Google last night hosted another Anita Borg Women in Technology meet and greet with authors Jane Margolis of UCLA and Allan Fisher of iCarnegie Inc. They were on campus to talk about their study Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing describing the trials and tribulations of women in academic computing. This discussion dovetailed quite nicely with an article I wrote last year for the San Francisco Chronicle Paving the Way for ‘Systers’, which explored the declining numbers of women in technology, especially at the managerial level, so I was quite intrigued.
Karl Schoenberger of the Mercury News SF Bureau and I three months ago had a conversaton on Tech Outsourcing and the Dwindling CS Major in Lynne’s Take on Tech. My view as expressed was that the impact of outsourcing, the loss of tech jobs, and parents refusal to pay for science degrees is interconnected. And, as I noted in my Lynne’s Take on Tech observations of Google, Tech, and Dinner a few days prior to my talk with Karl, the Systers were quite optimistic in their enthusiasm for more jobs for women in computing, stating at that time “Despite the doom and gloom headlines about outsourcing, prospects for meaningful jobs in these fields is bright.” Is it still as bright?