Perspective: Industry wants girls to stick to knitting

The computer industry may pride itself on being different. But for all its self-congratulatory pretensions, this business isn't very different from the rest of the American economy.

When Carol Bartz became Autodesk CEO in 1992, she could have counted the number of female bosses in the computer business on one hand. Fourteen years later, the top of technology's corporate pyramid remains more of a man's world than ever.

"Ironically, the technology business, which has this image of being this young and progressive industry, is just as bad as all the other old-line industries when it comes to promoting women into the top jobs," Marc Lewis, an executive recruiter with the Leadership Capital Group, told me.

When pressed, boards of directors and CEOs will say they can't find top female talent because their predecessors failed to hire and groom enough talented women.

More than a few e-interlocutors told me in no uncertain terms that Fiorina was little more than a marketing bimbo.

That's a convenient alibi, but the tech world isn't devoid of female acumen. One of 10 employed engineers is a woman, while two of every 10 employed engineering technologists and technicians are also females. What's more, the government projects that an estimated 219,000 more women could be employed by 2010 as computer software engineers, computer scientists and systems analysts. Some day, at least some of these folks should be worthy of being promoted.

The chief obstacle is the system, not a sudden proliferation of antediluvian knuckle draggers. So it is that 20 years after I began covering the technology industry, the roster of female CEOs remains laughably small compared with the number of females in the general population. Sure you can point to the likes of eBay's Meg Whitman, Patricia Russo at Lucent and Xerox's Anne Mulcahy. But like Bartz, these women are the exceptions to the rule. The press still makes a big deal whenever a woman gets selected for a senior role in the technology world because it's so rare.

"It's still a system...of white male boards picking the people they're most comfortable with," Bartz told me. (View the full video interview by clicking here.)

The Carly problem
There are loads of impressive women who qualify as prime CEO material for this industry. At the top of Lewis' list are 50-something up-and-comers like Linda Gooden, president of Lockheed Martin Information Tech, and Indra Nooyi, president and CFO of Pepsico. The question is whether they and others of the same caliber will get the call to fill a big-time CEO vacancy. After Carly Fiorina's flameout at Hewlett-Packard, I have my doubts.

When Lew Platt said in early 1999 that he was ready to step down as HP CEO, he and the board were keen on hiring a woman. They wanted to signal to the market that HP was ready for change. So it was that Christian & Timbers recruited Carly Fiorina from Lucent. Was she the best choice for the job? With 20/20 hindsight, we all know the answer. But remember that at the time, she was a Wall Street favorite.

However, it did not take long before Fiorina alienated a lot of employees (and shareholders) with her plan to shake up HP's cobwebbed corporate culture and acquire Compaq. During the height of the ensuing shareholder battle, Fiorina came in for bitter criticism. At the time, Christian & Timbers CEO Jeffrey Christian, who placed Fiorina at HP, suggested in an interview with BusinessWeek that her ability to take the heat and weather major conflict had "helped dispel any doubts or concerns over how far a woman CEO is willing to go to do her job."

Maybe if things had not ended badly for Fiorina and HP. I got an earful after writing a couple of columns in Fiorina's defense. She was being unfairly singled out because of her gender and I said so. More than a few e-interlocutors told me in no uncertain terms that Fiorina was little more than a marketing bimbo out to destroy a venerable Silicon Valley institution.

When HP dumped Fiorina, more than a few wisenheimers sent me links to the original columns, asking whether I was ready to swallow my words.

If anything, just the opposite. Fiorina undeniably lost control of the company. But a lot of people dumped extra hard precisely because of her gender. I'm not imagining this. If I had a nickel for every e-mail flame sent my way calling Fiorina an uppity (word that rhymes with "witch"), we'd be talking a summer house in the Bahamas.

And now the pendulum has swung back. Boards of directors are reverting to how things were done in the good old days. There's no bonus in their future for being a trailblazer. In the post-Carly era no board will give female candidates special consideration for a plum CEO vacancy in the tech world--not unless she's a veritable Wonder Woman.

