IT业的女性都哪儿去了？

IT业的女性都哪儿去了？
 
 
作者：英国《金融时报》金•托马斯(Kim Thomas)
2006年11月16日 星期四
 

 
职场女性如今仍会遭遇大量的“玻璃天花板”(glass ceiling)，不过人们似乎有理由期盼，敢做敢为的科技界会在多元化方面做出表率。

然而，人们并没有看到新一代女性在IT行业扬名。实际上，情况恰恰相反。

IT行业女性雇员的比例多年来一直在下降。英国IT行业协会Intellect的一份报告称，目前，英国IT行业女性雇员的比例为16%，大大低于1997年的27%。

 

首席信息官仅8%是女性

这16%的女性雇员，往往集中在IT行业较低端的工作岗位上：她们中约有61%从事低工资、低技能的工作。职位越高，女性雇员就越少：招聘公司Harvey Nash最近进行的一项调查显示，仅有8%的首席信息官(CIO)是女性。

这是西方的典型现象。在这些国家，IT业女性雇员的比例一直呈下降趋势。美国的情况也是如此，目前该国女性IT雇员比例约为27%；而在挪威和德国等欧洲国家，这一数字还不到20%。

在新兴经济体中，IT业工作被视为一种机遇，因此，那里的情况有所不同：例如在马来西亚，计算机系50%的学生是女性。

印度生机勃勃的IT业在世界舞台上扮演着日趋重要的角色，而这个国家逾三分之一的电脑程序员是女性。

西方国家面临的问题，不仅仅是少有女性进入该行业，那些进入该行业的女性也留不下来。

英国贸工部(Department of Trade and Industry)在2005年委托出炉了一份名为《IT业女性：多元化的商业理由》(Women in the IT Industry: Towards a business case for diversity)的报告。报告称：“女性往往在生育之后就离开了该行业，但在她们职业生涯中后期（一般在40岁至50岁之间）也往往离职。在这个年龄段，她们已是经验丰富、技能熟练的员工——这意味着找人替换她们的难度较大，成本也较高。”

 

女孩子对IT业敬而远之

然而，尽管西方国家采取了多项措施，女性IT雇员人数仍然继续下降。目前，从全球范围看，女生在学校考试中的成绩通常优于男生，年轻女性倾向于选择法律、医学和会计等职业，对IT业却敬而远之。

这有什么关系吗？如果女性希望成为医生或教师，而男性希望从事IT业工作，为什么不随他们/她们去呢，而非要担心“多元化”问题呢？

Intellect的项目经理卡丽•哈特奈尔(Carrie Hartnell)称，这个问题关系重大：“这不再是性别鸿沟问题，它关乎西方经济体如何保持竞争力”。她指出，从经济层面上讲，IT行业作为最重要的行业之一，没有道理去削减它的可用人才库。

那么，为什么西方国家的女性对IT业失去兴趣了呢？她们又是在生命中哪些阶段产生这种想法的呢？

女性倾向于远离IT业的第一个年龄段，或许也是最关键的年龄段，是10岁至14岁。在这个年龄段之前，女孩对摆弄电脑的兴趣与男孩一样高。

然而，e-skills UK委托撰写的一份报告称，女孩长到14岁的时候，信息技术的“奇客”(geek)形象开始令她们生厌。迹象也显示，男孩往往在IT课上将设备据为己有，这也可能吓到女孩。e-skills UK是一个由雇主领导、经英国政府授权的团体，旨在提高IT行业技能水平。

此外，女性还存在对IT职业生涯的误解。南安普顿大学电子与计算机科学系(School of Electronics and Computer Science at Southampton University)主任、英国计算机协会(British Computer Society)前会长温迪•霍尔(Wendy Hall)称，英国计算机协会就14岁至16岁女孩对IT行业的态度进行了调查，其中一些发现令人惊讶。

 

“进了IT业只是做秘书”

