 The Five Percent Enigma(Page 3 of 3) Joyce Park, co-founder of Renkoo, an online gathering place for friends based in Redwood City, comments in her essay "The Hidden Engineering Gap" that despite all the efforts to support women, there are still not nearly as many working female engineers as male. "Almost all of the male engineers I know report childhood experience 'playing' with computers. Women seem less inclined to learn programming just for fun." Park speculates that if Programming 101 classes included more social software rather than math problems and competitive games, women might become more interested. "Women seem to be disproportionately attracted to careers where they feel they can help others — for instance, medicine (which, of course, requires rigorous, highly-competitive scientific training) — rather than careers that promise high pay or entrepreneurial possibility." Women at the Table When asked to envision what future products might look like if nine women were sitting around the table with nine men during think tank sessions, those interviewed demur. "I can't do how would a cell phone look if it was designed by women," says McFarlane. "In tech you can get turf wars on standards. Women collaborate more, and there's much less turf war." Duggan also sees this as one of women's strengths. "I could see women building the collaborative bridge," she says. "And resolving some standards issues. In the technology industry, a lot of things are held back by the lack of standards." For example, she notes that an American cell phone won't work in Europe because of a different standard. "We need women to be part of the vision of the next generation of products and solutions," Duggan adds, "so we're looking at the big picture — aspects of corporations, society, technology and how they can be linked. What are we doing in society that discourages girls from pursuing degrees in math and science? That's what makes my heart hurt — two women out of 18 people around the table in think tanks. We need women to become involved in the big picture and not in inventing one little widget." For more information, please visit http://www.worldinternetcenter.com, http://www.wtc-sf.org, http://www.witi.com Janet Rhodes is freelance writer and editor whose mission is to capture the spark that sets your business apart. Reach her at janet@bratcat.com. | ||
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