Comments on: Getting women into technology jobs

By: sandy

sandy — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 23:41:31 +0000

Alec, maybe it's the "wanted poster" type page that you have showing the team: like your presentation, probably supposed to be funny, but not likely to make women feel like they want to be part of that particular team.

By: pat

pat — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 00:27:55 +0000

Alec, it doesn’t have to be guytoys at your place: it could have been at places they interviewed previously that turned them off small start-ups, or it could have been at University.

But that raises another issue: have you looked at your ads and your corporate personna: are they doing things that turn women off?

Are they doing anything to turn women *on*?

Have you had a woman in technology review your ads or your website?

Our society’s use of language and imagery is full of subconscious and non-verbalized assumptions that actually transmit themselves quite clearly to identify a desired in-group and out-group in many pieces of communication.

By: Alec Saunders

Alec Saunders — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 22:54:52 +0000

I don’t think it’s those things, Pat. We don’t even get many women applicants.

By: pat

pat — Sat, 10 Feb 2007 22:33:46 +0000

Testosterone levels.

They show up in job ads. Things the guys think are innocuous s enticements, like co-ed teams in what are usually masculine contact sports (might be co-ed, but there aren’t many women trying out for the team — or gay men, either)..

Things like guy toys in the break-out rooms. Candidates getting a tour of the facilities see these things. They may not register consciously, but I suspect that the pervasive maleness of the atmosphere comes across.

For a woman, it’s a bit like going into Calvin’s tree fort.
http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2007/01/19/
only without the punch line.

…pat.