她解释道：“我们本以为她们会说‘因为这个行业太另类，所以不喜欢'，但实际上她们的回答是‘我不打算从事IT工作，因为进了这一行只是做个秘书'。”

霍尔教授表示，学校必须承担部分责任。她认为，信息技术课程现在讲授的全都是电子数据表和文字处理，而非创造性地使用电脑。e-skills UK项目经理安妮•坎特罗(Anne Cantelo)也认同这种观点。她表示，许多教师未能明确区分专业技能与用户技能。

为了解决这个问题，e-skills UK在2005年成立了“女孩电脑俱乐部”(Computer Clubs for Girls，简称CC4G)。这种俱乐部在课余时间活动，只许女孩子参加，让她们能够通过自己喜欢的活动——设计杂志封面、成立音乐商店或策划慈善活动，学习Excel或HTML这样的电脑技能。

“女孩电脑俱乐部”的项目主管梅洛迪•赫尔曼(Melody Herman)表示，俱乐部的成功超出了预期：现在全英格兰有3000多家这种俱乐部，5.8万名成员。参加俱乐部的女孩子中，约有65%表示自己“更可能”考虑从事IT工作了，比正常情况高出很多。

不过，即使在离开学校后，还有其它因素阻碍年轻女性从事IT工作。《IT Week》杂志和招聘机构Computer People最近联合组织了一个“IT女性圆桌会议”，在会上，许多女性都谈到IT业的长时间工作文化以及工作时间缺少灵活性。

 

从“太年轻”到“太老”

女性经常在生育孩子之后离开IT行业——那些重新回到这个行业的人经常发现，很难重新获得原来的职位。有一种普遍的（也许有失偏颇）看法，认为IT业发展太快，女性离开1年就跟不上它的发展了。克兰菲尔德大学(Cranfield University)企业多样化管理高级讲师瓦尔•辛格(Val Singh)指出：“在与女性闲谈当中，可以听到一种观点：刚开始的时候，她们太年轻，然后突然之间她们又太老了。”

对于那些坚持下来的人而言，可能也很艰难。Sun电子计算机公司英国分公司(Sun UK)现任董事总经理特鲁迪•诺利斯-格雷(Trudy Norris-Grey)说，当她的孩子还很小的时候，她都在早上6点上班，这样就可以在下午5点之前下班，回家陪孩子，直到他们睡觉。而到了晚上8点，她又得开始工作。

IT业也有自己的“玻璃天花板”。霍尔教授在20多岁的时候首次遭遇歧视。当时，她曾申请一个教学职位，负责给工程类学生讲课。但她的申请被一个全部由男性组成的面试小组拒绝了，因为他们觉得，霍尔将无法控制全是男生的课堂。

 

厌倦IT业的工作强度

对于女性往往在四、五十岁时离开IT业，霍尔教授并不惊讶：“很多女性退出，不是因为她们无法胜任工作，而是因为厌倦了被迫以高得离谱的效率完成工作，而且，她们觉得，除了一直工作之外，生活还有更多内容。这种地方的文化是以男人为导向的，女人一直扭曲着自己的性情。”

但很多科技公司都已醒悟到，它们需要招聘和留住女性。

一些公司正在针对大学毕业生采取行动，比如，惠普(HP)就在德国富特旺根大学(University of Furtwangen)赞助了一项专门针对女性的计算机科学课程。

埃森哲(Accenture)则开始招聘不同背景的毕业生，而不只是在技术类学生中挑选。这使得该公司目前新招的毕业生约有三分之一是女性。

一些大公司，比如惠普、埃森哲、英国电信(BT)、IBM和Sun等，还以弹性工作政策来吸引并留住女员工。

在IBM，有20%的女职员享有弹性工作时间，而且公司还为她们制定了一系列的规划和安排。根据其中一项“伙伴”计划，休完产假复职的女员工，将与另一位快要休产假的女员工搭档，以帮助她与公司发展保持同步。此外，IBM还设有“女性技术社区”(Women In Technology)，女性员工在其中可以相互提供支持。

