When i was doing my engineering studies, 12% of us were women – and this was considered real progress.
After that, i went into IT. The proportion of females took a dive. Not that i minded. On my largest project we were 3 out of 30 consultants. On smaller projects, i was often the only one.
Now i’m reading a Computerworld article which announces that the few women in my sector are going to run off, because combining family and work is no longer possible.
Why does this worry me ? Because sparsity will encourage stereotypes. Bad, bad stereotypes.
The real reason for the decrease is: partners of a couple with children cannot both pursue a demanding career without their children paying the price. And so the partner who often yields, is yes, the mother.
Will people remember this, or will they think women are somehow less suited to analytical work, are afraid of computers, or cannot cope with stress ? I’d like men to get used to have equally smart women peers.
Because even though we live in a country where opportunities are more equal, there are times it’s a struggle. We do get slightly tired of pretending we don’t mind the sexist jokes. Or to have to raise our voice and be brilliant to get proper attention for our ideas.
That’s probably why there are such associations like IEEE women in engineering, or vrouw en ingenieur, or Debian women. We like to know we’re not alone.
Geek women of the world, please keep coding.
IT companies, to get the full percentile of gifted people, get daycare.