Do women in multi nationals get a Fair crack of the whip r are they controlled by men

Specialun · 28-01-2016 10:46PM #1

Ive worked in multi nationals for years and i see women get plenty opportunities to rise up the ladder or interview for roles the same as men..on primetime now they reckon they need more women in IT..sure who is stopping them from going into IT..sales floors are tough places and it takes a strong motivated person to survive..Teckies work long hours and under pressure

Is it all boll.oxs are are men controlling IT or multi nationals

Stoned Since 2011 · 28-01-2016 10:48PM

Have a beer op.

Buona Fortuna · 28-01-2016 10:50PM

They're probably put off by this

c_man · 28-01-2016 10:53PM

My own experience from software development is that of the few women who actually enter the field, most tend to move to QA/scrum-master/product manager etc. after a few years. Usually happens after getting married or having a baby. I expect to get slated for this but it's what I've observed. I totally understand it too.

As for them having difficulties entering the sector, that's absolute bollocks. If you're a woman, you've got a much better chance of getting hired than your male contemporaries. Trust me. I mean think of it from the companies point of view, it's a highly male dominated field and you've got corporate hoo-hah about having equal representation... Of course a woman is gonna get an edge. Before someone misquotes me I'm not saying that all women in tech are there purely for the numbers, absolutely not. I started out and had a female mentor, she was (and is!) a fantastic engineer. Learned so much. But that's just the way it is.

AtomicHorror · 28-01-2016 10:53PM

Specialun wrote: »

Ive worked in multi nationals for years and i see women get plenty opportunities to rise up the ladder or interview for roles the same as men..on primetime now they reckon they need more women in IT..sure who is stopping them from going into IT..sales floors are tough places and it takes a strong motivated person to survive..Teckies work long hours and under pressure

Is it all boll.oxs are are men controlling IT or multi nationals

What have sales floors got to do with IT?

Stoned Since 2011 · 28-01-2016 10:54PM

AtomicHorror wrote: »

What have sales floors got to do with IT?

What is IT?

Specialun · 28-01-2016 10:56PM

AtomicHorror wrote: »

What have sales floors got to do with IT?

IT Sales

K-9 · 28-01-2016 10:56PM

S&M parties at multi nationals?

smash · 28-01-2016 10:57PM

Specialun wrote: »

IT Sales

That's sales. Not IT.

Stheno · 28-01-2016 10:58PM

Specialun wrote: »

Ive worked in multi nationals for years and i see women get plenty opportunities to rise up the ladder or interview for roles the same as men..on primetime now they reckon they need more women in IT..sure who is stopping them from going into IT..sales floors are tough places and it takes a strong motivated person to survive..Teckies work long hours and under pressure

Is it all boll.oxs are are men controlling IT or multi nationals

IBMS CEO is a woman.
Oracles CEO is a woman.
A woman has previously been the CEO of HP.
Facebooks CEO is a woman
Yahoos CEO is a woman.

There are two issues here that you are talking about, one is the participation of women in IT, and the other is how far they can progress.

I work in IT as a consultant and am fairly senior and I'm female.

Of my current clients (five) one has a female CIO, and the other four have no women in the management team.

Doesn't make any difference in terms of how I am treated, I'm still just someone with specialist skills.

The culture can be different though.

Why don't women work in IT?

Imo there are multiple reasons:
1. The hours are long, so family unfriendly
2. You need to constantly upskill
3. For many jobs you need to do a lot of travel.

Merrion · 28-01-2016 11:00PM

At the lower levels they probably do, yes.
Higher up very many positions in Ireland are filled by reference to the old school tie.
The three schools concerned are single-sex schools.

28-01-2016 11:04PM

Stoned Since 2011 wrote: »

What is IT?

I used to be with IT, but then they changed what IT was

c_man · 28-01-2016 11:04PM

This is the exact line of guff spouted in the likes of the Guardian's Opinion is Free sh!tehawking.

"Boo hoo, tech is racist!" - n.b. for purposes of the article all Asians are 'upgraded' to white. All white people no matter where in the world they're from, or background, are lumped into one group.

