The EU, facing an IT worker shortage, quite logically thinks that making the field more appealing to the conspicuously absent female population will help address that shortage. They’ve decided that women avoid careers in IT because they do not want to be perceived as geeks, and they feel that women see IT as boring and too hard. I guess that’s why only two of the women who pledged a sorority with me were majoring in Computer Science.
The WSJ referred to an August 2007 article of theirs that indicated that women don’t go into IT because of discrimination from men, and because there aren’t many women in IT. So far, I’m only receiving more confirmation that I’m not like other women, since I: a) want to be perceived as a geek and b) don’t need other women around to do my job. However, the discrimination is quite real.
Personally, I think someone else had the right of it. Don’t try to make IT seem more socially acceptable. Compare the wealth of the richest geeks with the wealth of the richest cool/beautiful people. The last time I checked, the geeks won. No, I don’t really want to know if that’s changed; let this socially inept geek feel good about something!
