Women and Information Technology: Ongoing Challenges for Computing and Information Technology Education

It has always been claimed that there is a growing demand for IT workers with leadership, interpersonal and communication skills in order to combat the genral drop in worker retention and ineffective training. Qualitative studies show that many women in technology are interested in this combination of technical and non-technical work; hence they are potentially a good fit in these roles. On a similar note, it has been argued that the inclusion of women in computing will mitigate innovation hindering effects such as group think by preventing the group from becoming too homogenized. Gender diversity has been suggested to give benefits such as better decison making, increased creativity and enhanced innovative performance. Men have worked in this industry longer and thus have gained technical expertise that any one new to the industry may not have. It is clear that with time working in a field comes experience. Women many being new to the field must overcome the disrespect and criticism that comes with lack of knowledge. This lack of knowledge is often emphasized when the person is female verses male.