I used to  make my first year students fill in a questionnaire asking them to rate their own computer skills in various applications. It was an attempt to get students into groups with equivalent skills so that I did not have half the class bored while the other half is lagging behind.  I asked questions like:

How would you rate your ability in using Photoshop?

• never used it
• I am a beginner
• I can do what I need to
• I am an expert 

I was always struck that the girls were far more likely to answer with "I am a beginner" or "I can do what I need to" even if they were really experienced.  Almost without exception, only boys would choose "I am an expert". (I shouldn't call them boys and girls, they were first year students) 

I no longer separate students like this and have tried to find other ways to deal with their different levels of experience.

My greatest challenge with girls is usually to get them to stop apologising for asking questions. But even though I am hyper aware of these gender issues, and try to encourage all my students as much as I can, Ive also noticed this:

I notice, and remember the male students far easier.  I remember their names.  They come and chat to me.  I can tell them apart.  And often the girls sort of...melt into the background.  Its important to give them individual attention away from the group otherwise they sometimes get completely left out.

When I was at school, (yes, I know it is a long time ago now!), I was the only girl in the class taking Electronics and Computing. Initially there was a second pupil but she quit after a couple of weeks.

The reason? Her parents believed it was not a suitable subject for a girl! She changed to do a social science I think and later became a civil servant.

I didn't mind being the only girl and, although I believe I suffered (and still do) from the confidence issue girls have with technology, I still enjoyed the subject.

Young girls now may be a bit more tech savvy in terms of knowing how to use their mobile phone, facebook etc. but they are just using social tools designed to make the technology easier. How many would actually understand, or care, how they worked?

I believe education is key but it needs to utilise the areas girls are interested in to promote the technology aspects. Also there needs to be greater encouragement from parents both to bolster girls confidence, but also to not fall into the traditional trap of believing its a man's world. Difficult I know when there are lots of parents out there who don't know anything about computers and would only ever use a mobile phone for calls!

Jane

Read more blogs on UK family life at

www.organisemylife.co.uk 

I've been a tech guru, a lawyer, and a journalist, and unfortunately I've seen barriers to success for women in all those fields. But for me the answer has always been to just do it. Be excellent, be seen, and do what you love. And try to work for a business in which women already play lead roles.

Jan Kabili
Photoshop Author and Trainer
http://www.lynda.com

Love all the comments.

mashadutoit -- it is true people rate themsevles either way better or way worse on technology then they actually are. When I had to do some technology training in corporate it was always the case. Funny how that is!

Jan - yes indeed just do it is a great mantra. I would say women need to give themselves permission to 1) love it and 2) go do it.  Not always as easy as it sounds.  Thanks for the great work at lynda.com

Paula Gregorowicz
The Paula G Company

http://www.thepaulagcompany.com

I agree with the commentor who pointed out that girls may be USING the technology, but don't care how it works. I know a lot of teen girls that spend all day on Youtube and Facebook, but they have no concept of the technology behind it.  I've even tried to explain it, but they just don't get it - not because they're stupid, but because they just don't care.

I hate initiatives that try to bring more females (or more coloured people / more poor people) into a field.  I studied math and science at college - they're under-represented fields for women too, apparently, and I was bombarded with advertisements for summer camps and open days where girls could see how 'cool' working in science was.  Did the initiatives work?  Sort of. Girls joined the courses - then either dropped out or failed out because they weren't enjoying them.

The 'lets get poor people into college' thing didn't work very well either - they were offered monetary incentives to go.  They went for the money, but certainly didn't study very hard - just well enough to not get kicked off the course.

After I left college, I went to work in IT (It had always been my first love I just didn't want to waste my time taking a college course that would teach me nothing at all.   The IT department at my college was useless, the science dept was good).  I breezed into a low level job, got a few promotions, decided that 'big companies' weren't my thing, did freelance consulting through an agency for a while then went self employed, and now I'm writing a book - through all that I didn't encounter any problems because of my gender.  In fact if anything, my gender made it easier because of the reverse discrimination garbage that means agencies love to have a token girl on the books.

Why can't we accept that if people want to do something, they can, and leave it at that?  If a girl likes the look of IT they can succeed.  If they don't want to get into IT, trying to woo them by making it look cool is just a waste of time IMO.