT - no surprise that there aren't more woman! Awesome that you are still battling on Jen!
I have met 2 female programmers in my time in IT and I must say that they are two of the best programmers I have ever met. I tend to agree with a previous poster that programming doesn't come "naturally" to women as it does to men (gross generalisation) due to the logical thinking. Some women naturally think logically of couse, but in general, it doesn't come naturally.
The result of this is that most women (including the 2 I am thinking of) have to learn to think logically through training. I think they have more advantages than men, once they understand the paradigm and are more adept at applying theory more precisely than men. I see this when it comes to something like DB normalisation - I tend to normalise DB's "naturally", but females use the correct processes and are better off for it.
To top it off, females are usually better at understanding the intent of client requirements - something which males tend to have to be trained in (speaking from experience). If a women understands requirements better, and are then able to translate these into good code, it makes them exceptional system developers. And the 2 I am thinking of do just that (all credit here to Nataleigh and an Irish gal who I worked with once who I can't remember her name!)
Someone said "why should there be more woman programmers?".
The answer is the strength in diversity argument. If the IT industry is to grow it needs a diverse range of people to provide input. This is partly because almost everyone in the world uses IT and as such needs to relate to it. Mostly though it is because different people have different ideas and ways to approach problems. A diverse approach is much better than a strict one way street approach...
January 6, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Ugh, this posted twice sorry!
January 6, 2010 at 11:51 pm
Phil Factor (1/5/2010)
Some estimates describe an alarming percentage fall from 40% to 20%. Clearly something must be done to reverse the trend.
[font="Arial Black"]WHY?[/font] Hasn't anyone considered that maybe the reason why that trend exists is because many of them just aren't bloody interested in insane hours, impossible schedules, idiotic designs, stingy wages (60 hours work for 40 hours pay), and management teams that think there's an "I" in the word? 😉
--Jeff Moden
January 7, 2010 at 12:36 am
My youngest (11 yr old) told me about a conversation that she and my wife were having at my wife's office this afternoon about computers. I don't fully recall the exact topic, but my wife stopped her at one point and asked her how she knew so much about the particular topic. My wife told her she sounded like her dad.
A compliment? I take it that way, for both of us.
January 7, 2010 at 1:45 am
It wasn't Ada King but Ada Byron (her real name) or Ada Lovelace (husband's name) who was the first programmer.
On 8 July 1835, Ada Byron married William King, 8th Baron King. She was then known formally as Lady King. Later on , in 1838, he became 1st Earl of Lovelace. She became Lady Lovelace but her married name remained King. All her early work as a programmer was done using her married name of Ada King (though the famous work on the analytical engine was signed AAL). Her mother was an extraordinarily gifted mathematician Anne Isabella "Annabella" Milbanke, Lady Byron. She was the only legitimate daughter of Lord Byron, who was not only a poet and revolutionary, but an enthusiastic cryptographer.
Such was the prejudice at the time against women academics that they had to conceal their work. Ada wrote her work Professor Augustus De Morgan, the eminent mathematician, wrote privately to Lady Byron expressing the view that he considered Ada's power of abstract reasoning so utterly out of the ordinary that exercising it might impair her health! He, like most academics at the time, was of the opinion that it required a man's strength to overcome intellectual problems!
I can't resist ending with a quote from a letter from her to her devoted collaborator, Charles Babbage.
"I have worked most successfully all day. You will admire the table and the diagram extremely. They have been made out with extreme care and all the indices most minutely and scrupulously attended to."
Best wishes,
Phil Factor
January 7, 2010 at 6:03 am
I'm another 53 year old female DBA/Developer who's just caught up on this thread. I decided I wanted to go into computing at age 14 and then wasn't allowed to do typing at school because I was in the Latin class - still can't touch type!
I did a computing degree at London University and though the number doing all computing was small, it was 25% female. Since then the decline has set in. I believe it is because we simply aren't interested in operating systems and networks but in programming and higher level software and the higher education courses seem to emphasise the lower levels now. Women see the computer as a tool, a means to an end, so girls are more likely to be found using the facebook, twitter and internet as communication tools rather than playing games. My student son and daughter both spend time on their computers but in those different ways.
I've been made redundant (in 1981) because I was married - the ex worked for the same company so they said I couldn't be offered relocation. It would be illegal to do that now.
Last time I changed jobs I deliberately rewrote my cv to not give away my gender. Having a name that shortens to a unisex one is useful there 🙂 I think it helped with the agencies but didn't matter where I now am in a part of the civil service as they are so p.c. about such issues.
