I wandered across this post lamenting the low proportion of women who wrote articles for an O’Reilly book about coding practice.

Out of 39 authors, only one is woman, and she’s a co-author of one chapter.

There is some debate about whether this low number is due to relatively few women being considered as leading programmers (and therefore few being asked to contribute) or whether the problem is an overall shortage of women in the technical - and more specifically, programming - fields.

The post, and the comments that followed, made me think about my own experiences as a women in a technical field. I graduated with a Computing degree in 2005 from a good university. Six other women graduated in a class of 42. The course was focused on the Internet, rather than ‘hard’ Computer Science, but we studied the main elements of CS (Computer Architecture, Networks, DB etc.) with a strong emphasis on programming. I had previously studied Computer Science at a single-sex school; 9% (11 of 120 pupils) studied Computing at A-Level and three of us went on to a Computing-related course at university. Several others went to courses in Physics and Mathematics.

There were ten women in my university class when it began. Based on conversations I had with other students, half of the female students had no significant previous experience with Computer Science (programming, developing websites etc.). 70-80% of the male students did have previous experience, had run serious websites, personal servers and programmed outside of class. As I mentioned above, seven of the female students graduated. One failed, and two dropped out. Around half of the women who graduated with me intended to pursue a technical career; I would estimate that 80-90% of the male graduates went into technical fields or further technical study. Three of the twelve teaching staff were female, and one left after my first year. All three of the lab staff were male. In the university’s main IT department, one of the six Helpdesk staff was female.

After university, I applied for a number of graduate programmes with large companies on the computer science track. Often, I was the only female interviewee. After being unsuccessful on a number of occasions, I was lucky enough to get a job in the public sector which I really enjoy. However, I am the only woman with my job description in the organisation. The eight other members of staff with my job title (5 full-time, 3 part-time) are male. There are other female members of staff in the department.

I have taken 2 programming courses at a local college since graduating. In each, I was the only woman in a class of around a dozen. On the MCP Supporting and Troubleshooting WinXPPro course I am currently on, I am one of two women in a class of fifteen.

I often attend meetings of my local MTUG (Microsoft Technology User Group) at which I am the only female audience member. I am certainly the only regular female attendee (I have seen perhaps three other women on one or two occasions) in the course of around 20 meetings over 2 years. Two of the speakers have been women. Although I am a member of the BCS (British Computer Society), I don’t attend any of their events, which include football matches, golf tournaments and dinner dances, as I find it slightly intimidating and overwhelmingly male (call me a coward if you want!) Three of the four computer magazines I read regularly have no female writers, and going by the Letters pages and forums, an overwhelmingly male readership (occasionally with rather dubious opinions).

I have never felt particularly discriminated against, except in one particular area. Part of my job involves calling and meeting with service technicians from major computer vendors when one of our computers needs repaired. During the initial troubleshooting phone calls (always with male techs), I sometimes get the feeling that I am being patronised and talked down to. I am often required to run through a basic troubleshooting script, despite the fact that I already know the problem and the solution, where male colleagues have simply described what they need and arranged for a replacement part. On more than one occasion, I have been asked repeatedly if I’m comfortable with computer terminology, having already indicated that I’ve taken the machine apart. On two occasions, the service tech has ignored my suggested solution (having come across the same problem several times previously), resulting in repeat visits by the engineer. Speaking to the (always male) call-out engineers, I have been given over-simplified lectures on computer basics which I have mainly found amusing: “Something inside the computer isn’t working, and the start button is broken” “So, you’re saying the I/O panel’s shorted?” “Uh…. yes.” Perhaps I am just being over-sensitive, but it does seem that some people believe that women are less technically proficient, despite any evidence provided to the contrary.

Although I would be very happy to see more women in technical fields, I’m certainly not advocating a policy of positive discrimination for women. I think that introducing more women, regardless of their level of skill, would be defeating the purpose. We need to prove that women can be service engineers and technicians and programmers, and we need to do it by being good at our jobs. We need to encourage more girls to study computer science, not by making it more ‘girly’, but by encouraging those who are interested in it already and giving them the confidence and opportunities to pursue their interests.