Denise Borgen <borgen@ESKIMO.COM> replied:
>On Thu, 18 Sep 1997, H. Tytel wrote:
>> On Thu, 18 Sep 1997, Sean Johnston wrote:
>> > Laura,
>> > Does the article say what they figure is going on? Some kind of
>> > backlash, perhaps?
>> >
>> > -Sean
>> I can't speak for Laura, but most of what I've seen suggests that this is
>> the result of gender segregation in college and other post-High school
>> education - most new high-paying jobs
>> are in high tech or related fields (such as graphic design, etc.). WOmen
>> tend to study humanities, and to come out with little computer
>> training, so we don't qualify for these jobs.
>Admittedly, I came out of college with a History /Library Degree, and my
>sister with Art/Teaching. We are both working in the computer field now
>and where I have worked it is at least 50/50. I think the computer
>field is so desperate for people that can actually produce that gender
>prejudice is crumbling.
Unfortunately, as something of a veteran, I see the opposite.
When microcomputing was a wide-open frontier, anyone could get in. I
personally know several women who were first exposed to computing because
it made letters, so it was like a typewriter, so they gave it to the
secretary; and in a few years she was office manager, or completely
independent. Much less of that goes on in here the late Nineties.
Also, the field continues to become more credentialized. Now that it's big
and important, the dred Personnel Department has their less-evolved paws on
it, and things continue to deteriorate. ("I've worked with eight different
word processors in my twenty years of experience; I'll pick up yours with
no trouble." "But you don't have experience with XXX-omatic, and that's
what we have here." "That's a proprietary program. No one outside your
company can possibly have experience with it." "Well, you'll be hearing
from us." "[sub-vocally] Yeah, right!"
Still, in proportion to the pay, status and chance to stya clean while
making a decent living, DP is way out in front.
Neil Rest
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:44 PDT