Is IT a Little Too Guy Friendly?

Wow. I am floored by some of the comments given regarding women's inability and unwillingness to put in the time and effort to make it in IT. I have spent 30 years in IT and have put in my share of long hours, lugged cables and equipment through airports, traveled alot, put in long hours, etc. and have been very successful. I did not worry about breaking a nail going through equipment installs. I think if a person is willing to put the time and effort in including to keep re-educating themselves (which I have done numerous times at my own expense) then the rewards are worth it. Is it still a male dominated field, yes, but what the heck it is still a good career. I think folks should be careful with the generalizations.

I found the same observation about IT wages... As a business person having the advantage of working in the Supply Chain area prior to my move to IT, I can tell you that the ability of someone to explain and understand requirements is essential. However, I am afraid that businesses in the US only understand "Cost" as the primary value driver. They only want the lowest cost. They are not willing to spend up-front to get the requisite solution in place. They would rather spend less this quarter, and spend some more next quarter, and the next quarter instead of making the investment in a quality solution up-front. This will drive pay scales down and send more US dollars "off-shore" as the lower pay scale is acceptable elsewhere. Just as businesses are rethinking their low-cost factories in China, maybe they should rethink their low-cost IT departments as well.

In general anyone with a family and kids does not make a good IT worker. Programming especially requires double-hour days most days and sometimes even weekends on top of that. Getting a product out requires obsession, dedication, and pure drive. Most familiy people don't have time for that. That's why Silicon valley was originally built by nerds. Remember Cringely's series "Revenge of the Nerds"? Lone wolf nerd geeks have nearly unlimited time. They can spend all day and all night 24/7 coding. Family people need to go home at 5 and take care of their families. The driving out of the nerd geek from IT and the replacement of him with "business" and "normal" people is the prime cause of the collapse of our economy. In fact, Silicon Valley today is all about being pretty and hip, not about making great products. The pretty blow-dried people have taken over and the economy shows it. Women in general also just do not like technical subjects because it doesn't provide anything women want: security, a warm-fuzzy feeling, friends, a boyfriend or husband, etc. The geek nerd can get satisfaction in life from nothing more than code. Women, not so much. At one job where I was tech lead on a software product one very attractive woman was taken out of phone support and put right in as a QA lead. Needless to say the product didn't get tested properly and went out the door with problems. When the SHTF she came into my office crying saying "I don't have the skills you have". It was as if she was begging to remain in IT just because she wanted to be in IT, not because she was qualified for the job. This woman was stunningly beautiful and simply didn't have time to devote to an IT career. She was too busy with boyfriends and going out to parties or socializing, or whatever. So the pretty people WANT to be in IT but don't have the time to devote to furthering their skills to do the job. Not good.

If anyone is interested, I've copied & pasted below something I posted to a blog related to IBM mainframes. When I started programming in the late '70s, you could either tolerate the demands of that salaried job (50-60 hours/week spread 24x7) or you couldn't. It was perish, survive or thrive. Those who perished failed to dedicate themselves in time and effort (worked 9-5 M-F) while those who thrived focused on getting the job done even if it meant not going home for 3 days. Never confuse working hard with working smart. In a real meritocracy, gender, race, age, etc. don't matter. However, "buying" three good programmers in India for the cost of one good one in the U.S. makes it very tough for the U.S. and European software pros. Only the strongest survive. ... I've worked with people who loosely fit the following profiles, spread over 20 years of college graduation dates: 1972 - An Engineering major finds a terrible job market for him and classmates, so he takes a job in the electronic data processing ("EDP") department of a company that has an IBM 360 mainframe running COBOL 68 and BAL. He learns both languages on the job and understands computers well enough that he's pulled into systems programming. 1977 - A Biology major with average grades won't be teaching nor going to med, dent or vet school. S/he hears that insurance companies are hiring people off the street and training them to be COBOL programmers. This person starts a career in management information systems ("MIS"). When (s)he is stumped at work, it's the '72 engineering grad who helps. 1982 - A Business major with some courses in COBOL and Systems Analysis is hired to work on in-house developed corporate applications. Much of the work is maintaining batch programs and writing new ones for online apps using CICS. 1987 - An MIS major with classmates who earned Computer Science degrees is hired to help convert his shop from DOS/VSE to OS/MVS. Like his older colleagues, he's involved with everything other than assembler code, which "belongs" to the Systems Programmers. 1992 - Word is out that centralized, IBM mainframe work is old and that non-IBM, distributed systems are where the action is. Companies' line-of-business executives are buying turnkey systems, defying the "glass house" model and ushering in the era of multi-platform, enterprise computing. New college grads have avoided BAL, look down on COBOL and even Pascal. Now Unix is hot and Oracle is the ticket to imagined job security. Today - After Y2K, new COBOL development work became scarce. Mainframe shops are still consolidating to fewer, bigger data centers, outsourcing has been depleting job opportunities for at least 15 years and many of the profiled people above are unemployed, doing contract work cheaply or retiring sooner than desired. From EDP to MIS to IT, the dynamic industry that giveth now taketh away. Even if a first generation guy made it to Director of MIS and then Chief Information Officer, he's probably in trouble because technical CIOs are being replaced by financial CIOs who don't hesitate to send the company's IT function overseas or to "the Cloud." ...Simon, you and your peers were the veterans who helped get the hypothetical '72 Engineering grad started in computing, who in turn helped me survive my first couple of years as a COBOL programmer. Systems Programmers were also great when I needed assistance with BAL. I tip my hat to you guys.

