"The nature of the industry is going to change. So we need to look at that and say to these young women, 'Here is an intellectual challenge that you'll really enjoy'." - Professor Wendy Hall, Professor of Computer Science at Southampton University.

The personal computer in the 80s seems to have done a great deal to alienate women from computing, and the IT industry as a whole. Computing became about writing tank games in assembler - the "playing and coding of war games". And the computing of the home affected the computing of the office. The IT office became a very male dominated place, as still is. But can it change?

Professor Wendy Hall, Professor of Computer Science at Southampton University, believes that it can. She believes that the nature of computing (and the IT industry) can and will change, and that these changes could and will afford more opportunities to women.

"The sorts of skills required to deal with this brave new world with be the ones women have in abundance, and the subjects that attract more women will be the ones that become more important. Hall predicts that in the next five years, there will be computer science courses that require applicants to have a biology A-Level."

Being able to use or work with computers successfully requires a logical mind. This unfortunately means that most women aren't best suited to using computers, let alone programming them. Women tend to be driven mainly by their emotions rather than by logic, so that leaves the majority of women unsuited to IT.

PS: Only kidding.

I am glad to hear you were kidding, because that is not true.

My girlfriend has a PhD in computing. She could wipe the floor with all of you at C++ and has designed and experimented with artificial neural networks.

I'd give her a job long before some of the lazy, smelly men I have met working in IT so far. Man, there are so many bone-idle old Bs that seem to be more interested in horse racing out there, pretending to be computer network engineers and computer technicians and SAs.

I'd like to see your children.

My kids?

So in the future there will be chicks with IT degrees working at Starbucks too?

LOL!

There are some pretty good women working in IT, and I'd like to see a lot more of them. Some of them are indeed better than their male counterparts, at least up to a point. I have yet to meet any female that could wipe the floor with me, especially since I don't have much hair left on top :=).