Comments on: Fighting inequality, but celebrating: Women in ICT http://delimiter.com.au/2010/03/08/women-still-under-represented-in-ict/ Just Australia. Just technology. Thu, 09 Sep 2010 15:20:57 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Sean Kaye http://delimiter.com.au/2010/03/08/women-still-under-represented-in-ict/#comment-725 Sean Kaye Mon, 08 Mar 2010 09:22:39 +0000 http://delimiter.com.au/?p=1671#comment-725 I think the issue of pay inequality is not a legitimate argument. First of all, many of the highest paying technical jobs in ICT are areas like software architecture, contract development, high-end network engineering and the like. Women are in no way making up 15% of those roles - it would be interesting to find out how many Cisco CCIEs in Australia are women, very few I'd suggest. So if that's the "meaty" part of the industry for a high number of jobs with good pay and women are poorly represented in that area, then that will mathematically drag down their average pay. Secondly, women tend to gravitate to more "social" roles in the industry like business analysis and the less technical roles as mentioned above. Those "social" roles have less value in the industry (supply and demand for labour) so they get paid less. Finally, women have nobody to blame but themselves. Yes, its a male dominated industry, but I know most employers value the diversity that women bring to an office or a team, so really it comes down to skills and desire like Deena Shiff said - "Just go for it". ICT is a great industry with still growing opportunities in Australia, the only people who can increase the number of women participating are, woman themselves. Get past the "geek" stigma and join in. I think the issue of pay inequality is not a legitimate argument. First of all, many of the highest paying technical jobs in ICT are areas like software architecture, contract development, high-end network engineering and the like. Women are in no way making up 15% of those roles – it would be interesting to find out how many Cisco CCIEs in Australia are women, very few I’d suggest. So if that’s the “meaty” part of the industry for a high number of jobs with good pay and women are poorly represented in that area, then that will mathematically drag down their average pay.

Secondly, women tend to gravitate to more “social” roles in the industry like business analysis and the less technical roles as mentioned above. Those “social” roles have less value in the industry (supply and demand for labour) so they get paid less.

Finally, women have nobody to blame but themselves. Yes, its a male dominated industry, but I know most employers value the diversity that women bring to an office or a team, so really it comes down to skills and desire like Deena Shiff said – “Just go for it”. ICT is a great industry with still growing opportunities in Australia, the only people who can increase the number of women participating are, woman themselves. Get past the “geek” stigma and join in.

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