Skip to main content

Week 4: Women in IT

Image
By
I would like you to read/watch and comment on/discuss the presentation – Women in IT.  
You will find it at
http://konwersatorium3.blogspot.com/2013/10/week-3-women-in-it-why-do-we-have-so.html

  Comment on  it here please. 

Comments

Sergio Cosentino said…
Exactly, why are there so few woman in IT? That's really unfair that we usually have to settle with a none or a few girls in the field xD Seriously speaking though I don't see any reason why women should be "worse" in IT or any similar thing. Obviously there are many differences in the female and male way of thinking, but then again everybody can learn anything with the right amount of time and willingness to learn. On the other hand I don't think we actually need women specifically in IT, I simply believe that men and women can be equally good in this field. The reason why there are so few women? Because they choose so. Maybe IT isn't as appealing for most females or maybe males have better predisposition. Either way I don't see any reason for women not to be in the IT field.
27 October 2013 at 13:50
Seisyll said…
I don't think having few women in IT is an issue and I also don't think there is really a serious need for them. It just means that this kind of work isn't so appealing to women and no one can blame them for it, as no one can blame the baker that he didn't become a doctor. IT is a field where the only things that matter is skill and knowledge, and if someone is willing to learn that stuff, he will somehow manage.
27 October 2013 at 18:24
Unknown said…
We had 2 girls in our group on the first year.. Sergio you remember right? They disappeared after two weeks or so? I still don’t know what happened but we survived without them  In the same time at Project Management we had a few women and they completed their studies without any problems so maybe they need combination of pure IT and little of management to use their famous multitasked brain? :D
27 October 2013 at 18:25
Unknown said…
Is this a problem? I don’t think so. First of all there are many science fields in which women are just not interested in but on the other hand we have biology, chemistry or medicine where women are majority. Maybe IT is not interesting enough? Or like I said earlier maybe pure IT science (pure – coding, math and stuff) is to simple and boring…
27 October 2013 at 18:38
armandstanczak said…
Women in IT. Well, the thing is the question itself is quite mundane and interesting at the same time. There is no such thing as men in IT or women in IT. Aren’t we equal already? It’s a fact that there are less females working in this field, but I don’t think it’s because they cannot do it, I think it’s because they choose not to do it (which is quite weird since it pays so well). Do we need more in “our” field? Is there an advantage for women in IT? Of course we do and of course there is, but until they figure it out, enjoy your salary ;)
27 October 2013 at 19:52
Tomek Niezgoda said…
I don't think the situation is so horrible. Of course, there are more men in IT than women but I don't think that there is some sort of social discouragement against a change in these proportions. Especially now when skilled, technical workers are in high demand. There are many conferences or meetups focusing on encouraging women programmers to develop their skills. So many in fact that I find this quite weird. Off the top of my head, Rebecca Murphey (http://rmurphey.com/) comes to mind. She specializes in what I do at work and spoke on quite a few conferences. This news: http://di.com.pl/news/14496,0,Polski_i_mocny_akcent_na_Black_Hat.html was quite popular a while back. Not to mention the recent Yahoo leadership switch (so far though, I've only heard of the no-work-from-home policy and the following after she took over: http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/5/4696274/yahoo-reveals-its-new-logo). I hear that women are better at managing people. This matters a lot in IT because usually the risk of failure is high.
27 October 2013 at 20:17
Unknown said…
What the hell is with this battle of the sexes? Is this really a problem nowadays? i dont think so. It is scientifically proven that women think in diffrent way, and can see problem from diffrent angle but is it something wrong that makes them worse at math or IT? No way. Mixed teams seems like a good idea in theory but im not so sure about it. In mixed teams people can stop focusing on the task and start i.e. dating with each other...
27 October 2013 at 20:27
Natalia said…
Today IT is dominated by men, because for many years, women were not allowed to study mathematics and logic to solve difficult issues. If a woman already learned mathematics, she was at most an accountant. For many years IT companies were small and consisted of a group of geeks - men who love pizza and do not shawe offten ;)
Recently, these proportions have changed, because women have become confident and more likely enter to the "man's world". As well as you wrote above, IT companies themselves noticed greater benefits from teams made ​​up of both genders.
Women, of course, are needed in IT and many other industries, but not as men's maskots, but as equal cooperator. While women is seen as a tool for corporations to operate more efficiently, rather than a "normal" employee, you can not expect that they will become interested in working in IT.
27 October 2013 at 21:23
Paweł Jóźwiak said…
I think that the main reason that there are only a few women in the IT business are the stereotypes.

