I'm working on an article about the always thorny and very much already mulled over issue of women in tech in general and in F/LOSS specifically. Some slightly disjointed thoughts about it are below, because I think many efforts have gone about the sell in the wrong way.
Here's the tricky bit of the problem (that problem being that young women don't seem interested in pursuing most tech and science careers): we seem to forget about the insecurities that teenage girls have. We fail to market the tech industry to them as something that can fulfill their needs and desires. Stereotypically (and I'll dig up the requisite studies later), they want to be creative, they want to be attractive, they want to be popular and they want to belong. An industry made up (or so it appears) of rugged individualists and unattractive geeks doing math and logic problems all day doesn't appeal.
We're not showing the fun side of the industry (and there sure as heck is a fun side), only the bits that look good on paper. But looking good on paper isn't all that impressive when the appearance is of a steady but boring life. It's not sexy. Actually, maybe sexy is the wrong word. But it sure as heck isn't attractive. There's no romance in steady and sensible. There's romance in recognition and role playing (why do little girls want to be ballet dancers?). There's romance in changing the world and helping others (the ever popular career aspiration, veterinarian, springs to mind). But when we talk about working in tech (which really, also doesn't happen quite enough), we don't talk about the world changing or the recognition.
There's also the issue of the perception of tech folk as geeks with no social skills or lives. Girls don't realize that women in tech are well rounded, perfectly human people with lives just like everyone else. We're not stinky misanthropes living alone in basements. Heck, the grown up ones often have houses, partners, families. And while these things aren't highly aspirational, they do fit into the normal conception of growing up, which is something at very least sub-consciously important to teens choosing their career path.
Also, of course, we're failing to talk to them where they'll actually listen. Never mind doing things in school. I want to see pro-tech ads running in teen magazines, showing actual women who work in the tech industry, being real, being aspirational, being the women that girls want to grow up into.
Here's the tricky bit of the problem (that problem being that young women don't seem interested in pursuing most tech and science careers): we seem to forget about the insecurities that teenage girls have. We fail to market the tech industry to them as something that can fulfill their needs and desires. Stereotypically (and I'll dig up the requisite studies later), they want to be creative, they want to be attractive, they want to be popular and they want to belong. An industry made up (or so it appears) of rugged individualists and unattractive geeks doing math and logic problems all day doesn't appeal.
We're not showing the fun side of the industry (and there sure as heck is a fun side), only the bits that look good on paper. But looking good on paper isn't all that impressive when the appearance is of a steady but boring life. It's not sexy. Actually, maybe sexy is the wrong word. But it sure as heck isn't attractive. There's no romance in steady and sensible. There's romance in recognition and role playing (why do little girls want to be ballet dancers?). There's romance in changing the world and helping others (the ever popular career aspiration, veterinarian, springs to mind). But when we talk about working in tech (which really, also doesn't happen quite enough), we don't talk about the world changing or the recognition.
There's also the issue of the perception of tech folk as geeks with no social skills or lives. Girls don't realize that women in tech are well rounded, perfectly human people with lives just like everyone else. We're not stinky misanthropes living alone in basements. Heck, the grown up ones often have houses, partners, families. And while these things aren't highly aspirational, they do fit into the normal conception of growing up, which is something at very least sub-consciously important to teens choosing their career path.
Also, of course, we're failing to talk to them where they'll actually listen. Never mind doing things in school. I want to see pro-tech ads running in teen magazines, showing actual women who work in the tech industry, being real, being aspirational, being the women that girls want to grow up into.
We also have to deal with the insidious institutional sexism which pervades the industry. I mean, would you want to work in a business where, if you work your company's booth, everyone will just assume you're the hired bimbo?
http://chapmancentral.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/booth-babes/ is my take on that.
I completely agree. There are huge cultural problems in tech that serve as barriers to women, many less obvious than the booth babe problem but even more insidious.
If anything, I've been thinking more about that than about the optics problem, which is why optics got posted first. It's a little simpler to talk about optics and marketing than about institutionalized discrimination that most of the discriminators don't even know or believe exists.