Where are the women in IT?

The Australian IT industry is largely dominated by men. With a few exceptions, men are in higher level positions and are thriving in one of the world’s fastest growing industries.

In its recently released 2006 IT Hiring Influence Report, recruitment firm Diversiti found women only represent a small proportion of new hires for IT positions.

Out of 3000 organisations surveyed, 56 percent reported less than three in every 10 of their total IT hires in the past 12 months were women. One-fifth (21 percent) claimed the figure was less than one in 10 of their total hires.

Deborah Howard, managing director, Diversiti, said despite the fact that employers were losing sleep over the inability to attract and retain talent, they were failing to address women as a possible solution to the current lack of IT skills. “Females represent half of our population and are grossly under-represented in the [IT] industry. It’s obvious that IT has an ongoing image problem that needs addressing,” she said in the report.

Another 2006 survey based on responses from Australian Computer Society (ACS) members, showed 37 percent of female respondents felt they had been discriminated against on the basis of gender, compared with 1.3 percent of males.

Philip Argy, ACS president, says the industry body survey showed the experiences women had in the industry showed a dark side to the industry. “The age and sex discrimination experienced by some professionals is concerning, as is the pocket of long-term ICT unemployed whose skills are vastly undervalued,” he said.

“Female respondents were more likely to be hourly contract employees or students seeking work.”
So what needs to be done to rectify the problem? CRN gathered some high-profile women in the IT channel to try to find some answers.

Participating in the discussion were: Beth Mackenzie, national business development manager at ISPhone; Alison McQuarrie, general manager at Express Online; Jewel Ding, managing director at Powerhouse PC, Kerry Hyamson, Queensland branch manager at Bluechip Infotech; Maree Lowe, managing director at ASI Solutions; Susan Chen, marketing manager at PacStar Australia; Jenny Southon, business manager at Ingram Micro; Ming Ho, managing director at Also Technology; Amanda Maynard, manager logistics and subscriber services at Brightpoint; Jane Curtain, speech recognition consultant customer interactive solutions at Dimension Data; and Naiad Angel, account manager at WDG.

CRN: What are your perceptions of the IT industry and the role of women?

Curtain: IT is a tough world for women to be in because it’s largely is dominated men. Women are surrounded by testosterone and need to be able to be comfortable with that. They also need to be able to hold their own in a debate, which can be very challenging and tough.

Lowe: There are a lot of women in CIO positions in government departments. Maybe that is because of the government’s equity policy and its strict industry rules and conditions.

Curtain: Some women investigate how many females are [fairing] in middle and upper management. They often feel they have to work a lot harder than their male counterparts to get anywhere in that organisation – so that can be a little off-putting.

Lowe: I think women have become a lot smarter and have worked out that there is better pay in other industries. I think the conditions in the IT industry aren’t as good as a few years ago. Despite being mobile workers we probably work twice as hard. I think a lot of people have come to realise the great conditions and pay of 15 years ago are gone.

Curtain: Does that apply to men
as well?

Lowe: You could use the argument for the downturn of skilled workers in the IT industry in general.

Is IT still viewed as the domain of the ‘geek’?

Lowe: The days of people thinking that it’s the domain of pimply guys doing programming are long gone.
Hyamson: Around four or five years ago I worked closely with high school girls to help them determine a career path. They perceived the IT as a ‘boffin’ industry. They said “I don’t want to repair a computer” and “I don’t want to really get into software, programming is not my thing”.

Is this industry conditioned to think IT jobs from sales to engineering as the domain
of men?

Curtain: If you are in a sales role you need to have that ego about you; I don’t know if that is necessarily intuitive to many women, or if it’s something that they have to work on. Public speaking is a big part of a sales role in IT and that’s not necessarily something women do naturally.

Hyamson: There are a lot of girls in high-powered companies sitting in receptionist positions and not grabbing opportunities. They don’t think along the lines of, “I want to do what he is doing” or “How am I going to get there?”

Curtain: You don’t find many males in receptionist positions or in phone support roles – these positions are mostly dominated by young women. When you are interviewing for a sales role that is a traditional male-dominated position, you have this pre-conceived idea already of what type of person fits that role and the stereotype often comes into play.

Hyamson: What girls don’t realise is women have qualities that men don’t possess and will never have because we are, by nature, nurturers. It’s in-built for us and they don’t realise that whole side of it.

How are things different for men and women?

Ho: I think men and women are balanced on what they know in the IT industry but I also think women need to choose between looking after children and their careers. If you have a family, don’t think you can go away for five days or even 10 days.

Curtain: When I look around at the men in those senior positions they tend to have partners who are dedicated to looking after the children 100 percent of the time, although that is an honourable position to be in. I just don’t think they understand the working women’s lot is quite different from those and they just can’t appreciate it because their suits are dry-cleaned and they already have their dinner cooked when they get home. If they need to go overseas with very little notice they can do it. I don’t think women yet have the same conditions as men and I know plenty of women who haven’t gone for those senior