Recent psychology research into how a role model impacts careers indicates that women need female role models more than men need male role models. This research highlights the need for female role models in the IT industry in order to positively impact the careers of the few women in it, and also attract more women into the field. One problem however, is that the profile of most women in the industry is very low – after all, when you attend a conference, how many speakers are female?
In order to address this problem, and also to celebrate the work that women are doing in IT, some smart cookie has come up with the idea of Ada Lovelace Day, which happens to be today, March 24.
Ada Lovelace Day is an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology. Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Whatever she does, whether she is a sysadmin or a tech entrepreneur, a programmer or a designer, developing software or hardware, a tech journalist or a tech consultant, we want to celebrate her achievements.
In honor of today, I thought I might give a shout-out to a few of the groovy chick developers that I work with at ThoughtWorks, so happy Ada Lovelace Day Julie Yauches, Elly Gandy, Liz Keogh, Navya Reddy, Isabella Degen and Chrysovalanto (Val) Kousettii.
“Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognized.”
Um… so it’s not like men who want recognition need to work hard, blog and submit proposals to speak at conferences, is it?
Interesting that only one of the women you gave a shout out to actually has a blog… A symptom or a cause of low visibility of women in IT? Maybe in some way related to the lack of recognition?
People (men and women) gain recognition in the industry by contributing to the industry – sharing ideas, creating tools etc. A lot of smart women do that. I don’t believe they get any less recognition, per person, than the men do. It’s just that there are less of them. I don’t believe women in IT get any special treatment for better or for worse.
Do you think they should?
So yes, great idea to actively promote women in IT, but it’s nothing compared to the natural promotion that comes from being good at your job and, importantly, investing the time to share that.
Don’t be anonymous – OK so it can be contraversial because its a sensitive subject but this is a great debate you are starting here. I am female (look out for the very pink website, just in case anyone was unsure) and I am a software developer. I think you are right – women need to learn to put themselves forward. Conference organisers can’t accept talk proposals from women if there aren’t any. Give the women you know a push and tell them to get out there, blog, write, submit talks – let’s be one another’s role models