Email : belinda@ladygeek.org.uk
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Veronica is a successful software developer. Here she shares some of her experiences in the gender-stereotyped world of IT:
“During the first year of my Computer Science course at USYD, there was no shortage of female students — the ratio was about 50/50. Most of them Asians, very few of Anglo-Saxon background. I think in Asian culture, “geeky” girls are not classed as uncool at all (at least not in Hong Kong, where I grew up — they are often viewed as well informed and thus cool).
“After the first semester, numbers of females started to drop drastically. I have asked a lot of friends why they dropped out, and they generally say how they don’t really care about IT as much as say Economics or Commerce, or Law, so they switched. Of those, there are also many that felt like it’s hard to compete with people (mostly guys) who grew up programming and full of “techniness”, while they are just starting to take an interest and learn for the first time.
“My Computer Science course in uni was full of guys who were proud of their hard core programming abilities, and often they would paint females as ‘noobs’ and ‘wannabes’ — in a group work intensive uni course, this is a big disadvantage for female students who are generally interested and want to do well, but were labelled as lame and pretty much ostracised from the group.
“Many I found, dropped out thinking “I don’t have to put up with this crap”, and end up in other courses where they felt they were taken as equals.
“I also think fewer females start being interested in IT when they’re young because of that mental image of a computer nerd with thick glasses who can’t communicate — can’t help that, it’s a popular stereotype.”
Thanks to Veronica Luke for sharing her experiences.