Oops!
Roy Mark comments recently about the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) report describing a female brain drain from IT.
The published gender diversity study in IT reports the percentage of women in the IT workforce declined by almost 20 percent over the last decade, from a high of 41 percent in 1996 to 32.4 percent in 2004.
Worse, the ITAA figures show “no progress” in the numbers of women in the professional or management ranks from the 25.4 percent mark achieved in 2002. And, the study claims, when women leave the IT field, they’re not likely to come back.
As one internetnews.com reader recently wrote, “IT tends to attract a kind of independent guy who wants to hang around with other guys establishing a kind of high school locker room culture.” These guys don’t accept women.
Whoa. Do women in school IT programs say the same thing?