Technology still too boring for girls

Girls and young women continue to reject information technology and related careers. They don’t avoid information technology because they fear failing, nor because boys push them aside but because girls see technology careers as a lonely, boring dead-end.

I first wrote about this subject in April 2000 following a study by the American Association of University Women which  reported that women only make up 20 percent of the high-tech workforce and will continue to choose to work elsewhere so long as:

• Computer science courses remain tedious and dull.
• Girl-oriented computer games (and web sites) remain passive pink playgrounds while action-packed boy software focuses on kill rates.
• The stereotypical high-tech workplace is a sterile set of cubicles peopled by boring men who relate better to machines than the rest of humanity.

When asked to elaborate on their fears girls say they fear studying technology will stunt their range of intellectual pursuits and interests. They also imagine that computer professionals lead a solitary, sedentary and antisocial life.

Of course cynics might note this proves those educational theories that say women are more intelligent than men.

More recently in 2005 the BBC reported most schoolgirls enjoy technology and only 4 percent regarded computers as boring, but only 25 percent would consider a technical career.

Significantly, the BBC story pointed out that in 2005, women made up just 21 percent of the IT workforce, and “the proportion of IT workers who were female had declined steadily since the 1960s.”

Worth reading:

The Incredible Shrinking Pipeline

Why Girls Don’t Compute