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

[Yoav Nir <[e-mail]>]

On May 1, 2012, at 4:45 PM, Mary Barnes wrote:

The article clearly states that women leave for the two reasons you mentioned, which are certainly the exact same things males deal with, but you missed a few others that the article notes, specifically and directly quoted below:

"...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."


Well, it says this:
   "The common perception is that women are leaving for taking care of their families," says Fouad. "But that's clearly not true. They left the profession for organizational culture reasons."

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. Sure, it's possible they don't want to work long hours so that they can spend more time playing online games (http://iqu.com/blog/women-dominate-mobile-game-spending) or gambling online (http://ezinearticles.com/?UK-Online-Gambling-Dominated-by-Women-Players&id=6934242), but I suspect that few people are quitting their jobs to spend more time on gaming. I could be wrong. IOW I don't see the difference between not wanting to spend too much time at work and wanting to spend more time with your family.