Mile Markers

The role of women in IT has been quite a hot topic in the recent years. Many women have been seen rising to the top as IT professionals. It also needs to be mentioned that some of the biggest companies of the world like Facebook, Google and Yahoo have given top seats to women in their organizations. However, the total representation of women in IT industry is still inadequate. There could be many reasons behind this. Math education along with many other technical subjects, working hours, male dominance etc. could be among the top reasons for such few women in IT industry.

According to the excerpts from a report that appeared in New York Times in the beginning of 2015 there are still only 50% women in top technology companies. When the technical employees are taken into consideration the numbers are even lower for women. In the same way, Google announced in the middle of 2014 that only 30% of women were among its employees when it took into consideration all of its employees all around the world. Even according to Microsoft there were only a little more than 16% women employed at the company as technical employees.

Several studies and surveys are being conducted on this particular subject. The concept that women were never interested in technical subjects like mathematics, physics and chemistry has become old now. In several parts of the world women have surpassed men in these same subjects. Even in a country as developed and advanced as the US there are only 25% women working in the IT industry. In 1984 there were 37% women who had completed the graduations with computer science subjects. It was expected that their number would grow with time but in the recent times it has dwindled to only 12%.

According to a recent survey that was conducted using only the most experienced and professional experts from the IT industry, both males and females agree on the fact that there should be more females in the tech industry. This particular survey was conducted with 512 people, out of which 199 were females. When asked why women were not being able to make any good representation in the tech industry, the answers given by men and women were different. Most men think that women dont become a part of the tech industry because of its geeky nature.

On the other hand, women believe that they are not an active part of this industry because it is male dominated and women dont feel comfortable among men when the situation is so bad that there is only one woman among tens of men. The reasons for such small population of women in tech industry are still being discovered. Education is among some of the biggest reasons for the present condition of women in IT industry. It has become clear that women need to take interest in technical subjects, especially mathematics, right from their early ages in order to become an active part of the modern tech industry.