Men and Women Differ on How to Promote Women in IT Firms - Building Gender Balanced Business

• Male and female managers alike agree that the IT industry, particularly for Britain, needs to have more women in its ranks (and management).

• But 52% of male respondents to a survey of IT insiders were opposed to using positive discrimination. Only a fifth were in any way supportive of such tactics.

• By contrast, the female respondents were fairly evenly divided, at 38% for and 36% against.

• Both sexes also supported the view that more flexible working would increase the proportion of women in IT, but women, at 66%, were more in favor than men, as 56% of all respondents backed the idea.

• The sense that IT remains a man’s world showed in questions related to whether IT insiders would urge their children to enter the field. While about half of men and women would encourage sons and daughters, 30% of the women and a fifth of the men said they would not encourage their daughters, and both sexes were more inclined to urge sons than daughters to enter the field.

The Silicon.com article, with graphic representation of the survey results