#LittleMissGeek Twitter Party 7th Feb 1-2pm

How can we get more girls into IT?

“At present women only make up 17% of the IT/Tech workforce and in the last 10 years this has been falling by half a percent each year. If it continues the way it does by 2043 there will be no women in the industry. It is important to include women for social, political and moral reasons.

Based on these findings Lady Geek has decided to write a book called ‘Little Miss Geek’, which will explore why girls do not tend to consider careers in IT/Tech and how we can change this.

We are looking for insights, big ideas and solutions on how we can resolve this issue.” Lady Geek

So please join in our discussion on the Tues 7th Feb from 1-2pm by simply following and including #littlemissgeek in your tweets.  Sadly, if you’re account is protected we won’t be able to see you.

If you’re not on twitter but would still like to share your thoughts please leave a comment below.

Disclosure:  I’m NOT being paid in any way to do this, it’s just a topic of great interest to me!

 

Author: mediocremum

A slightly older mum of one, who drinks far too much red wine and has an unhealthy obsession with her slow cooker. During the day she's an ICT Trainer, Social Media/Online Marketing consultant and does a bit of public speaking. Full Profile on Google+

5 thoughts on “#LittleMissGeek Twitter Party 7th Feb 1-2pm”

  1. I don’t do twitter parties and I’ll probably be busy tomorrow lunchtime anyway so I thought I’d add my piece here.

    I worked in IT from 1987 until 2009. I’ve always worked in the more “female” aspects of IT, viz support, training and management. I did it because I enjoyed the variety and the challenge. There is no way I could code and not deal with people, and that part of IT does seem quite male dominated and largely, I think that a certain type of male tends to prefer that kind of work.

    I don’t think it’s an issue with one cause. Obviously, they don’t get enough women in the first place, but then, IT doesn’t really help itself with the antisocial hours – and a further issue is the lack of family friendly work that is offered. Speaking personally, I had to take my employers to a statutory grievance to go to part time working. This was despite there not being enough work to keep me occupied full time (as I was working on a client contract where I’d been costed in at 50% from year 3 onwards). Eventually, we worked out a compromise whereby they would recruit a jobshare partner. We interviewed one person for the role and at the end of it, my boss said to me, “Do you actually think we need another person?”. I gave up! They never did recruit a jobshare partner and I didn’t really need to work the extra 4 hours a week they had demanded. They were doing it to placate my client but the truth was I was contactable for emergencies and my staff were pretty self-sufficient. When I was TUPEd to work for my client, I saw the writing on the wall and took redundancy as my client’s org structure was top heavy and I was the only part time employee.

    Part time work in IT is like hen’s teeth and yet, it doesn’t need to be that way. There is plenty that could be done on a part time basis but IT companies are unwilling to find ways it can be made to work so hide behind the statutory reasons for refusal for flexible working.

    I guess I lasted so long in IT because I became a mother late in life. Certainly, things are more difficult when you have got to go home at the end of the day, even if there are problems, because you have small children.

    I’d also say that you have to be comfortable to listening to bad language as I’ve heard it all. I worked in a team and the bloke that sat next to me had swearing down to a fine art. In a way, it was a compliment that he didn’t feel different about swearing so profusely in front of me and my other female colleague, because he didn’t swear in front of other women. It was kind of funny, but I can see how it would be a problem for a lot of people.

  2. I work in IT and have done for almost 12 years. There are so few females in the industry. We recently advertised for an engineering post and 250 odd applied 1 female. Shocking. I’ll try to follow the party x

  3. I work in marketing for an IT company (I know it doesn’t count in the same way!) and am learning so much and think it’s fabulous to be in IT. I love answering the calls and hearing how happy our clients are when their queries are answered so quickly, I will add the #littlemissgeek to my twitter posts but unfortunately wont be able to join in at the said time. I am researching daily and reading articles which makes me fall in love with the IT World more and more each day. A World that once scared me in the past! Looking forward to reading the discussion when I am next back in the office.

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