Guest View: Sexist and offensive

By Lori MacVittie

November 1, 2008 —

I will admit that as a second-generation female developer (thanks mom!), there are times when I am absolutely certain I belong in some sort of IT freak show. There just aren’t that many women in IT, and the more technical you get, the fewer of us there seem to be. And as we get older, it seems we disappear in larger numbers.

As I’ve read through a slew of posts and articles on women and IT in the past few months, I’ve discovered two things: First, that they are almost always written by women, and second, they are all just as sexist as they claim the IT environment to be.

You heard me correctly. I said they’re sexist and offensive. And not just sexist and offense toward men, but to women as well.

The assumption that I’m risk-averse because I’m a woman, that I suffer under the strain of isolation because I’m a woman (it’s a wonder I’m not on medication or in therapy given my career choices), and that I use “helpful comments and directions” (I don’t) because I’m a woman is incredibly stereotypical and sexist. It assumes a particular behavior based on gender and that all members of the gender suffer the same afflictions and frailties or strengths, depending on your perspective.

In the same vein, these articles are sexist toward men. The articles are quick to point out that the IT environment isn’t “working-mother” friendly, but completely ignores that it must also be “working-father” unfriendly. The assumption that working mothers need special accommodations while working fathers do not is incredibly shortsighted in a society where men and women are allegedly equal in all aspects of domestic and professional life. Furthermore, it is assumed that men “write cryptic code” just to “show how clever they are” and that they are not supportive enough of their female coworkers, which eventually causes those women to “flee” IT altogether.

It is this great exodus of women that is being studied, the results of which present some fairly sexist conclusions.

The "research"
A research project on the career trajectories of women in science and technology, conducted by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Carolyn Buck Luce and Lisa J. Servon, allegedly holds the key to the phenomenon of the female exodus from IT.

According to Sylvia Ann Hewlett, founding president of the Center for Work-Life Policy in New York, the fact that I’ve spent most of my career surrounded nearly exclusively by male colleagues should have turned me off to high-tech. It’s one of the “antigens” described in the report that drives women away from high-tech: isolation.

Are men not people? Are men not colleagues? How can you be “isolated’ in a workplace that is filled with other people that share the same responsibilities and goals?

The entire report, entitled “The Athena Factor: Reversing the Brain Drain in Science, Engineering, and Technology,” appears to center around two central concepts: First, men are the root of all evil, and second, in order to succeed in a technical career ,women need women. The second concept is evident in complaints that women don’t have mentors or role models in the workplace. That implies that women can only be mentored by other women, can only be supported by other women and can only have other women as role-models. That’s like saying that only men can manage men and only women can manage women in the workplace.

Separate but equal, anyone?

The 147-page report issued by Hewlett’s center further implies that being a “geek” and being female are orthogonal by stating, “Engineers have their 'hard-hat culture,' while biological and chemical scientists find themselves in the 'lab-coat' culture and computer experts inhabit a 'geek culture.' What they all have in common is that they are 'at best unsupportive and at worst downright hostile to women.' "

This seems to imply that women live outside the geek culture. I know more than a few women who are likely offended by that implication, and I’m certainly one of them. I’m not even sure what that means, and the authors of the report don’t seem to elaborate at all on what it is that makes “geek culture” hostile and unsupportive or why this is problematic for women.

It’s a mighty broad brush being used to paint a fairly dismal picture of IT and computer science in general. At best unsupportive? Downright hostile?

Have I been subjected to hostile, demeaning attitudes and behavior from men in the workplace? Yes. But I’ve been subjected to similar attitudes and behavior elsewhere. It’s a fact of life: Some people are jerks. Walk around any public venue for a while and you’re bound to discover that this is true of a certain percentage of the population. It stands to reason, then, that you’d find a similar percentage of jerks working in IT.

Have I met one or two individuals with dismissive, sexist attitudes? Absolutely. But an entire “culture of dismissal”? Never.

That’s hardly a reason to condemn an entire profession, nor an entire gender.

You’ve got to change, because we won’t
What’s even more annoying about these reports and articles is that they imply and sometimes outright demand that IT change to suit women.

In the past, women were often denied careers in fields because they were deemed to be unable to adapt and flourish in those careers. Yet many fought against that prejudice to prove that women were capable of flourishing anywhere—in the skies, in space, in the boardroom and in the data center.

The trend in these articles and studies seems to contradict that belief and dismiss the sacrifices and hard work of those women who came before us. Because of our gender, we apparently can’t adapt to the data center, we can’t flourish in technology careers, and therefore IT is going to have to change to suit our more tender sensibilities and needs.

And yet there’s no movement to change construction, where the Bureau of Labor and Statistics estimates that a mere 3.8% of jobs are occupied by women. Conversely there’s very little concern that only 5.4% of all nursing jobs are occupied by men. The horror stories of prejudice and hostility toward men in nursing would make women’s anecdotal evidence of how bad it is in IT sound like a walk in the park. And yet we don’t see in-depth studies that try to identify the root-cause (hint: it’s probably women if we follow Hewlett’s logic) and then address them by changing that environment. So why are we focusing so heavily on IT alone when the disparity between the sexes is much worse in other professions?

The premise of these articles and studies is that there is something wrong with IT in the first place. It assumes that because some women chose to pursue other careers along the way that they were driven (probably with pitchforks) out of IT by men and into a pitiful existence as a business analyst or stay-at-home mother.

But a large piece of the story is missing from these articles and research: Are the women who have left IT happier? Do they enjoy what they are doing now more than they enjoyed IT? Are they satisfied?

If they are, then maybe it isn’t IT and men that are wrong, but rather those particular women’s choice of career in the first place.

Lori MacVittie is technical marketing manager at F5 Networks, which sells application and network security products.

Related Search Term(s): professional development

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