I have to agree with Kevin and Gramma, and as a female, with an IT degree, a bit older than your average graduate, with a family to support, trying to break into the IT field is near impossible. Entry level jobs comprising mostly shift work are not financially feasible, and there just doesn't seem to be any other way to get the "documented" experience (never mind if you've been tech-ing and geeking for the last 20 years) to get hired into a reasonable paying day-shift job. I love IT, love all of the challenge and the frustration and the learning and the helping. But women have different needs when entering the work force than do men. Good or bad, it's just a fact of life. And if you didn't start in IT when you were just a baby HS grad with no life and everything to give, then it's darn near impossible to get into the IT field later. That's why there's not more women in my opinion. I don't like quotas and programs trying to get diversity and all that up to PC. But many companies just aren't willing to risk a job on hard working, efficient, smart, and creative moms who have an education and unofficial experience. They want someone with no life, who hasn't had a life outside their keyboard/monitor, and who isn't going to have a problem giving up their homelife for a few more dollars and a chance to suck-up to the boss.

It is frustrating. I have been preaching and talking and writing about the shortage of IT workers here in the states and still people are not taking advantage of the increased grants and scholarships available, to train for these jobs. In a lot of cases, the IT field would be perfect for the mother who want to work from home so that she can keep an eye on her children. I am afraid that the main cause of this failure is the geek and nerd image that seems to go hand it hand with the IT field. Thing is those geeks and nerds, yes, the ones you picked on in school, are all going to end up your bosses and pay back. It isn't fun.

Yes, the most successful women are intelligent, process-oriented people. And that's why they were able to see through the hype and figure out that IT career's ROI is ridiculously low. And yes, they can think circles around the most successful men still in IT. In fact, half the time they’re two steps ahead of those men. And that's why they are bailing out of the IT field, and men don't -- for the time being.

You can only provide the same opportunity. I'm not a fan of taking any group (race, gender, economic, cultural), etc and applying some sort of statistic where they are not represented enough. Guess what, there are not alot of Black farmers. Why is that? Should we start forcing a Race into something that is not desired as a cultural, race or gender level (for whatever reason)? We take the majorities (usually the white male) and say we need to force other minority groups (be it race or gender) and bring up those numbers to make things equal (by the way the definition should be EQUAL OPPORTUNITY not EQUALITY cause guess what ... nobody is EQUAL. I bench press 240lbs and my wife doesn't. I was better at math in school but she blew me out of the water in English and Grammer. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses... and therefore... not eqaul) If only 10% of women out there want to be in IT, do we really want to force a higher percentage of them into an undesired profession (to them) if they really want to be doing something else. When you start providing incentives for people to cross the line (potentially from something they like but may not pay well or be overcrowded) then we are asking for unmotivated or potentially uninterested workers (no matter the industry). People need to find what they are good at and do it... not find out what makes the most money. When I was in college IT was hot... and most of my IT classmates chose that major for $$$ reasons but then switched majors after 2 years b/c they realized they hated IT, disliked programming, etc. Some of them stayed in and now most are NOT doing IT b/c they too dislike it. A smaller percentage of us stayed in IT and are doing well in it...because we are passionate about it. If women are specifically denied a position for the fact that they are a woman, that is a different story. But good luck finding that. Most IT guys would love to have a few more of the opposite sex in their vacinity. Employment numbers and opportunities should be given to the most qualified #1 (Be it man, woman, any race, etc). Qualifications should include experience, skillset and any other skills specific to that job function. Leave Race, Gender and all the other PC crap out of it. I think the ONLY thing that should be stressed (in school, college, workplace) is that individuals should figure out what they are passionate about and do it regardless of their so-called "standing" in society. I've seen many people that have taken the high road and made something of themselves by exhibiting a passion and drive for what they do. No Excuses. I'm sick of all the PC junk in the workplace. It encourages laziness, lowers moral, lowers trust, etc. I'm not sure there is really anything good about it actually. By the way, your analogy about woman you know could walk circles around other men in those positions. Unfortunately, an example could be made the opposite way. It's not an issue of man vs woman. There are good and bad workers everywhere. I'm sure I could find the same example in favor of men. Because men are more capable? NO. Because everywhere you go, every industry, every workplace...there are good, ok and bad workers. Those who are motivated and hard-working and those that like to do the bare minimum required. Those who rely on "tenure" as an excuse for laziness or a "union" to pay them to be as unproductive as the person next to them. Look what unions are doing for the Auto industry...not much....except for lowering standards and demanding more benefits and pay. as to the rant left above, Indian workers in many cases are harder working and try harder than out-of-college graduates...why? Are Indians far superior to Americans? No, most likely it has to do with the fact that most of them had to work alot harder in life (school, work, etc) to survive or have the same opportunities many college graduates have today. You want to bring back jobs to the US. Become better qualified, stop expecting everything for nothing. We have become spoiled in America and we need to wake up a little, work harder and stop complaining or blaiming our woes on everyone else. Worry about yourself and your own problems and work at making your weaknesses, strengths. At the end of the day, you will feel better about yourself and the fruits of your labor.

Now that IT has been flooded with mobs of backwards jackals from a primitive culture, the females have been purged in IT, along with minorities and most Americans.