Biography
Charles Cooper is CNET News.com's executive editor of commentary.

More Perspectives

[nrambeck]

Most Women Don't Want to be Executives

As surprising as it may be to liberals, most women actaully would prefer to stay home and take care of their children. A task that men are considerably underqualified for. If women do work, they usually prefer part-time jobs or jobs that are not as demanding on their time and energy.

How many women CEO's are married with children? 2 out of 10? How many male CEO's are married with children? 8 out of 10? Amazing isn't it? When women vey for power in the corporate world, they usually have to give up any normal family life.

Most women are smarter than that.

[sadchild]

ape

what a ridiculous comment.

1. have you surveyed women? most women i've spoken to strive for a career. many take a few years off in the early childhood years of their offspring but then avidly pursue careers afterwards. my wife has a bachelor's degree. i have a GED.

2. what makes you say men are not qualified in raising children. the only men not qualified to raise children are lazy ones. it's not that tough. it just takes patience, love and brains.

3. the reason there are so few married women with kids vs. men is history from the days when our "antediluvian knuckle dragger" forefathers took the bible so seriously and held women back with their whole "women are less than men so you stay home and cook me dinner slave" mentality. women are just starting to overcome that stupid mentality. to make your stats look even stupider, compare how many women CEO's are married with kids in 2005 vs. 1985 vs. 1965 vs. 1945.

4. women don't have to give up a normal family life to have a good career. there are many women who run small businesses and manage a family well too. we have a support vendor for our MAS90 accounting software who OWNS a company and still has plenty of time for her family while her male employees do all the grunt work.

think before you post.

[c3galaxia]

Interesting, but much truth...

Actually Nathan, I know many liberal women who would agree with you. To comment on a few points:

1.) In various companies where I have worked there seems to be about a 5-1 ratio of employmed men to women. Looking at the college graduation rates for IT related degrees, there are simply an overwhelming majority of men entering the work force in IT. This isn't necessarily the IT industry or the colleges keeping women out. The entrance into college IT programs by women are not as high as men. This is not a knock on women, it's just women have different interests and priorities than men and are not as willing to become corporate ****** as men.

2.) Being a father myself and knowing many fathers, women just do a better job at taking care of kids needs. This doesn't mean that men don't do a good job. It's in the genes as a result of thousands of years of evolution. Science has shown evidence to back this.

3.) Working as a parent in any field that takes up most of the day means not spending as much time with family and the kids. Sacrifices have to be made by parents who want to work. There is no debating this. Again, this comes down to priorities. Which is more important: work or kids?
This is why the family model of one parent (mother or father) working and one parent (mother or father) staying at home has worked well. When both parents work, the children do not get as much time with parents and these children often have issues.

But, back on topic to the original article. There are many more reasons than "the system keeping women out" that are far more relative.

Chuck

[Earl Benser]

Ah yes.....

.... fundamentalist drivel. But he does make a good target.... ;-)

[Earl Benser]

Ah yes.....

.... fundamentalist drivel. But he does make a good target.... ;-)

[lindacarola]

yes, most women are definitely smarter than you

Oh this was hilarious, thank you! A refreshing foray back to the 50s sitcoms. Oh, but you probably still think "Leave it to Beaver" is still producing new episodes....

But seriously, while I agree that women do have to make more sacrifices than men to achieve senior position, this empahatically does not mean than some men are very well qualified to bring up children. Why not judge each person based upon their own merits and not on their genitals?

[sadchild]

maybe if i use big words....

i dislike the acumen of interlocutors and antediluvian proliferation too.

oh and antidisestablishmentarianism too.

[nicknow]

Old-fashioned, closed-minded thinking

Cooper's comments are typical of those boys who were trained by man-hating feminists in the seventies and eighties. He religiously adheres to the standard (deluded) feminist approaches to reality and appears to be incapable of accepting the fact that 1) men and women are different and that 2) our society's strength is based not on equal percentages of sexes in all jobs, but on our society's giving everyone the ability to compete on an equal basis.

