AKRON BEACON
JOURNAL (OH)
Business Section
May 6, 2003
GENDER
DIVIDE REMAINS AN OBSTACLE
LEFT IN DUST OF TECH BOOM IN POCKET-PROTECTOR WORLD,
WOMEN STUCK IN PINK COLLARS
Erika D. Smith, Beacon Journal staff writer / Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this report.
More women
than ever are in school and the labor force, according to the American Association
of University Women. But that doesn't necessarily mean the future is bright.
Women
aren't angling for jobs in technology -- a high-growth, high-paying field that's
certain to be at ground zero of the next economic boom. They are stuck in "pink
collar" positions.
"Women remain overrepresented in clerical and service positions,"
the AAUW reported in Washington, D.C., on Monday. "Likewise, women find themselves
on the margins of new and high-status fields and occupations, including systems
analysts, software designers, computer scientists, engineers and information technology
professionals."
Something must be done to remedy the situation, especially for
black and Latina women who lag the most in high-paying, high-status jobs, said
AAUW executive director Jacqueline E. Woods.
"The growing computer/IT (information
technology) culture is leaving girls behind," she said in a conference call Monday.
The study found 28 percent of women hold jobs in scientific, engineering or IT
fields, compared with 41 percent of men, Woods said.
Kevin Campbell, an account
executive for Akron's Area 51 Consulting, agreed it's somewhat rare to see women
in IT, especially working as "hard-core" programmers.
"There's always been a stigma
of geekdom in IT, and maybe that persuaded many women not to go down that path,"
said Campbell, who was chief of an IT department before coming to the Akron firm.
Campbell admits Area 51 is rare in that three of its eight employees are women.
One of those women, office manager Theresa Fruner, speculated that the daunting
technical courses scare off a lot of female students in college. Even she was
a marketing major and stumbled into IT while working at East of Chicago Pizza
Co.'s corporate office.
What the 26-year-old learned was IT is more than programming.
There are a lot of administrative duties and, as for the technobabble, you can
learn that on the job. It's easier that way, she said.
"People really don't know
what the work would involve," she said. "As long as you like learning, which I
do, then you can go anywhere with it."
That potential will become more important
as the decade progresses because most of the high-growth occupations are in the
technical, not service, industries.
AAUW lists computer engineering, computer
support and 18 other fields as expanding the quickest by 2008. But one-fourth
of women in the paid U.S. labor force are concentrated in 10 other occupations,
mostly secretarial and sales jobs.
"Quite simply, women do not appear well-positioned
to access high-paying, high-quality jobs in emerging information- and technology-related
segments of the labor market," AAUW reported. "Men, particularly white and Asian-American
men with a bachelor's degree or four years of college, dominate these jobs, and
this is not likely to change given the current trends in women's educational preparation."
Johnnie W. Baker, chairman of Kent State University's Computer Science Department,
said he believes the problem is rooted in high school.
At that age, boys often
become absorbed in "macho" computer video games that don't appeal to girls and
start using technical terms, often incorrectly, he said. All that talk can make
teen-age girls feel inferior, misguidedly so, and restoring their confidence is
almost impossible.
The assumption that it is OK for girls to do poorly in math
doesn't help either, Baker said. Other nations frown on that, and the higher numbers
of international female students in technology-related fields proves it.
"The
general opinion in the U.S. today is that not doing math is OK. But if you can't
read, they look at you like an idiot," he said.
But it can't be just math, Baker
said, because plenty of women major in chemistry, biology and other sciences.
Carnegie Mellon University took a closer look at the high-tech gender gap and
identified four problem areas: experience, doubt, curriculum and peer culture.
By concentrating on those factors and expanding the qualities considered for admission,
its computer science department has actually managed to increase female enrollment
since 1995.
AAUW suggested similar solutions at the college level, including promoting
the economic benefits of a degree in computer science, math and engineering. The
AAUW "Women at Work" study used census data from 1980 and 2000, and responses
from 2,000 men and women surveyed by telephone. It has a 3 percent margin of error.