"The tech sector is sexist!" - n.b. the writer is just gonna throw accusations at the industry without any regard for the fact that the percentage of women in the field actually slightly exceeds that of the percentage who study comp sci/software eng etc. in college. That doesn't fit with a good jab at the highly monied people of Silicon Valley.

AtomicHorror · 28-01-2016 11:07PM

riffmongous wrote: »

I used to be with IT, but then they changed what IT was

Apparently IT is now sales. **** coding get shmoozing.

Stheno · 28-01-2016 11:11PM

Merrion wrote: »

At the lower levels they probably do, yes.
Higher up very many positions in Ireland are filled by reference to the old school tie.
The three schools concerned are single-sex schools.[/QUOTE

I'd have to disagree with this based on both my own personal experience and the amount of women I know in senior positions in IT in the country tbh.

From a small pool of overall people in IT (less than 1 in 5 in IT overall are women) women disproportionately advance to senior levels.

The organisation I referred to earlier where they have no women on the management team in IT, are actively looking to change that.

AtomicHorror · 28-01-2016 11:16PM

Stheno wrote: »

Why don't women work in IT?

Imo there are multiple reasons:
1. The hours are long, so family unfriendly
2. You need to constantly upskill
3. For many jobs you need to do a lot of travel.

Only reason those three things are problems are because working women are still expected to handle the larger portion of home and family life. In theory they affect men just as much, in practice they don't.

Pharma industry is similar and one thing I notice is that plenty of women progress to director level, but they tend to pay a price for it.

Specialun · 28-01-2016 11:17PM

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Apparently IT is now sales. **** coding get shmoozing.

thattequilagirl · 28-01-2016 11:19PM

I work at a multinational. About half of the senior management team are women, including the CEO. I've mostly worked in very male environments, so it's nice having female mentors and role models.

Stheno · 28-01-2016 11:19PM

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Only reason those three things are problems are because working women are still expected to handle the larger portion of home and family life. In theory they affect men just as much, in practice they don't.

Pharma industry is similar and one thing I notice is that plenty of women progress to director level, but they tend to pay a price for it.

A disproportionate number of the women I know who are senior in IT here are childless

I have no kids, so I have no pressures in relation to travel etc.

Off the top of my head I can think of 15 other women who are quite senior in IT roles with no kids.

9de5q7tsr8u2im · 28-01-2016 11:19PM

The reason why women get hired in favour of men is because shes mint and smart,

Stheno · 28-01-2016 11:20PM

LuckyDude12 wrote: »

The reason why women get hired in favour of men is because shes mint and smart,

Mint? Does that mean good looking?

Tombi! · 28-01-2016 11:27PM

Asked two mates of mine (one currently unemployed and one currently employed as one of four people in a tech department - she monitors the network or security or something like that. Think network admin)
First one said she had more issue with her boss who was a woman and in general she had more grief from women but she worked in small companies. Second one said that it's definitely an old boys club she's at currently but she's generally better than most of them and has to do more work to prove she's at least equal to the men.

Fratton Fred · 28-01-2016 11:30PM

Stheno wrote: »

A disproportionate number of the women I know who are senior in IT here are childless

I have no kids, so I have no pressures in relation to travel etc.

Off the top of my head I can think of 15 other women who are quite senior in IT roles with no kids.

We had a female director who announced she was pregnant. A comment was made at a senior level that is showed a lack of dedication to her career.

For some reason, the fact that comment was made by another woman made it all the more callous.

The company I work for has a positive discrimination policy and strives to support companies owned and managed by women and ethnic minorities. As long as they are American women and ethnic minorities though.

AtomicHorror · 28-01-2016 11:32PM

Stheno wrote: »

A disproportionate number of the women I know who are senior in IT here are childless

I have no kids, so I have no pressures in relation to travel etc.

Off the top of my head I can think of 15 other women who are quite senior in IT roles with no kids.

Yes. That very much matches my observations too. Lots of people I work with have had children in the last couple of years, but while I and my fellow fathers climb the ladder at the same pace as childfree men, our female colleagues who choose parenthood actually have to make a hard choice, and they do fall behind.

I'm not convinced the barriers in the workplace are that significant a factor anymore. They're in how we treat maternity/paternity and parental leave and how men in working partnerships view home and family.