[Deborah Mitchell]

Difference is a good thing

And I agree men and women are different. But it seems to me
that men spend a lot more time trying to define what women are
good at and what they are supposed to do, than women spend
trying to define what men are good at and are supposed to do.
I think men ought to start spending that time figuring out what
men are good at, and let women get on with figuring out what
women are good at.
How about we don't dictate to you and you don't dictate to us?
How about we accept you as equals, and welcome you to try out
our traditional areas of work and you accept us as equals, and
welcome us to try out your traditional areas of work?
Maybe, if we accepted each other without prejudice, men would
bring new and valuable insights to childcare and other
"womanly" areas, and women would bring new and valuable
insights to "manly" areas.
Maybe then we could truly become partners, as we need to be.

[jmanico]

My wife liked your article

Charles, you wrote a great series of articles that I'm sure gave you points with your wife, just like it did with mine. But you continue to fail to see one main point: That the gal could not save HP and she alienated most of the top HP brass. This has nothing to do with her anatomy, she was just not the right fit. I'm shocked you have failed to see this key point!

[swwg69]

Numbers game

Only a folks want to go into tech fields.
Only a few techies are able to rise to CEO levels.
Some of those will prefer to have a life.
(CEOs must live for the job)
So of the small pool of tech savy, hard drivers
Some can get pregnant.
That will take a 6 weeks+ out of a career.
Few CEOs can take 6 week leaves.
Let alone really care for children.
I write this with my wife as a stay at home
mom, and eagar to go home and play with my kids.
I won't be a CEO.
I pity the children of a CEO, esp a CEO mother.

[sadchild]

doesn't have to be like that

it doesn't have to be the way you put it. a good CEO, even in a tech company, can lead a wonderful family life. it is helpful that they can draw up their own schedule and change it on the fly. a regular staffer can't do that. our CEO leaves whenever he wants and the company is doing great.

[Shakingmy head]

The problem with Carly

The issues Carly faced prior to her dismissal were not about gender. The emails making references to the Xitch were from those who lost their jobs and the negative comments would have been made regardless if the CEO were man or a woman. The reality is if she had hired a right hand man/or woman (i.e. COO) as she been asked to do time and time again by the board - to fill the gap in her operational skills (which she paid little attention) she would be at HP today. Carly's strengths were in her marketing/sales ability not operations or number crunching. Now that HP has an Operational Manager (number cruncher)in CEO Mark Hurd the stock has been the best performing stock on the Dow Jones Industrials in 2005. Not because Mark Hurd is a better strategist or leader than Carly but simply because he executed (i.e. announced 14,500 layoffs and executed) to achieve a better bottom line and satisfy Wall street (by the way the employees are just as unhappy today). This is something that Carly could have easily accomplished with a COO instead of trying to go at it alone. The lesson learned here is not necessarily gender specific it is leadship 101 - surround yourself with good people or else.

[lingsun]

The title is offensive and moronic.

The title is offensive and moronic. By saying that because there is "a lack" of female CEOs that the tech industry "prefers that women stick to their knitting" is illogical and inflammatory. When someone uses language like that it means they're trying to use emotion rather than reason to convince people. Using emotion is the "cheap shot" of persuasive writing.

[sadchild]

but he used such big words...

yes the title was intended to stir up controversy. and the big words were to pretend he knows what he's talking about.

[erixgirl86]

emotions

actually, in order to write a sucessful persuasion, it must appeal to the reader's emotions, it just can't be overbearing or giving a hint of "there's no arguing with me, I'm right."

[erixgirl86]

Everybody's Different

About this whole thing, everybody's different. I'd prefer to stay at home with my family, but yet I wouldn't want them to go without a roof over their heads. I wouldn't want my children emotionally deprived either, hence why it's best to have one parent figure close to the children while the other's away. Look and see how children have grown with one parent at home, and see how they did with none(unless you count a babysitter). If women want to work part time(or not at all)so they have more time with family, go for it. If they do want to persue larger careers, go for it too. some people are built where they can balance many things at once. Again, Everybody's different.