What women want in IT?

I had a long interview that resulted in a few lines in a fairly well written piece by ZDNet. Unfortunately the piece didn’t really address trying to look at younger people, and the opportunities available to them, which ultimately defines the opportunities available to adults. Offering a woman all the opportunity in the world in IT isn’t going to help if she’s been brought up to think IT is utterly uninteresting, and a boys job. I believe that trying to look at getting equal opportunities and more equal expectations is the key.

I don’t believe the problem is the opportunities facing women so much as the opportunities facing girls. I was lucky enough to be the daughter of a computer technician/programmer, and growing up in a town where basically no one was using computers, so there wasn’t any negative expectations or environmental glass ceilings on me until I actually entered the ICT industry.

I’m going to be talking to a school in Armidale in a new scheme called Digi-Girls (see page 6 of http://www.women.nsw.gov.au/PDF/Archived/ap02-04edu_train.pdf) where I’ll be presenting to school age girls about the awesome world of computers (and Open Source) and the opportunities available to them. Through Open Source I have had the opportunities to travel the world, meet many people, and expand my job and life studies dramatically, and I’m hoping to bring the same opportunities to them. I believe this is where the future lies. I don’t believe achieving equal numbers in ICT for the sake of it is useful or relevant, but ensuring that equal opportunities are presented to children ensures that individuals are able to clearly chose their own future, without having their options restricted artificially. I also believe that Open Source offers an equal playing ground, which may (hopeflly) influence other areas such as politics, the corporate and scientific worlds, where in many countries and certainly in Australia women are also expected to not participate. Being expected to not participate in an area is actually worse than being actively told not to participate, because people often rally against opposition, but usually accept the status quo without noticing.