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Women in IT: Still Lagging Behind

The Carly Fiorinas of the world are few and far between. Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett Packard, was one of only a handful of female top executives at Fortune 500 companies. Although women make up nearly half of the total US workforce, they represent only about a quarter of all information technology workers, according to Boulder, Colorado-based National Center for Women in Technology.

“It’s amazing that so many barriers that existed when I started WITI [Women in Technology International] in 1989 are still there,” says Carolyn Leighton, CEO and founder of WITI, a Sherman Oaks, California-based organization that supports women in all facets of technology.

Leighton says she started WITI after reading a major news story that showed women held less than 2 percent of mid-level management positions in the county.

Sexism and “Sloppy Hacker” Image Deter Women
So why are women in technology lagging behind? The answer isn’t simple, but Leighton offers some insights based on her experience teaching classes to help female IT professionals work on their career goals. In these classes, she often hears women voice their frustration about working in male-dominated technology environments with male bosses who don’t promote women or give them opportunities to work on important projects. “It’s psychologically defeating and frustrating for women,” she says.

But placing all the blame on men isn’t exactly fair. According to Caroline Wardle, senior science advisor for the National Science Foundation and a 30-year programming veteran, the industry itself has an image problem.

“We [technology] are not in good shape as far as women are concerned. At least in computer science, there is a real gender [inequity]…. We started the Information Technology Workforce Program (ITWP) in 2000 to understand why women continue to be underrepresented in IT,” Wardle explains. The ITWP has found that the percentage of college-educated women in information technology jobs has decreased from 33 percent in the boom times of the mid-’90s to 26 percent in 2002. And each year, fewer women seem to go into the field. In 1990, 30 percent of all computer science degrees were awarded to women, compared with only 27.5 percent in 2001, says Wardle. This could be a reflection of the negative view some women have of the field. Both Wardle and Leighton agree that women often hear stories from others about a lack of advancement opportunities within technology companies and are bombarded with negative images from the media.

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“The image of the sloppy hacker-type technology worker sleeping under his desk is still prominent; women think the field doesn’t provide a good ,” says Wardle, who couldn’t disagree more. Another contributor to the problem could be that recruiters within technology companies have not done a good job of targeting female candidates. “The majority of people don’t have evil intentions – they just do what they’ve always done,” says Leighton. “Men hire men because that’s where their comfort zone is.”

Another hurdle that women in IT must overcome is a lack of female mentors, which makes it harder to network.

What Can Women Do to Change IT? b>
Leighton offers the following tips for female IT professionals:

• Network. Look for ways to build your own brand outside the company. If one of your bosses hears that you received an award, or that you’re appearing on a panel or speaking at a conference, he will be impressed.
• Find every opportunity to volunteer or join a committee within the organization. Once your male counterparts or bosses feel comfortable with you, your relationship with them can shift.
• Stop and examine your own belief systems. Do you believe that you can’t get to where you want to go? Many women have been socialized to believe they can’t run a company or be successful within the technology or math fields.