Our application support and development team has four females all aged around 50, two twenty something males and a male manager. The network and hardware side has only one female, which supports my theory above.
What do other women think - do you want to work with operating systems and networks and hardware or with programming and web applications and databases??
January 7, 2010 at 6:27 am
I've been in IT a little over 2 years now. I'm female. There are no other women programmers in my company.
I'll just list the facts of how I'm treated (I'll try not to add in any of my thoughts on it), you can judge for yourself.
All of my co-workers were sent for certification on a specialized system. I asked my boss if I could also go. Initially he said yes. My co-worker told my boss it was a bad idea because he could teach me everything I needed to know. I said there would never be time made for that. I insisted I would be happy to pay for the certification myself, and use my own vacation time for it. Co-worker got upset, and told boss I really only needed general concepts and I could borrow their training material. After 15 minutes of my fighting my co-workers on it, I gave up.
I was helping on a big project. My co-worker scheduled a meeting to talk to the higher up's about it. My boss invited me to the meeting. The day of the meeting my co-worker slips past me as I'm heading to the door and slams the door in my face. My boss asked where I was at (I could hear through the door), and I hear my co-worker reply that I did not need to be there because I know absolutely nothing about the project and my work on it was not important. Boss overrode co-worker and I was "allowed" to attend, but any time I spoke up to share my expertise my co-worker would shout over me.
I complete 91% of the projects that are approved at our company. I handle 95.6% of the support issues that come in.
I completed my MCTS in SQL Server Business Intelligence. A few weeks after earning my certification, I see my co-worker skimming through the book I used to pass it. The next day, my boss calls me into his office to tell me I need to learn how to use SSAS from this co-worker. I argued that I had my MCTS in it, that my co-worker had built 1 cube after reading a couple pages in a book. Boss repeated that I still need to learn how to do it from co-worker. (To me that implied he felt I didn't know anything about SSAS cubes and my cert was worthless).
I earned my MCTS in Sharepoint. After passing it (and co-workers knew I passed), co-worker decided to tell me how Workflows in SharePoint work. He's never even opened our portal.
I asked one co-worker if he knew PHP. The other co-worker say's, "You know, PHP is a programming language. Kind of like .Net is a programming language". I'd already told him I knew PHP, I was just going to ask the co-worker about a small issue I had on something I was doing in my spare time. Instead, I got treated like I'm so dense I've never even heard of PHP.
It goes on and on... fact of the matter is. As a woman, I have to be 4 times better than my male conterparts to get a quarter of the respect they get for just showing up.
January 7, 2010 at 6:43 am
I sympathise strongly with the earlier post: in the words of Charlotte Whitton 'Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good.' This is absolutely true for a lot of women.
It's not clear whether the issue is with the co-worker(s) you have, but it seems as if your boss at least is making an effort to make use of your skills. It also sounds to me as if your boss is trying to please everyone by agreeing with you and appeasing the vanity of the co-worker. At least that is something... as Germaine Greer said, 'I didn't fight to get women out from behind the vacuum cleaner to get them onto the board of Hoover.'. Perhaps you could think up a list of really difficult SSAS questions to ask him, and enjoy watching him founder, but this will compound the levels to which you already threaten him and might make him worse.
I suspect with your tenacity and your qualifications that there will be another employer shrewd enough to snap you up... If it is really making you miserable, perhaps think about finding a new job in a different company. If you've been in IT for 2 years, I'm assuming that this is your first graduate job, and youth does make it worse. I'm a bitten old bag and I must say it's got easier as I've got older, even after maternity leave.
Whatever happens, don't let them take your confidence away from you. If that happens, you'll start to believe the nonsense they are feeding you. Worse still, you might even get ground down to the point where you feel incapable of doing any IT job in any company; I've been there and it is terrible, please don't let it happen to you.
January 7, 2010 at 6:51 am
P Jones (1/7/2010)
What do other women think - do you want to work with operating systems and networks and hardware or with programming and web applications and databases??
I build and install all of my own computers (other than laptop). I set up the network in my house and fix it when necessary.
I'd never take a job as a system admin, but I don't mind doing that kinda stuff. My female colleague is the company expert on AD and Exchange, while the two male consultants are more on the development side (Biztalk, C# and sharepoint)
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
January 7, 2010 at 6:59 am
mjohnson-909671 (1/7/2010)
I earned my MCTS in Sharepoint. After passing it (and co-workers knew I passed), co-worker decided to tell me how Workflows in SharePoint work.
