Women In Technology

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Soul singer James Brown, once claimed that it was a man’s man’s world. At the time he first expressed this opinion, most people would have probably nodded their heads in agreement with him because back then, men did indeed make the trains that carried the heavy loads, and the cars to take us over the road.

However, while there may be some argument as to how much real progress has been made in the intervening years in regard to career opportunities for women, it seems fair to say that it’s a different world that we live and work in now.

Once upon a time, work was strictly divided on gender grounds with women consigned to work in caring roles while men got on with the ‘hard’ work. In short, ‘the fairer sex’ was pretty much excluded from working in anything that was considered technical.

These days though, a lot of the barriers that once held women back have been removed and it’s not uncommon to find females working in sectors that were once considered to be solely the preserve of men. The ICT industry is one such sector. Dominated by males in the past, the sector has gradually opened up to allow women in. But, some critics believe that the sector hasn’t been as welcoming to women as it could be. They point out that men still outnumber women within the field and tend to end up in higher positions than their female counterparts. Moreover, some also note that women often end up being restricted to working in social roles in the sector, rather than in cutting edge research and development positions.

So, what exactly is going on? Are there still barriers to women working in the sector, or are women simply not interested in working at the techie end of the industry?

According to Annette Condon, head of communications with Dell Ireland, there is evidence to suggest that it isn’t easy for those who want to work in what has traditionally been a man’s world. Condon was instrumental in setting up a local chapter of Women In Technology Ireland (WITI) — an industry-wide group representing the diverse range of women working in technology roles — in April 2002. WITI recently published a survey of its members, which concluded that women faced a large number of obstacles in the IT industry. Condon says, ‘our survey found that gender discrimination was believed to be far worse in the ICT sector than in other industries’.

Dr Carol MacKeogh, who carried out the study on behalf of WITI, says that many survey respondents felt that things had improved over the years, but not dramatically so. ‘There are certainly indications that women in the sector face more barriers than in other industries,’ says MacKeogh, ‘particularly in terms of how they get channelled into certain jobs. Most women working in the industry tend to end up working in social roles such as human resources and marketing — areas that are seen to be more suited to them. However, there’s few females working in the production and development end.

MacKeogh continues, ‘another key finding from the study was that women find it difficult to network which is problematic because now there’s much more informal ways of working and therefore informal networks are increasingly important. However, these networks by their nature tend to be gendered and therefore women can often find themselves excluded from what’s going on’.

Condon backs up Mackeogh’s sentiments and says that one of the aims of WITI is to encourage networking amongst women. Condon says, ‘men are much better at getting out there and promoting themselves while women tend to work away and think that if they do a good job that it will be enough. One of the key things that emerged out of the study was the value of networking opportunities that WITI gives to women working in the IT sector and we’ve a number of plans in regard to this, including a possible mentoring scheme for those working in the industry’.

However, not everyone believes that networking is the solution to the problems that women working in the IT sector face. Eileen O’Mara, sales director with Horizon Open Systems says, ‘It’s true that women don’t get that involved in the social networking scheme but I don’t think that’s particularly prohibitive. The work culture is changing and the boy’s networking scene is disappearing. Performance is increasingly more important than being able to network.’

O’Mara is also suspicious of the idea that women are being channelled into social roles within IT. She says, ‘I think that on the hardware and development side it’s very male dominated. However, I believe that the opportunities are there for women but that many of them make a decision not to go into those areas, because they’re more interested in social roles’.

Networking needs people

One key problem for those women who do want to network is that there’s still only a relatively small number of them working in the sector which makes it hard for them to mingle. While organisations such as WITI may increase the likelihood that women will meet up, there’s still the problem of how to make the IT sector attractive to females in the first place. According to Mary Meaney, chairperson of Council of Directors of Institutes of technology, female graduates are increasingly turning away from a career in IT. Meaney says, ‘worrying about the recent decline in applications for IT courses was greatest amongst female applicants and it would certainly appear that IT at third level is still more attractive to a male audience’. Meaney suggests that there must be more efforts made to attract more women into the industry and that this must be happen as a partnership between both the education and IT sector.

Another way to encourage younger women to enter the sector and to assist those already working in it, is family friendly working conditions. Compared to other industries the IT sector is seen to be miles ahead when it comes to flexible working as Fiona Walsh, SAP Ireland makes clear. ‘I think the IT sector is very good in terms of flexible working hours. There’s an acceptance that companies do need to be flexible in order to help people achieve a better work/life balance.’ Anne Clydesdale, director with BIC Systems agrees that the IT sector has been progressive in introducing family friendly working conditions. She says, ‘there’s now a lot of organisations that are trying to help people balance their life better so that work is not all encompassing, all embracing. These companies have been quick to realise that unless they do this, they’ll lose people’.

One such forward-thinking organisation is IBM Ireland. A recent winner of an ‘excellence in gender equality’ award, the company has long been seen as a great place to work. According to Eileen Shanahan, IBM’s human resources manager, the company has employed a number of different approaches in order to change people’s thinking about women in the workplace. Shanahan says, ‘at IBM we have a women’s leadership council whose aim is to advance the role of women in the workplace and also raise awareness of their contribution. We also look at how female employees can work with senior women in role model type situations and we have what we call ‘mindset’ workshops where employees can sit down and talk about their perception of women and their role in the workplace. IBM has also introduced flexible working patterns to make it easier for women to juggle their careers with their family lives’. Shanahan is of the opinion that more companies need to bring in flexible working patterns if they are to encourage women to stay in the sector. She says, ‘women probably will back out of the IT sector unless steps are taken by companies to make it easier for them to strike a better work/life balance’.

Flexible working patterns may be a step forward, but women also need to feel that they are getting as much recognition as their male counterparts and many think they’re not. As Aoife Cox, executive director of EireWIT, a free global online networking organisation for professional women in business and technology, says, ‘when you’re met with constant questions and you’re having to double your effort to get everything you’re saying recognised, it can lead to a great amount of personal introspection which eventually leads many women to walk away’.

Cox also feels that women working in the sector still don’t have as many opportunities to climb the corporate ladder as men and that ultimately it is this that puts women off of careers in the industry. She says, ‘the drop off from women studying IT subjects to entering the industry is due to the fact that most women hit a glass ceiling in terms of progressing in the industry. You can only go so far in this industry if you’re female and this is why you see a lot of women starting off their own little home business or going into consulting. This way they just don’t have to deal with the corporate gung-ho mentality’.

25/04/2003

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