What Women Want
IT Industry Culture Failing Women
It sounds, to me, that women want to be treated fairly and be given equal pay for their equally brilliant ideas. It looks like women are finding that in industries outside IT in the UK.
Granted, this opens up the whole can of worms regarding women taking a mid-career break to raise children, which is something I don't want to touch on today. I don't have an answer for that, and I don't know what I will do when I get to face that problem.
I have no idea if the decline of women in tech is happening in the United States, but I for one want to stay! I'm not the best coder, although I'm proud of a few snippets I've done elegantly. Database is my weakspot, and I'm definitely not up on bleeding-edge technology.
Speaking of bleeding-edge technology, here is a funny ancedote that happened to myself and one of my best friends from college. I had just bought an iPod and a FM transmitter so I could listen to it in my car. This FM transmitter plugs into the cigarette lighter on one end and the iPod on the other. When the radio is tuned to the same frequency the FM transmitter is tuned to, music from the iPod magically comes out of the speakers.
My friend (who is galactically intelligent -read smarter than me- and I hope won't mind me sharing the story) was riding in my car one day soon after I bought the iPod and FM transmitter. He looked at the iPod, then the radio, then asked, "How does the music get from the cigarette lighter to the radio?"
This from a guy who just bought an XBox360 and PS3. :)
Update: I called my friend last night and he told me he just bought a Nintendo Wii on eBay. :)
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2 comments:
Let me share my sour grapes.
I worked for a company for 3 years as IT Manager earning 50% less than the man who replaced me. Yup, his starting salary was 50% more than mine was.
In 2005, my boss agreed to a raise but said he couldn't activate it until 2006. I finally got my raise in April. I left in June.
I have 10 years' experience on the guy who replaced me. Even my boss said that I am more versatile and a stronger manager. Instead of valuing me, though, he underpaid me...because he could...and lost a great employee because of it.
What's my lesson? Women ARE underpaid, but we DO need to be more agressive in demanding equal pay. If I had threatened to quit in Spring 2005, I'd have earned 50% more that year. At the time, however, I had no idea just HOW underpaid I was and rather than risk damaging a good working relationship, I let it ride. It would be the rare man that would make that same decision. In retrospect it seems like such an emotional decision. I wish I could take it back.
Sorry for whining. Your post touched a nerve.
By the way, I'm out of IT and I'm not going back. As a Manager, I found many of my contacts to be men suffering from "stupid girl syndrome." I don't know about other areas of the tech industry, but in IT Management, women are undervalued. It's still an old boys' club even though some great women are making huge amounts of progress.
Don't worry about whining. It's good to have stories like yours for balance!
I keep getting the feeling that, while the software industry generally accepts diversity, it's harder for women to prove themselves than men in the field. (Same old story!) I know all about being the underdog; I'm Montana Tech's first female software engineering graduate, and I've had my share of both fair and unfair professors when it came to gender. I didn't have any internships or co-ops when I was in school and yet, I would venture to guess, my starting salary is more than the men (and woman!) who graduated with me. I'll know for sure when Tech publishes their graduate survey in the Spring.
My reasoning for wanting to stay in is that, maybe 20 or 30 years from now, me being in the industry will make it easier for another female to be successful in IT/CS/SE as well.
I'm sorry to hear about your bad experiences with your manager. His mismanagement have obviously caused negative consequences.
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