Posts by Kacie Conroy
In my GET IT presentations, I ask each group if they think boys would be better than girls in an IT job. Until last week I never had a single girl say yes. Between the two GET IT presentations I completed in the last week I suddenly had 3 girls think boys would be better. When asked why they said “yes”, they commonly stated the following responses:
Boys play video games a lot.
Boys are always on the computer.
Boys are just better at that kind of thing.
I was surprised that the first comment made the girls think that is what makes a good IT employee. To me, it shows that we still have work to do in terms of educating young girls about IT careers. I know plenty of people who love and excel at video games but wouldn’t be instant IT experts. Happily, after the program was complete nearly 85% said they were interested in an IT career. That’s progress in the right direction but we still need to keep at it to continue to break the stereotype. If you have daughters, nieces, or know middle school aged girls, ask them the same question and see what they say. I think this may be getting at the core reason why the numbers of women in IT are so low.
Filed in: Team Member Blog
A friend of mine who is very involved in the Rails community shared a very interesting story. We talk often about the numbers of women in IT and are both committed to helping raise awareness of IT in women. A few weeks ago a Ruby Rails conference held in San Francisco had a presenter which used very suggestive images of women. I’ll post the link of the presentation below and ask for comments. Both sides are charged. Many women, as well as a fair number of men, are upset that these images were used. It objectifies women and certainly makes them feel alienated amongst their male co-workers. However, there is just as strong of a reaction from the other side. They range from “everyone else is stupid”, “let it go and move on”, to “this is an over-reaction”.
http://www.sarahmei.com/blog/?p=46&cpage=1#comment-6
http://martinfowler.com/bliki/SmutOnRails.html
The conference was all male minus about six women. I wonder what the reaction would have been if the images were suggestive pictures of men? I am sure many who posted comments like, “let it go and get over it” would have a polar opposite response questioning how the photos applied to programming. I know many woman, myself included, who have experienced degradation while in IT. This is just one of the areas that we need to progress in to help other women get into the field. Hopefully soon the future women of IT will have a different, more positive, experience.
Filed in: Team Member Blog
Yesterday I worked at the LEAP (Learn Educate And Prosper) conference. It is a conference that aims to educate high school girls about their career options. The turn out of professionals from various industries was really great. The highlight was listening to Barbara Lawton speak. She had a very clear and inspiring message to deliver to the girls!
However, one thing that I didn’t find inspiring was the lack of knowledge about IT with the high school girls.
I run a program called GET IT (Girls Educating Themselves about Information Technology) that caters to middle school girl scout troops. At the beginning of each presentation I ask the girls if they have heard of any of the seven career paths we later discuss. I expect middle schoolers to be relatively unfamiliar with IT career paths. However, I was not expecting the high school LEAP conference attendees to have almost identical numbers to my typical 10 year old audience. With all the technology used by these young women, be it computers, or cell phones, I was really astounded at the numbers.
When I asked the LEAP attendees how many had heard of the term “IT” no one raised their hand. Zero. That is 0% out the 54 students who attended my presentation. Although there is a lot of work to be done there is a glimmer of hope. In each of my presentations I saw smiles and excitement during our BA role playing activity. I can say that were definitely some future BAs in there that now know about a really great career that they weren’t aware of before.
Filed in: Team Member Blog
February is an important month for me. This is the month that serves as a much needed heart health reminder. For both men and women it is the number one killer. However, for women the symptoms aren’t always as noticeable. Symptoms like indigestion seems like a common day issue but for some it can be a symptom of a heart attack. Half a million women die every year from heart disease. That’s roughly one woman every single minute.
For me, this is a personal issue. Not only am I a woman but I come from a family with heart disease that runs very deep. February 8th I tried out for the national “Go Red For Women” spokesperson. The first question they ask you is “what is your story”. For me, my story started because I was even born. It started before my parents met and even before my mom graduated from high school. My mother’s father died of a massive heart attack while teaching at the age of 44. At the time my mom was 16 years old. Her youngest sibling was five years old. Now that I am in my late 20’s I have been a witness family members dealing with heart disease. Angioplasty’s and Quintuple bypasses are things I know all too well. Although I have been getting my cholesterol checked since I was 22 I know one day it might be a problem.
I wanted to try out for the spokesperson to represent the younger generation that needs to make good choices now. Too often the fast pace of today’s world drives our choices of fast food and lack of exercise. Although, I don’t think I will be selected for the national spokesperson it was an experience I will never remember. Seeing all the people at the event just showed me how many people have a story like myself. The event workers and participants were so supportive. To top it all off I had the support of my husband as I waited for my interview. After that, him and I took our “Diva” shot. Decked out with red boas and red glittery glasses was a fun way to finish off the event. We even got our 15 seconds of fame by being shown on the news.
Heart disease is very imbedded in many of my family members, my mom included. It definitely makes a person think about what is important in life. I’ve recently made a promise to myself to be on the computer less and to experience life more. I have been making an effort to keep in contact with friends and family better than I have in the past. It’s too easy to get caught with work and the normal daily routine. Then the days just kind of blur together without any events standing out. I hope to have many more memorable moments and stories this year. Besides, heart health month reminds us that life is short and we best enjoy the ride.
My hope is to do what I can at a local level and hopefully at a national level to bring awareness to preventative measures and about heart disease. I’d like to remind everyone to think about their heart health not just this month but every month. Even better, think about your heart health every day. Make the heart healthy choices as often as you can to reduce your chances.
Live heart healthy every day.
Filed in: Team Member Blog
