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

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Tuesday, May 01, 2012 09:55 -0400 Scott Brim
<[e-mail]> wrote:

>> "...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."
>> 
>> Mary
> 
> I conjecture there are few work environments where these are
> NOT the case.

And so?   

I agree with "few", but "few" is not zero.  It is possible to
have work environments where that doesn't happen.  One could
take "few" as "ok, we can give up now", but I don't think that
is a satisfactory inference (and can't imagine, knowing you,
that you do either).

The question for me is what we can and/or should usefully do
about the issue in the IETF.  Partially because I've observed
over the years that it is much easier to change behavior than to
change attitudes but that changing behavior often requires the
ability to apply sanctions, I'm pretty pessimistic about trying
to use the IETF to get ahead of the industrial / work
environment situation.  

I do think we should be more aggressive about leadership
development activities, not just with occasional newcomers
orientations but by making more mentoring opportunities
available to relative newcomers (of both genders).  And I think,
with some reinforcement from some of the articles and
discussions on this list, that it is probably more practical to
focus efforts on retention and advancement rather than
recruitment.  If nothing else, we probably don't have a lot of
control over recruitment given organizational and support
decisions.

best,
    john