Reminds me of an incident with a colleague at the previous company.
One week after I had received the MVP award for SQL Server, my colleague comes into the office having written the MCTS exam for SQL 2005 the previous day. He walks up to me, waves the exam transcript so I couldn't miss seeing the score, and says "See, I know more about SQL Server than you do." He'd scored something around 980, I'd written the exam almost 2 years earlier and scored 930.
I just ignored him. The previous week I'd seen print outs of braindumps on his desk.
Not going to attribute that one to gender. He hated anyone being better than him, no matter who it was.
Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability
January 7, 2010 at 7:31 am
Phil Factor (1/6/2010)
. That's like saying we should have more women in the mining industry."
If we accept the research published by the 'Women in Mining' organization (who would, I'm sure, disagree with you) ...
.. then their recruitment level is at 25%. In parts of the west, recruitment in IT for women is down to 20%. I don't buy the 'Mining' comparison!
I think the point being made was - it is simply a numbers game? Do you really feel comfortable just saying that there is a bias simply because the numbers changed from one generation to the next?
Having read a fair amount of the studies in classes last year, altogether too many of the studies simply stick to this tired line of argument. Watching the trends by themselves are NOT enough to impute bias, a drop in absolute numbers, a bias, or most of the other common evils. You do in fact have to correlate in other things (interest being one) to get a good picture.) It's interesting that noone is standing on their head to decry the low male representation in the nursing community.
I have once in a while run into the ugly caveman mentality in the IT shops I have worked with, and the minute I find it, it gets dealt with appropriatelyand forcefully. The women IT professionals in my group are consistently in the top performers, and are recognized as such. Let's hope we can attract more such talented people into our groups, regardless of their gender.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
January 7, 2010 at 8:00 am
CYA.
This is good advice for everyone, all the time, but seems appropriate to bring up in light of the several comments about bosses or co-workers taking credit or not recognizing your work or skills; or even sabotaging your efforts (please tell me source control makes sabotaged code nearly non-existent these days!). If you have a co-worker who like to take credit for other people's work, drop a quick email after meetings to recap what was discussed. Of course, you will clearly identify your contributions. This is also helpful when there are action items from the meeting so you can clarify who gets what task --even in a great environment with excellent co-workers, occasionally something important can slip through with everyone thinking someone is going to do it. Do the same type of thing when you meet with your boss. It keeps you covered with the boss, but can also establish your track record for accurately summarizing discussions, so if you have a case of your word vs. someone else's you have a better chance of being believed.
You should also document your work/accomplishments from time to time to your boss. Even if you already send status reports or emails, something on a little higher level now and then is good to keep your name associated with "high performer" (or however you want to be recognized) in the boss's (or other higher-ups') mind(s).
Be tactful and professional. You can often create this type of documentation in the form of Thank-yous... e.g. "thanks for the feedback on my idea of..." and so on.
January 7, 2010 at 8:01 am
Folks, can we wrap this one up?
I've read all the posts and have to say that I've experienced most of the cases that the other women have brought up, the single exception being timeout for childbearing.
Men, this is how we, the women of the group, have been treated. It's past, we deal with it and move on (or move out).
Please think of this thread the next time you work with female IT co-workers, and be happy that they stuck it out. If you don't have any female co-workers, recall this discussion and you will know why.
Women, you know how rewarding this field is. Please reach out to the ENTIRE next generation and teach them that this is a great field to be in, and that 'playing well with others' is the best way to build and keep great teams. Excluding people, whether by unintentional gender bias, uber-techiness, language-superiority, alpha-male tactics, firefighter syndrome or anything else that we've seen in the workplace does more harm than good.
Colleen OUT.
January 7, 2010 at 8:25 am
GilaMonster (1/7/2010)
mjohnson-909671 (1/7/2010)
I earned my MCTS in Sharepoint. After passing it (and co-workers knew I passed), co-worker decided to tell me how Workflows in SharePoint work.One week after I had received the MVP award for SQL Server, my colleague comes into the office having written the MCTS exam for SQL 2005 the previous day. He walks up to me, waves the exam transcript so I couldn't miss seeing the score, and says "See, I know more about SQL Server than you do." He'd scored something around 980, I'd written the exam almost 2 years earlier and scored 930.
I just ignored him. The previous week I'd seen print outs of braindumps on his desk.
That is too funny, and you should have so called him on it. :w00t:
However, I would have pointed out day one that the test is adaptive and can variance in score is not indiciative of knowledged.
