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

[Monique Morrow <[e-mail]>]

One of the points I discussed in NYC last week was also the role of media
and what is depicted in film, TV and so on wrt girls-women, a topic of the
Miss Representation initiative:

http://www.missrepresentation.org/

Monique


On 5/1/12 6:45 AM, "Mary Barnes" <[e-mail]> 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."
> 
> Mary
> 
> On Tue, May 1, 2012 at 1:51 AM, Yoav Nir <[e-mail]> wrote:
>> 
>> On Apr 30, 2012, at 10:52 PM, Mary Barnes wrote:
>> 
>>> Here is an article that does a far better job of explaining the situation
>>> than I did:
>>> http://www.todaysengineer.org/2011/May/women-in-engineering.asp
>>> 
>>> The largest reason women leave engineering is due to the work environment
>>> and perceived lack of support from colleagues.   
>> 
>> Interesting, but I don't really get some of the distinctions they are making.
>> Women *are not* leaving engineering to spend time with their families, but
>> they *are* leaving engineering because of 60-hour weeks and having to work
>> weekends.
>> 
>> I'm also not sure that stereotype is still valid. It's the romantic image of
>> a technology start-up trying to get a product out before funding runs out,
>> but most engineers won't work in those. Most will work at established
>> companies or in corporate IT, and in those places, the 60-hour week is either
>> rare or non-existent. There may be other things that scare women away from
>> IT/engineering jobs, but there are plenty of those available that do not
>> require that type of having no life.
>> 
>> Yoav
>> 
> 
>