Women and Technology

[COMITT]

I've seen a number of interesting articles lately about women and technology, with a great on-going discussion taking place on the "Girly Geekdom" website, which includes a link to a New York Times article about how and why women are leaving technology careers for other fields, where they receive better treatment.

I can't help but wonder how much of this is going on in hands-on technology, too. As we noted at COMITT, we are not a very "diverse" group. What can we do to change that?

[Stacey Palmer]

I know this is on the radar for some of the schools to recruit more females. The Landing School started an advisory committee to recruit more females into their programs. They brought back some female alumni to help brainstorm some recruiting tactics.
In Maine we have the Coalition for Women in Trades & Technology (part of Women, Work & Community Organization) who sponsor workshops for high school girls throughout the state. I participated in one of these Women in Trades & Technology events. They gathered about 200 girls to participate in workshop sessions on hands-on trades training. Each student got a hard had, safety glasses and a t-shirt for coming. They got to choose from about 15 workshops - I assisted a Landing School instructor with a marine electrical session (stripping, crimping wire, heat shrinking, etc). It was fantastic. The students did a great job with the detail wire work and some said it would be work they would like to do. I suggest we need educators and trade associations to participate in more events like these.

[COMITT]

That's great! The big question is, though, do women stay in trades and technology? And if they don't, why not?

[Stacey Palmer]

I think things are improving for women in the marine industry....I have even seen a few more female restrooms specified in boat yards lately. This industry is still mostly a male world so there can be situations where women still need to 'prove' themselves as capable and knowledgeable. Some women may not have the patience for that process. Most women I know who are working in the marine industry do love it and I doubt they will leave. I have been pleasantly surprised at the number of women working in some of the Maine boat building shops recently. I know we'll keep trying to recruit women to these 'non traditional' careers.