January 7, 2010 at 8:30 am
CirquedeSQLeil (1/6/2010)
Antares686 (1/6/2010)
nasoto (1/6/2010)
In my last position I made 55% of the male developers' salary (and so did the 1 other woman out of 16 men). Currently I'm at about 75% of the other developers' salary.Now there is the real issue. I don't care how many women worok in a field, if they have the same experience, knowledge, have been at the comapny (or even just the field) and can demonstrate it then why would they not be paid equally.
In no way should this kind of treatment be acceptable. Glass ceilings and inequality in pay are signs of the good ol' boy club. I'm not a fan of such thinking.
I think you missed my point. As I said in my first sentence when you quatify everything everyone regardless of any fact should be making the same. However, remember pay is negotiation, every year you can possibly find times to bring up key points, drop facts on bosses heads (if need be) or threaten to leave (especially if you have an offer on the table). My best year I realized I was making less than a coworker who had not been working as long as I had in the field and had little experience. I was making roughly $24,000 and when I borught up I felt I could do better elsewhere I jumped to $38,000. But because I had not brought it up I was not going to see a major increase to a "fair" level for the area I moved to. They were just happy giving me 2-4% rasies as long as I was.
Many times pay has nothing to do with fairness, it simply boils down to what you are willing to fight for. A few years later I got another major bump when I threatened to leave for another company that funny enough I made an offer to work for. For me that was strange becuase I used to be the type who would settle and accept the 2-4% raise yearly. But the other company when I walked in I knew I could do the job and was so confident in my speech and actions that I basically had offered to work for them for about $9k more than I was making and instead of them saying they would call me, the guy actually said, w would love to have you here and call us when you are ready to start.
Since then I have been entirely different in my approach of pay requests and even bonuses. My current boss (female) is also one of those who will fight for us as her employees and compared to my previous male manager my yearly pay increases have been much higher and bonuses more often. So there can even be the outside force of your bosses willingness to seek your increase thru upper chains affecting your pay.
Disclaimer: These next lines will make some people mad, but mostly becuase you don't want to face reality. I think women deserve the utmost respect and should be viewed as always equal in things. But here you go.
Now to say this about "fair", me and my wife (she started it BTW) don't allow the use of the word by our children, cause life is never going to be "fair". You can either sit and whine about things (anything, not just pay) or you can get of your butt and do something about it. Someone out there is going to find a way to slight you no matter who you are but whining doesn't fix the problem. Of the women in the thread so far their tone of writting doesn't sound whiny but a few do sound like they just accept things as they are. Do you really think women got the right to vote by just saying "It Isn't Fair", no they protested and screamed and yelled about it.
But all in all to say everyone who does a job should get the same pay is a Socialistic fallacy. I mean everyone not women or men, black or white, or other cobination you want to dream up. I have worked positions before where a women who had been there less than me was making more, again 1 I was a settler and 2 many of those women where more adept at the job than I in a lot of cases.
Finally, let me leave you with this thought. Say I work in a bottling plant (simple example of equal pay not working) and I hand bottle 40 bottles an hour. My coworker makes the same pay, and bottles 10 and hour. Additionally, my coworker has been there for 5 months and I have been there for 25 years. They are making equal pay for an equal job title. What do you think will happen?
1) I will expect 4x's as much pay and maybe a difference for the number of years I have done this job.
2) Becuase they won't give it to me I will just start doing 10 bottles an hour becuase I am peeved and not going to overwork myself. Which may ultimately lead to the companies bottom line falling and might lead to layoffs (automation not an option for this example). Which in turn might lead to another company buying them or just putting them out of business.
3) I quite and go to a competitor making more money and help put my former company out of business by being more effective.
4) I go into business myself and do the same thing.
5) I contract my services back to the company at 8x my former rate after I leave.
6) I find a better paying I can barley do since I know equal pay will set me up quick.
The word "fair" bottom line is a load of poop and to make pay equal to be fair will make things worse for everyone. Again this is not saying women deserve what they get, but there is a need to quantify the root reason and not assume one report tells the whole story. And if women is wokring in an environment where she is able to see quality of work differing such that she is being shafted she should be in someones face demanding better or find someone who will pay her for her talents. If she is talented enough and they don't find someone to fill her shoes when gone then hopefully they will discover themselve in it then and think twice about things. I am not going to say there are not people out there who do this, but I will say I feel sorry for those who use any trait as a way to hold a person back. I mean consider Stephen Hawkins, wonder how much crap he got over his disability and that he couldn't possibly be as good as the other scientist.
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