在Sun电子计算机公司，40%的董事会成员是女性。诺利斯-格雷女士称，这不仅本身是件好事，也为其他女性提供了榜样和激励。

除了获得更广泛的人才来源之外，拥有更多女性员工还有哪些好处呢？

 

女人往往更善于沟通

很多参加《IT Week》圆桌会议的女性都相信，她们能更好地与客户建立协作关系。她们认为，女人往往比男人更善于沟通和倾听。

索尼欧洲公司(Sony Europe)副总裁纳奥米•克莱默(Naomi Climer)也同意这一观点：“工程行业到处都是难以捉摸的男人，故意说着让人难理解的话。我认为，不管你是在谈IT，还是谈工程，用大家都明白的话表达出来，才是真正理解的标志。”

尽管采取了所有这些措施，但还有一个问题：一个持续了近30年的趋势，能被扭转吗？

在将女性融入职场方面，虽然个别公司做得不错，但很多公司仍然保持着长期流行的企业文化——超长工作时间和死板的工作方式。

译者/何黎 

 

WHERE ARE ALL THE WOMEN IN IT?
 
 
By Kim Thomas
Thursday, November 16, 2006
 
 
 
Women in the workplace still encounter plenty of glass ceilings, but it would be good to think that the go-ahead world of technology is leading the way in diversity.

But rather than seeing a new breed of women making their mark in the IT industry, in fact the reverse is true.

The proportion of female IT employees has been dropping for years. Today, according to a report by Intellect, a UK IT industry trade association, it stands at 16 per cent in the UK, down from 27 per cent in 1997.

And that 16 per cent tends to be concentrated in the lower levels of the profession: about 61 per cent are in low-paid, low-skill jobs. The higher you go, the fewer there are: only 8 per cent of CIOs are women, according to a recent survey from recruitment firm Harvey Nash.

This is typical of western economies, where the trend is unremittingly downwards. In the US, the proportion of female IT professionals is falling and now stands at about 27 per cent, while in European countries such as Norway and Germany, the figure is below 20 per cent.

In emerging economies, where a job in IT is seen as an opportunity, it is a different picture: in Malaysia, for example, 50 per cent of computing students are female.

And in India, an increasingly important player on the global stage with a thriving IT sector, more than a third of computer programmers are women.

The problem the west faces is not just that women are not joining the industry, but that those who do join, do not stay.

“Women tend to leave the sector following the birth of children, but also later in their careers, typically between the ages of 40 and 50, when they are experienced, skilled members of staff – difficult and expensive to replace,” said a 2005 report, Women in the IT Industry: Towards a business case for diversity, commissioned by the UK Department of Trade and Industry.

Yet despite numerous intiatives, the numbers continue to fall. With girls now frequently outperforming boys in school examinations around the world, young women are choosing professions such as law, medicine and accountancy. But they are staying away from IT.

Does it matter? If women want to become doctors or teachers and men want to work in IT, why not let them, instead of worrying about “diversity”?

Carrie Hartnell, programme manager at Intellect, says it matters a great deal: “This is no longer about a gender divide, this is about how economies remain competitive,” she says, pointing out that reducing the pool of talent available in one of the most important industries makes little economic sense.

So why do females in the west lose interest in IT and at what stages in their lives?

The first, and perhaps most crucial stage at which girls tend to drop out of IT is between the ages of 10 and 14. Before then, girls enjoy working with computers just as much as boys do.

However, by the time they are 14, girls have been turned off technology by its “geeky” image, according to research commissioned by e-skills UK, an employer-led body licensed by government improve IT skills. Anecdotal evidence suggests, too, that girls can be intimidated by boys' tendency to hog the equipment in IT lessons.

The problem is compounded by misconceptions about what a career in IT might look like. Wendy Hall, head of the School of Electronics and Computer Science at Southampton University, and a former president of the British Computer Society, says that research from BCS among 14-16-year-old girls about their attitude to computing turned up some surprising results.

