Women in IT: How to combat misconceptions

The IT sector needs to reach out to schoolgirls in order to change its public image

Why does the IT sector not appeal to women in the same way that it does to men? Is it because, to put it really simply, a career in technology goes together with male traits such as building models, while women are drawn to careers where their social and team-working skills come into play?

Leading experts who are trying to encourage more women into the sector say that the IT industry has grown from what it once was. The parameters of the field have widened to include more social aspects and this means women's skills are in demand.

The experts are not afraid to presume that men and women have different skill sets. Even if this stance is not politically correct, ignoring male/female differences would only hinder the move of women into the industry. To stop the decline in the number of women entering the industry, it needs to start appealing to women from a young age, they argue.

According to a V3.co.uk poll, set up to mark International Women’s Day, women are disillusioned with the technology sector. Almost half of respondents said that men still outweigh women in the IT sector, while around a fifth said that women do not get the same pay and opportunities as men. Less than 20 per cent of readers said they believe women joining the IT profession have been given enough support to enter the field.

According to IDC research commissioned by the European Union, one in five European IT practitioners is a woman and this number is declining, yet in other sciences the number of women has been increasing.

Furthermore, a separate report from IDC revealed that the need for women to join IT is greater than ever before because in five years' time only 10 per cent of jobs in Europe will not require IT skills, which is likely to lead to a potential shortfall of more than 350,000 IT practitioners.

“My experience is that the IT sector has moved on significantly, and we are at the stage now where it is a far more appealing career route for women than it has ever been,” said Stephen Uden, Microsoft head of skills and economic affairs in the UK.

“While the reality has moved on, the sector needs to continue to help the popular image to catch up by taking every opportunity to showcase the environment and working practices in IT. Women often bring a different skill set to the business.”

At Microsoft, the number of women is well above the industry average. Around 30 per cent of its UK staff are women and part of this is down to its school outreach programmes.

Uden referred to the “active programme of events and school visits” that helps young people experience the IT industry, as well as the company’s support for organisations that provide IT training, including Computer Clubs for Girls and Axios. DigiGirlz High Tech Camp, a programme for secondary school girls from all over the UK, involves 200 under-16-year-olds spending the day at Microsoft and speaking with key women at the business, he said.

Uden mentioned Microsoft’s partnerships with the government and national organisations like the Society of Women Engineers and the Alliance of Technology and Women as integral to Microsoft’s work in developing a strong IT curriculum and encouraging more women into the sector.

Helen Cook, the leader of the IBM UK Women’s leadership team, discussed how the IT sector needs an updated reputation.

She said 350 female students and teachers attended the Breaking the Mould Conference at the beginning of March, organised by the Financial Mail on Sunday.

“When the girls were asked how many of them planned to choose a career in IT, only three hands went up. When asked about Facebook and YouTube, all their hands went up. There’s a real disconnect between the perception of IT and how IT connects society.”

“Women need to want to be in IT and bring their personalities and skills to the industry and be confident about doing so.”

Cook agreed with Uden about the need to reach out to young girls to change their ideas of IT before they are put off by the industry's public image. She referred to the recent computer engineer Barbie launched by Mattel as a good example. She also said it is important for the government to re-think the ICT curriculum in schools, and change the perception given by the education system that IT is boring, which has come to be a common observation among skills professionals .

IBM, like Microsoft, reaches out to schoolgirls with its Schools Outreach Programme.

“When recruiting females for our graduate programme, we find that they have often already made up their minds not to apply to an IT company by the time they get to university. This is why we’re working with schools so that we catch girls at an earlier age and show them the breadth of careers offered by companies such as IBM.”

Rebecca Parsons, chief technology officer at IT consultancy ThoughtWorks, picked out both Microsoft and IBM as leading technology firms when it comes to women-friendly policies. This is noticeable: when V3.co.uk asked six of the leading technology firms for a discussion on women in technology, IBM and Microsoft were the most interested. Google and Yahoo answered with relatively short feedback on some of the issues, while SAP and Oracle did not comment at all.

“An impressive number of senior women in IT have passed through IBM and particular mention goes to their mentoring programme as being instrumental in their career successes. Microsoft has put diversity targets into management performance measures, showing its commitment to diversity hiring,” Parsons said.

Parsons also noted how the IT sector had changed to encompass a broader skill set but that this had not yet filtered down to those thinking about a career in the industry.

"Currently the industry is perceived as a place were people work in isolation, writing code for days and weeks and years on end, with little interaction with the business or even others," she said.

“Software development, particularly using Agile methods, requires a team of individuals, working closely together with each other and interacting daily with representatives from the business. Software development has become a very social profession. Even individuals in less technical disciplines with the right kind of reasoning and structured problem solving skills can be productive contributors to software development teams.

“I also believe strongly that as work in the area of ICT4D [Information and Communication Technology for Development] becomes more prominent, the sector will be seen as addressing more important problems and meeting more pressing human needs."

Parsons said female role models were essential for individuals to imagine their own participation in the IT profession.

“In addition to changing the perception of the nature of the work in the industry, increasing the visibility of women already in the industry provides an existence proof of sorts that the industry is actually accepting of women,” she said.