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Women in technology: Are we our own worst enemy?

At W-Tech 2009, the first event bringing together women from throughout the technology industry, attendees pondered if women in IT are their own worst enemy.

By Jennifer Scott, 25 Jun 2009 at 14:55

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It is not the men I work with that are my biggest enemy and not myself either. My nemesis seems to be other women who think my lifestyle choice is ludicrous and continue to fuel stereotypes of emotional handbag wielding self doubters who don’t know the offside rule.

I don’t want to sound totally dismissive of the event. I genuinely think getting women together to say, "yes we can be successful business woman in a sector that is flooded with men" is great and if any of the women left yesterday feeling more confident and ready to go get those jobs then the event has achieved its goal.

But I am a cricket loving, pub going, confident, childless, single, young career woman. Let’s hope next year they remember to include panellists for people like me.

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2 comments

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womenintechnology.co.uk

Jennifer – thanks for coming along to W-Tech! I understand your frustrations with regards to the panel and I agree that it wasn’t varied enough. It was one of things that I had made a note of myself for next time and Rebecca George also said it would have been good to have had a younger representative on there too. It’s feedback like this that we need more of so that we know what to improve on to make W-Tech even better next time.

I’m sorry that you felt patronised – this certainly wasn’t intended to be the case. The women indeed talked about their own families and interests but only to refer to their own experiences. I think this is something that could be altered if we had had a more diverse panel and I think that despite this, many of the points they made were valuable ones no matter what demographic you fall into. Fuelling stereotypes is definitely something that we want to avoid – the aim of the day was to empower women with the skills they need to break those stereotypes, which I think we did. Yes, generalisations may have been made but this was not meant to cause any offence, more to try and relate to the majority of what was a large female audience.

Although you may not have come across problems with male colleagues etc, many women have and a lot do not have enough confidence or savvy to thrive in the business world. I hope that although you weren’t able to relate to the panellists last night that you found the day useful and productive – thanks for the feedback!

By MaggieBerry on Thursday Jun 25

Francis Edwards

Jennifer, what you are experiencing is so true of the generation and technology life cycle devide. In the early 90s when I as a young, non white engineer graduated with a degree in Manufacturing Engineering, the world of British Aerospace, Honda, Rolls Royce & other top engineering companies seemed a milion miles away due to the culture of 'recruit what you know' and the people who were in at the beginning of the technolgy development even if their commitment wasn't strong - their experience was proven. This meant a comprehensive eductation, half Thai boy who wasn't from the suburbs couldn't compete in the shrinking engineer market which favoured the older and traditional worker due to their contacts and background.
I've since gone on to earn £40k in computing and project management but it took many more years than peers who had connections.
With the IT industry reverting to the same mindsets of manufacturing in the 90's (outsource & rationalise) I pity men and women who are up against the generation divide (which just happens to be make dominated)

By Francis on Friday Jun 26