It's wild how computer programming went from exclusively women's work to "we're not sexist we just don't think women are interested in it" in like 40 years
@jpkmensah what’s worse is that men can get software engineer jobs without a degree at all but women have to have a graduate degree to get any tech work whatsoever
@carlysagan @jpkmensah
I worked with dozens of women at Shared Medical Systems (health care IT) 1984-89, women at a 100 person IT consultancy, 1989-91, taught systems analysis & design to women when I had my own co., 1991-2003, worked w. women at ING's annuity insurance division, 2003-2012, & more after returning to SMS, then a division of Siemens, in 2012 & Cerner Corp after its purchase of the division in 2015 until 2019.
The great majority had BA or BS degrees.
None ...
@carlysagan @jpkmensah
of this is to say that women had an easy time at any of these places, are not at a significant disadvantage trying to get into STEM fields nor discriminated against in the pay they receive. To the contrary, I witnessed rather egregious pay discrimination on several occasions.
@joeinwynnewood @jpkmensah ok, well health care and insurance isn’t exactly heavy tech, I’d expect more women there. In physics, aerospace, and algorithm dev (my areas), I’ve almost always been the only woman. It’s not bc there aren’t female job candidates. It’s that they’re only interviewed/hired if they have ivy league graduate degrees. So women have to be saddled with student loan debt to get into tech & men don’t. Pretty fucked. Not paying my loans explicitly bc of this.
@carlysagan @jpkmensah
Please be careful about extrapolating personal experience in a limited area across a broader spectrum.
And I would contest your statement regarding health care IT. It is quite complex across multiple domains.