Dualisms: what women say about working in ICT

This paper revisits the reported dualism associated with the perceptions of the ICT industry and the actual work experiences of women with this career. Eighteen female ICT professionals participated in a series of interviews in which their journeys towards their current employment roles were traced. Given the low numbers of women attracted to the ICT profession, we sought to explore what had attracted these women to pursue careers in ICT and what could be learnt about improving perceptions of ICT careers. Reported here are the women’ s responses about their initial career trajectories and their views of their current workplaces. A small number of the respondents were in the careers they had always aspired towards; the others, the vast majority, had stumbled serendipitously into the ICT industry. In general, the women enjoyed their jobs. While several were unaware of gender issues in their workplaces, others did perceive a male-dominated culture and felt that technically skilled females still encountered challenges in some work contexts. It would appear that the traditional stereotypes associated with computing careers have not yet been overcome. The implications of these findings are discussed.