She explained: “We expected them to say they didn't like it because it was geeky, but they actually said ‘I don't want a career in IT because it's just being a secretary'.”

Schools must shoulder part of the blame, says Prof Hall: IT lessons, she argues, have become about spreadsheets and word processing rather than about using computers creatively. Anne Cantelo, a project director at e-skills UK, agrees, and says that many teachers fail to make a clear distinction between professional skills and user skills.

In an attempt to address the problem, in 2005 e-skills UK founded Computer Clubs for Girls (CC4G), single-sex clubs run out of school hours, to enable girls to learn computing skills such as Excel or HTML through activities that appealed to them – designing magazine covers, setting up a music business or devising a charitable campaign.

The success of the clubs has exceeded expectations: there are now more than 3,000 across England with 58,000 members. Of the girls who have attended the clubs, about 65 per cent say they would be “more likely” to consider a career in IT, much higher than the norm, says Melody Herman, CC4G's project director.

But even after school there are other factors that put young women off a career in IT. At a recent Women in IT roundtable organised by IT Week and recruitment body Computer People, many women spoke of the long hours culture and lack of flexible working in IT.

Women often leave IT careers after having children – with those who return often finding it difficult to regain their place on the ladder. There is a widespread – and possibly misplaced – belief that IT moves so fast that women who take a year out cannot catch up again: “In talking to women anecdotally there's a view that at first they're too young and then suddenly they're too old,” says Val Singh, reader in corporate diversity management at Cranfield University.

For those who stick it out, it can be tough: Trudy Norris-Grey, now managing director of Sun UK, reports that when her children were young, she would get into work at 6am so she could leave before 5pm and spend time with her children before their bedtime. At 8pm, she would start working again.

And then there is IT's own glass ceiling. Prof Hall first experienced discrimination in her 20s when she applied for a post teaching engineering students and was turned down by an all-male panel because they thought she would be unable to control classes of male students.

She is not surprised that women tend to leave IT in their 40s or 50s: “A lot of women drop out, not because they're not capable of doing it, but because they get fed up with having to perform at this incredible rate, and you think there's more to life than having to act like this all the time. The establishment is a male-oriented culture – you're always acting against your natural type.”

A number of technology companies, however, have woken up to the need to recruit and retain women.

Some companies are making a point of targeting graduates: Hewlett-Packard, for example, sponsors a computer science course at the University of Furtwangen in Germany aimed specifically at women.

At Accenture, recruiting graduates from a variety of backgrounds, not just technology, means that about a third of its graduate intake is now female.

Some large companies – HP, Accenture, BT, IBM and Sun, for example – have also introduced flexible working policies to attract and retain women.

At IBM, 20 per cent of female employees work flexible hours, and the company has a wide range of schemes and initiatives. These include a buddy scheme, in which a woman who has recently returned to work after maternity leave, pairs up with a woman about to go on maternity leave, and helps keep her in touch with what's happening. It also has Women In Technology chapters – groups where women can support each other.

At Sun, 40 per cent of board members are women – a good thing in itself, says Ms Norris-Grey, but also a way of providing role models and inspiration for other women.

Apart from being able to draw from a wider pool of talent, what are the benefits of having more women in the workplace?

Many of the women at the IT Week round table believed they were better able to build collaborative relationships with customers. Women, they argued, are often better at communicating and listening than men.

Naomi Climer, vice-president Sony Europe, agrees: “Engineering is full of blokes being very mysterious and using language that is deliberately obfuscating. I think whether you're talking about IT or engineering, a sign of understanding it really well is being able to put it into terms that are meaningful to just about anybody.”

Despite all the initiatives, the question remains whether a trend that has been going in one direction for nearly three decades can be reversed.

While individual companies are doing well at bringing women into the profession, many persist with the long hours culture and inflexible working practices that have prevailed for years.