Thanks Dave, you've summed it up well. Mike, I'd be happy to share with you my battle scars of working as a women in the software development industry. A sample ... job interviews a few years back: Monday, 4 hour interview with 5 men, entire studio of 11 was all men except for the women who got me coffee, I think she also answered phones. Tuesday, different company, met by male recruiter, escorted into conference room full of 7 men. Interview lasted 3 hrs. So from my perspective, it IS a male-only club and I and my female peers are inviting ourselves to the table.
BTW, I took the job at the 11 person studio. After 6 months we had hired a female researcher, visual designer and interaction designer. All extremely talented and well versed in the industry. Gender balance in design and software development offices is a concern I continue to hear, and honestly it usually comes from men who are asking "Where are all the women in the industry? and how can we balance out our office a bit?" Women's professional organizations usually focus on education, advocacy and mentorships to get girls to choose the careers they want, not the ones that are "typically female" (That's what Women in Multimedia did). Peers also help with finding companies that are not sexist. I have to say that being a working woman has gotten better since the 1980's when I landed my first job in a male-dominated industry. It's gotten better because of men like Dave, Jeff and my peers at AP (and honestly virtually all men I've met in the Bay Area as well). Respect and equality has come a long way, but there's still work to be done. And that's why Wendy and myself would like to find other women designers to talk to. It's that simple. -Kim PS - Just saw the note about IA's ... I've noticed that IA's are more often than not women, and it looks like the stats show it's pretty equal. I'd love to know the stats on software design, engineering and industrial design. When I was at Samsung, they were proud to say they had 27% female designers when I started. 3 years later, they had 33%. ________________________________________________________________ *Come to IxDA Interaction08 | Savannah* February 8-10, 2008 in Savannah, GA, USA Register today: http://interaction08.ixda.org/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
