Yesterday I went to my first Females in Information Technology and Telecommunications (FITT) meetings. It was pretty interesting and there was a talk from IDC on what keeps CIOs awake at night, as well as from HP on women in IT. I have to say I was disappointed with the latter, as she said that countries such as India with more women in IT probably only have the numbers as there are more call centres there (in her opinion, not HPs). I asked the questions about Malaysia, and how perhaps declining numbers of women in technical roles in Australia is more related to us getting more conservative rather than it being not interesting to girls as she implied. They were looking at ways to improve getting women into IT, (without looking at how to encourage young girls, for many women they already have grown up with a certain mindset about IT so it is too late) while simultaneously trying to downplay the “nerdiness” of technical jobs. I was I have to say a little insulted. Most women in this group are working in IT in PR, HR, or office admin roles and trying to get more women into IT without tackling the bigger problem of women being discouraged from a very early age in technical, scientific, political or even executive roles being. I think whilever these groups are trying to “encourage girls into non-traditional roles for women” as another similar group put it, they are projecting a message that simply is going to have an opposite effect. Keep calling it non-traditional and that it will stay. It was in short, a little disappointing to find yet again that women are often the biggest propogators of maintaining a less than desirable situation status quo for women.
On a lighter note, I’m very proud of Jeff for the recognition of his work in the community at OSCON. Rock on Bubby!