Women on the New Frontier
Try this: name the two factors that have changed the workplace more than any others over the last 30 years. There are lots of potential answers, but it would be hard to do better than these: the increased participation of women in the paid labor force and the rise of new information technologies.
Today, these two critical factors are having a major influence on one another. New technologies, particularly the Internet, are changing the nature of work, and women are changing the Internet. The Net can be viewed as a sort of new frontier for doing business, a frontier that “doesn’t pay any attention to gender,” reports the Christian Science Monitor. Although that last statement is almost certainly an exaggeration, there is evidence of new opportunities for women. In 1999, women served as chief executives at about 6% of the U.S. Internet companies financed by venture capital firms, according to the research company VentureOne. Better yet, women held top managerial positions in 45% of such start-ups. Among Fortune 500 firms, women hold just 3.8% of the highest-ranking corporate officer positions, 12% of all corporate officer positions, and fewer than 1% of chief executive posts.
“The Internet is opening up a whole new playing field. It is opening up the opportunity to create a whole new corporate paradigm,” says Laurie McCartney, founder of the retail Web site eStyle.com. On the Web, there are reportedly fewer “old boys’ networks” to deal with because everything’s new and nobody has enough experience at this type of work to fall back on traditional hierarchies. Moreover, the relative youth of most of the players helps. “People in their 20s and 30s have grown up in a time when there are more women in the workplace and in management,” says Sue Levin, cofounder of the Internet sports apparel site Lucy.com. In contrast, Levin says, most in the senior ranks of corporate America “have never reported to a woman.” Another factor is that women have traditionally excelled at marketing, retail, consumer relations and communications -- just the kinds of talents that one needs to succeed at dot-com firms.
But there is a pretty large gray cloud to go with this silver lining -- after all, 6% of the top spots is still pretty underwhelming. When Reuters reported on a new survey of 150 of America’s top technology professionals, it noted that “women have a long way to go before they even approach parity with men in the upper echelons of the technology sector.” And there are signs that young women, at least in the U.S., are just not much interested in the technical jobs being opened on the new frontier. Women constitute just 17% of those who take the U.S. advanced placement (AP) test for computer science, and women comprise just 20% of IT professionals. They receive fewer than 28% of computer science degrees in the U.S., and this number is dropping.
What’s causing this? Citing a new report from the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, Wired News reports, “Girls aren’t afraid of technology, they’re turned off by boring video games, dull programming classes, and uninspiring career options.” One way to bring more women into the field and increase their impact on new information technologies may be to change the way computer science is taught. In fact, there are some attempts to develop educational programs directed at women. For example, researchers from the Washington Research Institute and the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University brought together 250 computer science teachers across the U.S. in summer sessions to train them in two tracks: the programming language C++ and gender equity. So far, the results have been promising, with more girls enrolling in AP computer science courses in participating schools as educators have changed their teaching methods.
Another way to boost women’s impact on IT is through networking systems. One of the best known of these is Systers, an informal organization for women in the computing field. It began in 1987 as a small mailing list for women, and there are now 2,500 “systers” in 38 countries.
A third way is to include more women in the IT research and development process. Anita Borg, the highly accomplished computer scientist who started Systers, is also president and founding director of the Institute for Women and Technology, which is housed in Xerox Company’s Palo Alto Research Center. The institute is funded by a variety of major organizations, including Sun Microsystems, Compaq, IBM and Hewlett-Packard. Its mission is to increase the impact of women on all aspects of technology, increase the positive impact of technology on the lives of women, and help both industry and society at large to benefit from those increases. One of its underlying principles seems to be that companies can add greatly to their bottom lines by focusing on the relationships between women and information technology. Borg states, “The genius of women in this industry has not been tapped. The companies that finally figure out how to tap into that genius are going to eat everyone else’s lunch.”
====================================================
For a whole collection of articles about women and technology, see
http://www.wired.com/news/women/
An article about why girls show little interest in technical careers is at
http://www.wired.com/news/women/0,1540,35654,00.html
The American Association of University Women Educational Foundation's "Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age" is at
http://www.aauw.org/2000/techsavvy.html
Information about attempts to create more female coders is at
http://www.wired.com/news/women/0,1540,36372,00.html
Information about the Summer Institute for Computer Science Advanced Placement Teachers is at
http://www.wri-edu.org/equity/summer.html
For more information about Anita Borg, Systers, and the Institute for Women and Technology (IWT), see the following article:
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/27/sisterhood.html
Borg answers a series of questions about women and technology at
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,34175,00.html
A link to the Systers network is at
http://www.systers.org/
The homepage of the IWT is at
http://www.iwt.org/
Information about the Association for Computing Machinery's Committee on Women and Computing is at
http://www.acm.org/women/
Today, these two critical factors are having a major influence on one another. New technologies, particularly the Internet, are changing the nature of work, and women are changing the Internet. The Net can be viewed as a sort of new frontier for doing business, a frontier that “doesn’t pay any attention to gender,” reports the Christian Science Monitor. Although that last statement is almost certainly an exaggeration, there is evidence of new opportunities for women. In 1999, women served as chief executives at about 6% of the U.S. Internet companies financed by venture capital firms, according to the research company VentureOne. Better yet, women held top managerial positions in 45% of such start-ups. Among Fortune 500 firms, women hold just 3.8% of the highest-ranking corporate officer positions, 12% of all corporate officer positions, and fewer than 1% of chief executive posts.
