IT professionals call for more women to enter industry

Dawinderpal Sahota, Computing, Thursday 28 October 2010 at 17:17:00

Some 45 per cent of IT professionals feel women are unfairly represented in
the industry

New research from IT job search site
CWJobs.co.uk
on the state of women in IT shows that almost half of IT professionals in the UK
believe that there isn't a fair representation of women in the industry.

Some 45 per cent of the 5,556 IT professionals surveyed feel that women are
unfairly represented in the industry, and 64 per cent feel a better gender
balance would benefit the sector.

Belinda Parmar, founder of Lady Geek, a marketing firm focused on gender
differences in the industry, said that from her own experience in IT, she agrees
that there are too few women in IT, and claims that the problem is rooted in
schools.

?What we?ve found is that internet usage among teenage girls is exactly the
same as boys, but they are five times less likely to consider a career in IT,?
she said.

?But when I was at school I associated that IT equals boring and nerdy and
not for me, as many young girls do. I wanted to go for a career in media or
marketing. So the first thing is that girls are perceiving a career in IT as a
very male-dominated area. The second thing is that girls see IT as an uncreative
profession.?

She added that the way ICT is taught in schools is at the heart of the
problem, and young, ambitious girls are not interested in pursuing a subject
where they are learning how to open a spreadsheet.

Full story at http://www.computing.co.uk/computing/news/2272366/professionals-call-women-enter