Stheno · 28-01-2016 11:32PM

Tombi! wrote: »

Asked two mates of mine (one currently unemployed and one currently employed as one of four people in a tech department - she monitors the network or security or something like that. Think network admin)
First one said she had more issue with her boss who was a woman and in general she had more grief from women but she worked in small companies. Second one said that it's definitely an old boys club she's at currently but she's generally better than most of them and has to do more work to prove she's at least equal to the men.

I would have to say that some of the women I have worked with in IT have been a nightmare, possibly as a result of working in a male dominated environment.

One organisation I worked in literally had a female mafia, where all the female managers banded together and generally made their male colleagues life a nightmare.

There's a balance there.

dr.fuzzenstein · 28-01-2016 11:35PM

I can only speak from experience. I work in tech support, we have a team in APAC, EMEA and the US. Between those three teams (30 people or thereabouts) we have the grand total of one woman on the entire planet working in IT support. Development, not much better, all other departments, overrun by women.
Is it because our company has a deliberately sexist hiring policy, in line with policies issued by the secret cabal of men whose aim it is to keep women down? A global conspiracy to suppress women? Rubbish, women just don't fancy IT, the same as they don't fancy becoming car mechanics.
Oh, its not just us. I speak to dozens of IT people every day, setting up web servers, exchange, networks and so on. I speak to about three to five women in a year.

tritium · 28-01-2016 11:48PM

AtomicHorror wrote: »

Only reason those three things are problems are because working women are still expected to handle the larger portion of home and family life. In theory they affect men just as much, in practice they don't.

Pharma industry is similar and one thing I notice is that plenty of women progress to director level, but they tend to pay a price for it.

Strangely enough the men who progress also tend to pay a price in terms of spending quality time with family, increased stress and associated illness etc.

Strangely enough no one seems to mention that.....

(Not a dig at you atomic, but) fixing paternity leave etc. might just be a better solution than taking the Guardianesque view that its all the company's fault, with their sexist agenda..

jimgoose · 29-01-2016 12:00AM

I asked Mrs. Goose what she thought about this, reasoning, as good, nerdly engineers do, that being a woman she'd have some insight. She said that IT would bore the bollocks off a battalion. So there you have it - she may just have a point.

Specialun · 29-01-2016 12:02AM

jimgoose wrote: »

I asked Mrs. Goose what she thought about this, reasoning, as good, nerdly engineers do, that being a woman she'd have some insight. She said that IT would bore the bollocks off a battalion. So there you have it - she may just have a point.

Mrs goose for president

Stheno · 29-01-2016 12:02AM

c_man wrote: »

As for them having difficulties entering the sector, that's absolute bollocks. If you're a woman, you've got a much better chance of getting hired than your male contemporaries. Trust me. I mean think of it from the companies point of view, it's a highly male dominated field and you've got corporate hoo-hah about having equal representation... Of course a woman is gonna get an edge.

Hmm. Two examples for you here of how women can be discriminated in this sector.

Ten years ago in my early thirties, I was married and commute 100 miles round trip each day. I went for a fairly senior role with a company and the first question the male interviewer asked me was "You're married, live fifty miles away, and obviously have children" How can you partner that with a demanding role such as you are interviewing for?"

I subsequently was offered the job and declined it on the basis of his attitude.

I then moved to consulting in another organisation, and on a sales pitch with my practice lead, the customer asked if I was his PA.

There are still attitudes out there like that, that are offputting, for the most part women are welcome in IT, but few choose it.

Stheno · 29-01-2016 12:20AM

jimgoose wrote: »

I asked Mrs. Goose what she thought about this, reasoning, as good, nerdly engineers do, that being a woman she'd have some insight. She said that IT would bore the bollocks off a battalion. So there you have it - she may just have a point.

I have to say I absolutely love what I do.

I'm currently working with companies in the public sector, telecoms, the food industry and pharma, I get loads of exposure to the specifics of all those different industries and how they use IT.

I also get huge exposure to different technologies and use of technologies and how they are managed.

I literally find it fascinating

Do women in multi nationals get a Fair crack of the whip r are they controlled by men

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