With the growing demand for technical professionals, it becomes critical to tap into every market of talent our nation has available, and women are not jumping on the technology bandwagon. Jane Brown, executive director of the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, said, It is remarkable that women make up less than 30 percent of workers in IT occupations, despite the fact that women in IT earn an average of 60 percent more than women in other occupations. The declining number of women in IT is especially striking against a backdrop of the longest economic expansion in U.S. history and the well-publicized labor shortage for skilled IT workers. This digital divide in gender raises questions on why more women are not interested in joining the information technology field. Today we are going to focus on teaching methods and the perceptions women have of technical fields.
Studies find that teaching styles affect the way girls view technology.
These teaching methods are not capturing the attention of females, who generally want to see the implications and end results of a job. If a girl does not picture a woman in a certain field, she is rarely attracted to join that industry. The lack of knowledge about the IT industry directly relates to why women might have negative perceptions about the field. The AAUW study found that girls think technical careers are dull, boring or lonely. Krimski said, Women tend to want interaction in the workplace and given the stereotype of the techie who sits in a lonely cubicle coding all day does not make for a very desirable career choice.