Women in IT (Aug 3). Online freedom of speech (Aug 5th)

[Vlad]

        Hmm... I'll add my two cents as well - same disclaimer as
Madison's applies.

On 7/27/06, Madison Kelly <linux-5ZoueyuiTZhBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> I don't think I or anyone one person could say...
>
> What I can say is that I have always agreed with a line from my
> favourite movie, Ghost in the Shell; "Over-specialize and you breed in
> weakness". The IT industry suffers from this, I think. Not enough
> minorities (as one posted pointed out) are heard in IT. Be it women,
> blacks, disabled, natives, whatever. It is heavily dominated by one
> culture, European males.

        Well. I appreciate the GitS quote. ;)
        As for the actual demographics, I've found that what you say
only applies to some jobs. If I'm to look at CCIEs, I know one "WASP"
CCIE - and he's French-Canadian, so I'm not sure if he counts; whereas
the dozen or so others I've met (hey, working in a telco rocks), are
of either East-Indian or Asian descent.
        Now, looking at programmers, sysadmins, and DBAs, there's
definitely more caucasians there. I think it's easier to say that if a
job requires a Masters/Doctorate/CCIE, the chances of it being held by
a caucasian are low.

        Of course, those are just observations; I've worked in places
that place an emphasis on how much you know and what you can do, as
opposed to what pieces of paper you have, so it's hard to guage this
industry-wide. Everyone's experiences will be different. YMMV, and all
that.

> In my mind IT et. al. are weaker for this. "Mainstream" is simply the
> majority view, so if someone thinks it's helpful to get a non-mainstream
> view they need to not only tolerate the token outsider, they need to
> actively support and prop-up those outsiders so that others can see that
> yeah, you are in fact welcome and will in fact be taken serious. *Then*
> the IT world will start to diversify and benefit from new,
> non-mainstream ideas.

        I agree on that. As IT globalises (read: outsources), those
that are specialised have a hard time, because they're replaced in
waves. If you're a DBA, you're usually just a DBA. If you're good,
anyway. Or coder. Those are pretty specific. Whereas if you're a
sysadmin, you can wing in a few other areas. Personally, I've been a
netadmin, firewall admin, and a sysadmin. I do at least two of those
at each job I've been - sometimes all three. It gives me enough
versatility that I'm not concerned about the job market. Others that I
know haven't been so fortunate.

> It's the same in business, politics and many other male-dominated
> industries, too. As it is now, the only women who succeed are those who
> most effectively mimic the behavior and attitudes on the mainstream
> class (your hard-ass female teacher, for example). Have you ever met a
> woman who succeeded in business? They are usually very much bitches, and
> they need to be to be taken seriously. The end result is that you have
> token women/minorities who don't contribute much in the way of new ideas
> because they couldn't succeed doing that. They had to assimilate.

        Yes and no. I find that the women in IT that I know are geeky,
just like guys, without having had to change their personality
specifically for the jobs they have. They're introverted, intuitive,
and somewhat awkward socially, and that's how they've been from when
they were kids. I've even known geeky women in management, lording
over geeky guys. (Now THAT can be awkward, to be honest. Attraction
can be quite an issue.)

        Business (and law, and related things) is pretty much what you
said, though; you have to be a shark to swim with the sharks and not
get eaten alive.

> Anyway, all this is my $0.02, take and/or discard as you see fit.

        Ibid.

> Madison

        -- Vlad

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