I started looking into the state of women in the IT industry, open source and PHP for purely selfish reasons. I wanted to satisfy my own curiosity so I decided to do some research. What I found was not only interesting, it shed some light into where we stand, how we got here, why we should even care in the first place, and what we can potentially do about it.
I did want to add a caveat before I go further; much of the data and research I discuss below makes sweeping generalizations about men, women, and our interactions with each other. This is not to say that we all fit these generalizations, or fall into these behavioral patterns... we are not robots, after all, and of course there will be those of you that will say "oh, I never felt that way," or "this never happened to me." Please don't think I mean to offend or offer up stereotypes; I'm only aggregating the data and putting it out there.
A Personal Experience
I have been extremely fortunate in my web development career, in that I have not experienced true gender discrimination firsthand. I know there are countless women out there that have; I think I've just been really lucky. That being said, I'd like to share with you one of the reasons why this topic piques my interest.
My first PHP conference was ZendCon 2005. By that time, I had been working with PHP for a few years, I was an active member of PHPBuilder.com, and had co-authored my first PHP book. I was sent to the conference by PHPBuilder, in fact, because I had been doing weekly news summaries for them, and they wanted a write-up of the conference. I felt a bit nervous going in, only because I don't travel much and it was the first time leaving my husband and 15 month old baby. Plus, I'd not been to a PHP conference before, so I really wasn't sure what to expect. Even still, I walked into the opening keynote a little nervous, but very excited and optimistic.
I was shocked to realize that I was one out of a handful of women there, and I was even more surprised by my own reaction. I immediately felt apprehensive and self-conscious, even to the point of being almost immobile. I think I barely spoke to anyone, and tried meekly to fade into the scenery with those around me. I felt like running out of that room, and I probably would have, if I wouldn't have been so mortified to do so. Thankfully by the end of the conference, I'd been befriended by a few core devs (thanks Wez, Andrei and Marcus!) and a few other PHP devs (which I've unfortunately lost contact with since), and I felt a little more comfortable. Even though I made some new friends, I was still completely out of my comfort zone, and I was quite thankful to get the hell out of there and get home.
Truth be told, I felt the same way at my first few local user group meetings that same year. As the only female in a room of roughly 20 people, I felt incredibly self-conscious, out of place, and like everyone was watching me (which, of course, they weren't). Afraid to open my mouth for fear of looking like an idiot, I think I said maybe two words (which is really funny if you know me personally, because you usually can't shut me up).
Logically, I should have felt right at home. I'm a relatively self-confident individual, I felt comfortable with the language, and I'd been an active member of the PHPBuilder community for years. I'd not had bad experiences with my fellow co-workers or other PHP developers. So what was it about this face-to-face interaction that made me so uncomfortable? Why did I care that I was overwhelmingly in the minority? Interestingly, I felt much the same way Sara J. Chipps did in her blog post about the matter.
Even though I ended up sticking around the PHP community and some of those feelings of self-consciousness have since faded away, I still think about those first meetings I attended. I know many women don't get that far to make it to a conference or user group meeting. For one reason or another, they choose to skip the community bonding, leave an open source project after contributing, or maybe even leave the industry altogether. In fact, we're leaving in droves. I couldn't help but wonder to myself what those reasons were, so I embarked on my own little research project.
IT Job Market is Growing
Initially, I was curious to see if the IT industry was growing and how much potential opportunity was out there. Even with the tenuous state of the economy, I don't think we could be in a better position with regard to job opportunities.
The IT industry is one of the fastest growing industries. According to the Monthly Labor Review (MLR 2004), between 2002-2012, we can expect an incredible growth rate in the U.S. (and presumably other countries) in the following categories:
Computer Software Enginee
Truncated by Planet PHP, read more at the original (another 24809 bytes)
I'll be speaking on the topics of Technical Debt and Technical Writing, both of which I find fascinating and enjoy talking about. If you're around at the conference, I hope you are able to pop in and say hello.