Most people imagine a typical programmer as a goy that has no friends shaves once a week and really go out and meet with other people. As all stereotypes that one is far from truth. I worked with many programmers ( I can’t speak about other representatives of the IT business),and they all were very communicative people and whey spend a lot of time having great fun after work.

And I think that’s the main reason why women don’t want to go to IT studies and work in IT business. Do we need more of them in the IT business. Definitely yes. I agree that they have different (sometimes better, sometime not) perspective solving problems and that is always a good thing to see a problem for many different point of view.
27 October 2013 at 21:34
elos said…
Emilian Boś

I think it’s not a big problem because fortunately we live in free country and it is up to girls whether they want to study or work STEM. Males and females are form different planets so nobody should be surprised that they are interested in different disciplines :-) Once in my carrier I carried out a recruitment, I was looking software developers and I didn’t care what sex developers is (I hope I put words in right order :-)). I had 10 persons to test and the group included only one female. She was quite good, better than couple of males but at some point of recruitment process she gave up. It was sad for me because I think that female in team possibly can make better atmosphere and exclude rude behavior and avoid trivial conflicts between loaded by testosterone males.
27 October 2013 at 22:29
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 4 [06-12.11.2017] This is what happens when you reply to spam email.

By
James Veitch is a British comedian. In today’s Ted Talk James with characteristic for himself a sense of humor shows how he deals with spam emails and why responding to junk messages may be sometimes dangerous. Questions: What do you think about James’s  way of dealing with spam? Why are junk messages legal, even though it sometimes may be a fraud? Dou you have a problem with spam? How do you deal with with it?
43 comments
Read more

Week 12 (12.01-18.01.15) Are you an early bird or a night owl ?

By
Owls are nocturnal creatures. They’re wide awake at night and they sleep during the day. If this sounds like bliss to you, then, like about 20 percent of the population who find themselves most active at around 9 pm, you may fall into the same category as our feathered friend. Night owls often have difficulty waking up in the morning, and like to be up late at night.  Studies of animal behaviour indicate that being a night owl may actually be built into some people’s genes. This would explain why those late-to-bed, late-to-rise people find it so difficult to change their behaviour. The trouble for night owls is that they just have to be at places such as work and school far too early. This is when the alarm clock becomes the night owl’s most important survival tool. Experts say that one way for a night owl to beat their dependence on their alarm clocks is to sleep with the curtains open. The Theory is that if they do so, the morning sunlight will awaken them gently and natura...
60 comments
Read more

Week 9 [11.12 - 17.12.2017] Is Scientific Community Accepting of New Ideas?

By
We all want to believe that science is about pushing the boundaries of knowledge, breaking the status quo and persuading curious ideas, even if the majority of people find them unbelievable. But is it so? There are many cases of scientists who were disgraced and persecuted by the scientific community simply because their findings challenged the already existing beliefs. Humberto Maturana and Lynn Margulis Humberto Maturana is a prominent biologist who studied the examples of symbiosis between organisms: fungi that control the ants (there are farming ants that grow fungi for food) or the parasites that hijack the brains of snails. https://www.une.edu.au/__data/assets/image/0005/24791/leucochloridium-paradoxum.jpg Maturana wondered how is it possible that a symbiosis so complex as the one between a worm and a snail could ever take place? I t occurred it is actually a more general argument about the evolution. What comes first: the design or the applic...
27 comments
Read more