Re: 'Geek' image scares women away from tech industry ? The Register

[Janet P Gunn <[e-mail]>]

This is VERY narrow minded, and, to be honest, somewhat insulting.

You suggest that "time at work" and "family" are the only important things 
to women.

First off, "working too many hours", and "too much travel" are 
considerably MORE onerous when you DON'T have a family to back you up - 
especially if you have a house to be maintained, animals to be fed and 
exercised, and so on. 

If you have a family, they can pick up some of the slack when you have to 
work late  or travel.  If not, you have to struggle to find a pet sitter 
and so forth.

Furthermore, many of us have extensive non-family commitments outside of 
work - serious (time consuming) hobby's and  competitions, volunteer 
organizations for which we are part of the management team, to say nothing 
of exercise and sleep.


No! "too much travel and too many hours" is NOT "pretty much the same" as 
"takes time away from family".

Janet
.



From:   Yoav Nir <[e-mail]>





And then this:
   Among the common factors that women cited as their reasons for leaving 
the profession were too much travel, working too many hours, lack of real 
or perceived opportunities for advancement, and uncivil work environments 
where women were treated in condescending or patronizing manners. Only 25 
percent of the women who left engineering did so for family reasons.

So on the one hand they claim that women are not leaving to take care of 
their families, but on the other the first two correct reasons they 
mention are too much travel and too many hours. I think these two are 
pretty much the same, and the primary reason why someone (male or female) 
would object to travel and long hours is because it takes time away from 
family.