Ageism, sexism and gender issues in IT

Tony Austin
Sunday, 07 October 2007 09:10

Opinion and Analysis

Having been in the Information Technology field for forty-odd years -- some of them very odd -- it's fair to say that I've seen a few things over the decades. Apart from technology itself, I've always been interested in the human-related aspects: training, giving effective presentations, interpersonal communication, usability, accessibility and the like. And then there are more dramatic aspects, such as ageism and gender issues.

Being an old-timer myself keeps me attuned to any tales of ageism in IT. While never being personally affected, I've also kept a watch on sexism and gender issues in the industry.

Over the last five years or so, I've assembled various pages of useful links on my Web site related to matters that interest me and that I thought would interest others. There's a menu to these resource links here and here.

A subset of these is a large page of general resources for IT professionals -- for the IT consultant, contractor, marketeer, reseller, CIO, IT manager, architect, project manager, administrator.

There are many topics, including résumé writing, job prospects, outsourcing, ethics, and lots more. You'll find it here or here, with a "quick links" section at the top to help you find your way to the topics. (Sorry, I simply have neither the time nor the resolve to break it down into more digestible chunks!)

There are links for "the glass ceiling" and sexism here and here, as well as links for ageism and the mature IT professional here and here.

I was moved to pen this article because I've just stumbled upon a fascinating set of papers by Laura Beckwith and colleagues. These papers address the question of whether the design of end-user programming environments, such as spreadsheets, multimedia authoring languages, and CAD systems, affects males and females differently.

PLEASE READ ON...