How (not) to get women into your industry...

The European Union information society commissioner, Viviane Reding, has argued that the ICT industry needs to promote itself on the basis of not being boring but rather that:

"IT jobs can be very sexy indeed."

Yes because that's what's driving women away from the industry isn't it? Yes they are scared it isn't sexual enough so we must reassure women it is "sexy". It's not the entirely male-dominated, heterosexist basis of the industry. No instead women are more tempted by the "sexier" areas of life. Or maybe, just maybe, the problem isn't with women graduates perceiving the industry as lacking in "sex appeal" but rather with the industry being virilently anti-woman? I mean how many IT professionals do we all know who work anti-social hours on top of their regular days and are "on-call" almost all the time? Perhaps if the industry reviewed its implicit assumptions which make it impossible for women to work there they might do better.

Now must go off and review whether my job is "sexy" or not.... after all we don't chose our careers on "logical" grounds like men do.....

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