Women in IT and computing – a female geek’s perspective
Some of you may know that I work in the IT (Information Technology) industry in my day job (computing/ programming) and that I’m fairly passionate about women studies. That being said, people would probably box me in the ‘nerd’ or ‘girl geek’ category easily – and that truly doesn’t bother me. I’m happy to wear that badge of honour. I’m a computer programmer, I paint fantasy and sci-fi imagery, I love the whole genre in fact (read, watch and play), I’m involved in medieval recreation, I game (though rather badly) and I even wrote an animation assignment at uni on Anime (back in 1997, way before Anime became the ‘in’ thing).
Anyway, it got me to thinking about ‘girl geeks’, in particular women in IT, and why we seem to be rare (and often at odds with the stereotypes). It also got me thinking about how I ended up in a male dominated industry which hasn’t really changed in numbers, in fact I think I see less girls coming into IT these days than when I was just beginning my career.
