To print: Click here or Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://management.silicon.com/itpro/0,39024675,39121108,00.htm

Women turned off by technology's 'geeky' image
Who'd have thought sex would be a problem in IT?

By Jo Best

Published: Friday 04 June 2004

The well-known lack of women in IT could all be down to one factor – it's far too geeky for the ladies.

That's the verdict of a report, Strategies of Inclusion: Gender and the Information Society, which researched attitudes towards the profession in five countries – Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK – to try and find ways to bridge the digital divide between the sexes.

The government-funded report unsurprisingly found that women feel IT design and development is dominated by men and that they are unwelcome.

It seems the IT industry is viewed as populated by nerds and hackers and only of interest to antisocial young men who've spent far too much time in their bedrooms tinkering with code and playing online games.

That doesn't mean that IT in general is boring - surfing the web and using email is seen as fun - but the peripheral technology itself has yet to find a place in women's hearts.

In order to bridge the gap between the sexes in IT, the report recommends educational establishments put in place strategies to encourage women and girls to feel included in IT.

There's also good news on the home front – as devices such as mobiles and PCs become increasingly 'techie' and find their way into people's work and homes, technology is becoming more and more accepted.