Excellent New York Times article on the efforts to encourage more women in the computer science field. Of the approaches, a couple are looking at how the computer technologies are really becoming pervasive to all fields, and the further such technologies move away from the 'geek looking into his computer all day' image, the more women.
The points made are excellent: whatever happens with women today will also impact on men, tomorrow. So if we're seeing a decline in women with the skills, we're also seeing a growing decline of men with the same skills. I'm not sure if women are the 'canary in the mines', but it's an interesting way of looking at it.
If we do make up over half of computer users, it is imperative that companies employ women for positions directly associated with the technology. Not secondary, not management, and god forbid, not marketing and human resources–women associated with the creating and building of the technology.
Geez, why is this one so hard to communicate?
(Thanks to Michael Bernstein for the link.)
This reflects much of what I wrote about some time ago, about the tech field being broken.
