Where are the Women in Information Technology

							Where are the Women in Information Technology
Nancy Ramsey and Pamela McCorduck
Report of Literature Search and Interviews
Prepared by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
(www.anitaborg.org) for the National Center for Women & Information Technology
University of Colorado, Boulder
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation

Excerpt from the Executive Summary
The issue of women’s under-representation in information technology, whether in school, higher
education, or industry, has been studied in many ways over several decades. Many of the studies which
ask why women avoid IT, or if they enter the field, sooner or later fall away, make explicit
recommendations to remedy the situation.

However, the proportion of women continues to drop from a high of 40% in 1986, to about 29% at the end
of 1999, and is still dropping. The literature suggests that it is no mystery. Women who enter and remain
in IT do so under extremely trying circumstances, which are almost entirely cultural. Given the strides that
women are making toward parity in other professional fields, the question really must be phrased: what is
wrong with IT that it can’t attract and hold women?

However, that same literature fails to distinguish among the micro-climates of IT. Nearly 80% of jobs in IT
are in the management information systems departments of non-IT firms, which are very different
environments from the frontiers of scientific research, or the climate in start-ups. Since all these micro-
climates are indiscriminately aggregated in nearly all studies, the recommendations these studies make
might very well be misleading. We strongly suggest that NCWIT make explicit what kinds of microclimates
exist, and whether the absence of women is more or less uniform across the landscape.

In any case, the literature consistently reflects a series of cultural stereotypes that frame the issues by
making tacit assumptions about women’s skills, and by measuring those skills unfairly. Worse, women
themselves often accept these stereotypes, and the entire work or learning atmosphere can be poisoned
by them.

Despite these obstacles, some women succeed at the top of IT. Our interviews suggest that they are
women with clarity of purpose and an unusually strong sense of self-worth.


Differences in Actual and Perceived Online Skills: The Role of Gender
Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University and Steven Shafer, Princeton University Social Science
Quarterly. Volume 87, Number 2, June 2006.

 “Because web uses can influence so many aspects of one’s life, the finding that women are significantly
more likely to exhibit lower self-perception of their actual online skills than do men has wide-spread
implications for the potential benefits—or lack thereof—that female users may reap from this important
medium.”

ECAR Information Technology Leadership in Higher Education: The Condition of the Community,
Volume 1, 2004

"…the percentage of women aspiring to the top IT position (16.4 percent) is still low compared with 28.2
percent for men….female survey respondents also generally earn less than male respondents: while only
40 percent of male respondents reported salary levels under $75,00 per year, nearly 60 percent of
women reported such earnings…"
"…What did those respondents not inclined to pursue the CIO position say about their lack of interest?
Most commonly cited were the long hours and personal commitment required to be an effective CIO, the
job’s distasteful political requirements, the perceived need for a doctoral degree, and a personal
preference for maintaining hands-on technical work or remaining close to the users…"

"…Our data indicate that mentoring may benefit survey respondents by offering subtle but potentially
important associations with salary, industry commitment, and other expressed behaviors and
preferences…"

"…What’s much more revealing and interesting is where we didn’t find gender differences in our data.
Almost across the board on leadership characteristics and perceptions, men and women showed similar
profiles. They didn’t differ significantly in leadership behaviors; both displayed a tendency toward effective
leadership styles….When asked their opinions on a broad set of IT topics ranging from governance to
planning to architecture and measurment, they again showed no significant disagreement…"

From an article in the Los Angeles Times, August 2006

"With Monday's appointment of Indian-born Indra Nooyi as chief executive, PensiCo has positioned itself
to compete for key emerging markets in Asia and the Middle East…Nooyi, 50, will be the rarest of CEOs:
a wife, mother, and a woman of color. Only two other women…lead larger U.S. corporations…Nooyi’s
appointment makes her only the 11 th female CEO of a Fortune 500 company… Nooyi is known for her
directness, wit and a habit of singing in the office… It’s not just about creating a diverse employment
pool…but doing it while creating new customer bases…

Beth Perlman, one of two women in the 2006 InfoWorld top 25 IT leaders.

"I’m a business person who understands technology and I view technology as something that solves
business problems…Technology is the easy part; it’s transforming processes and getting people to
change that’s the hard part…"