“The Internet is opening up a whole new playing field. It is opening up the opportunity to create a whole new corporate paradigm,” says Laurie McCartney, founder of the retail Web site eStyle.com. On the Web, there are reportedly fewer “old boys’ networks” to deal with because everything’s new and nobody has enough experience at this type of work to fall back on traditional hierarchies. Moreover, the relative youth of most of the players helps. “People in their 20s and 30s have grown up in a time when there are more women in the workplace and in management,” says Sue Levin, cofounder of the Internet sports apparel site Lucy.com. In contrast, Levin says, most in the senior ranks of corporate America “have never reported to a woman.” Another factor is that women have traditionally excelled at marketing, retail, consumer relations and communications -- just the kinds of talents that one needs to succeed at dot-com firms.
But there is a pretty large gray cloud to go with this silver lining -- after all, 6% of the top spots is still pretty underwhelming. When Reuters reported on a new survey of 150 of America’s top technology professionals, it noted that “women have a long way to go before they even approach parity with men in the upper echelons of the technology sector.” And there are signs that young women, at least in the U.S., are just not much interested in the technical jobs being opened on the new frontier. Women constitute just 17% of those who take the U.S. advanced placement (AP) test for computer science, and women comprise just 20% of IT professionals. They receive fewer than 28% of computer science degrees in the U.S., and this number is dropping.
What’s causing this? Citing a new report from the American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, Wired News reports, “Girls aren’t afraid of technology, they’re turned off by boring video games, dull programming classes, and uninspiring career options.” One way to bring more women into the field and increase their impact on new information technologies may be to change the way computer science is taught. In fact, there are some attempts to develop educational programs directed at women. For example, researchers from the Washington Research Institute and the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University brought together 250 computer science teachers across the U.S. in summer sessions to train them in two tracks: the programming language C++ and gender equity. So far, the results have been promising, with more girls enrolling in AP computer science courses in participating schools as educators have changed their teaching methods.
Another way to boost women’s impact on IT is through networking systems. One of the best known of these is Systers, an informal organization for women in the computing field. It began in 1987 as a small mailing list for women, and there are now 2,500 “systers” in 38 countries.
A third way is to include more women in the IT research and development process. Anita Borg, the highly accomplished computer scientist who started Systers, is also president and founding director of the Institute for Women and Technology, which is housed in Xerox Company’s Palo Alto Research Center. The institute is funded by a variety of major organizations, including Sun Microsystems, Compaq, IBM and Hewlett-Packard. Its mission is to increase the impact of women on all aspects of technology, increase the positive impact of technology on the lives of women, and help both industry and society at large to benefit from those increases. One of its underlying principles seems to be that companies can add greatly to their bottom lines by focusing on the relationships between women and information technology. Borg states, “The genius of women in this industry has not been tapped. The companies that finally figure out how to tap into that genius are going to eat everyone else’s lunch.”
====================================================
For a whole collection of articles about women and technology, see
http://www.wired.com/news/women/
An article about why girls show little interest in technical careers is at
http://www.wired.com/news/women/0,1540,35654,00.html
The American Association of University Women Educational Foundation's "Tech-Savvy: Educating Girls in the New Computer Age" is at
http://www.aauw.org/2000/techsavvy.html
Information about attempts to create more female coders is at
http://www.wired.com/news/women/0,1540,36372,00.html
Information about the Summer Institute for Computer Science Advanced Placement Teachers is at
http://www.wri-edu.org/equity/summer.html
For more information about Anita Borg, Systers, and the Institute for Women and Technology (IWT), see the following article:
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/27/sisterhood.html
Borg answers a series of questions about women and technology at
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,34175,00.html
A link to the Systers network is at
http://www.systers.org/
The homepage of the IWT is at
http://www.iwt.org/
Information about the Association for Computing Machinery's Committee on Women and Computing is at
http://www.acm.org/women/