Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!husc6!uwvax!vanvleck!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!marla@Sun.COM
From: marla@Sun.COM (Marla Parker)
Newsgroups: comp.society.women
Subject: Re: The Technical Core in Computing Firms
Message-ID: <11165@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 20 Jun 88 20:28:04 GMT
References: <11101@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
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Approved: skyler@violet.berkeley.edu (Moderator -- Trish Roberts)
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Submissions-to: comp-women@cs.purdue.edu


In article <11101@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> skyler@violet.berkeley.edu writes:
>
>Some have argued that women don't like to be in the technical cores
>of companies because 1)  they don't like the isolation; 2)  women
>are socialized to enjoy helping people more and, therefore, like to
>be involved in those layers of an organization which are involved in
>mediation.
>
>............  If all these various theorists are right--if women don't
>want to be in the technical core because it is isolated, if computer
>firms do better with this different kind of organization, then, possibly,
>computer firms could be the best kind of place for women to work.
>
>So, keeping that point in mind, are the theorists right?
>-Trish

If "women don't like to be in the tech cores of companies" I think it is
because women don't like to be where they aren't welcome, and we were
never welcome in tech cores until recently (recent decades, maybe).  I
work in the tech core of Sun and I love it, including the isolation.
(Where else could I take a break to practice juggling in the hallway?)

I think that software engineering is one of the best fields for
women to work in because it is easy to penetrate without a degree in the 
'proper' field.   I would bet that the percentage of working software
engineers without a degree in Computer Science, EE, or Math, is higher
than the percentage of other-degree engineers in any other tech field.  
Furthermore, if you compare the properly degreed SE's to the other-degree
SE's,  I expect that the percentage of SE's who are an asset to their
company (i.e. they're good) would be about the same.  Some of the
people who switch into software aren't any good, but neither are the many
fools who major in CS just because they want a good salary, not because 
they like it or are any good at it.

Some properly degreed SE's look down on the other-degreed transfers into
this field (many of whom are women), and also claim that the right stuff
for software engineering is rare stuff indeed.  I disagree.  I think it
is very common.  It is just the art & science of problem solving.  All of 
the science/math college graduates can do it if they choose to,  and
many of the lit & arts grads can, too (yet how many of them know this or
would be willing to try?).  What matters, and what all these potential
SE's should consider when deciding whether or not to pursue a carreer in
software, is whether or not they *like* it.  

The practical aspects of how to switch from being an unemployed history
graduate to an employed software engineer are another matter altogether,
one that I know nothing about.  Tech writer->tech support->engineering
seems to work for some people, but maybe someone who has transferred
into software from a different field could write about how to do this.
Marla Parker
{ihnp4, decvax, seismo, decwrl, ...}!sun!marla
marla@sun.com


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