Rob Chartier ~ Contemplation...

Because I'd bet there are more bald-head, wort-nosed Men than any-haired, wort or sans-worted nosed Women. MVP status is, like it or not, a signal to the community about what the best of the best is. It is just reinforcement of the "grils can't do tech" sterotype when there is a such a small percentage of the MVPs are female. Yes, gender shouldn't matter. Sad as it is to say this, it does. Just as much as ethnic and nationality dom IMHO.

I don't think it reinforces the stereotype. The fact that the percentage of women in this business is smaller is most likely more properly reflected in the MVP percentages. I don't believe MS should beef up the numbers just to have more girls in the club.

Kent - but should we give out *more* MVPs to women just to get the female numbers above the number of Brians? Should we enforce a mandatory "40% of all MVPs must be women" thing? That ends up in reverse discrimination where certain people who are more qualified are passed over for less-qualified people just to fill sex, nationality, or ethnicity quotas (which is against the law and proven in court).

The REAL fact that should be checked is whether the number of female Microsoft MVPs is about equal to the percentage of Microsoft developers in the areas where the MVP program applies. Let's PLEASE compare apples to apples!

And this is not meant to disparage women, minorities, people of different ethnicities, etc. in any way.

Oh, and where I say "That ends up in reverse discrimination..." I did not mean it to apply to my previous sentence about female Microsoft MVPS! I meant it to apply to mandatory quotas in general.

I'm all for affirmative action, as long as it does not lead to affirmative disaction for those not considered minorities in whatever context applies.

Darrell-"The REAL fact that should be checked is whether the number of female Microsoft MVPs is about equal to the percentage of [female] Microsoft developers in the areas where the MVP program applies." That's much more in tune with what I was saying in the interview that Marcie was referring to in her post. I hope by inferring that one word into your quote, I am not changing your meaning.

Julie (and the gang),

I think that before this conversation gets to the degree Roy vs Rory I, lets put it into perspective here. Unfortunately, there are folks out there who are going to believe what they want to believe and make decisions accordingly... ( clearing throat ) ... Bush ... ( clearing throat again ). It's no secret that women are sorely underrepresented in the IT industry, and whats even worse, is that of those who are involved, "only the strong survive".

Folks like Marcie, Julie, Michelle (Bustamante) or even Asli Bilgin (Microsoft Evangelist and good friend of mine) are all recognized and highly respected women in the industry, but have all gone through their "stuggles" to get there. However, I don't think it's the lack of giving out MVPs or other honors to those beautiful women out there that'll solve the problem. Those deserving of the honor should fight to make themselves heard, but not in a manner that would more likely to lead to that old fashioned man vs woman debate. And as evident in some blogs I've read on this very subject, it's very disturbing that in this day and time, there are folks who believe women should be "seen, but not heard". I dread to think what they feel about minorities :-(

Heck, I go to conferences/events/summits all the time and quite frankly, I can make HUGE stinks on how african americans are underrepresented in the IT industry, quite frankly because I don't see many like me.

While I agree that there should be "gender balance" when it comes to handing out MVP status, let's not stop there. Please.

As a female .NET software developer, I'm not worried at all about why there aren't more women in the industry. From my point of view, this is no big deal, and I agree with Rob - it is an unimportant detail to me.

However, I realize that this is something that Julie thinks about and has concerns about. I understand that when she asks "why?", she isn't suggesting that women should be given special treatment.

As I write this, I'm realizing that I feel more out of place as a woman suggesting that it isn't a big deal to me than I ever have at an IT conference. Unfortunately, I think it is harder to fit into the "sisterhood" when you don't push the woman-power agenda.

I'm not saying that Julia or anyone else has treated me badly - quite the opposite. I'm just saying that my perception is that, in some ways, I feel I fit in better in an auditorium filled with male developers than I fit in with the women who are worried about the # of women in IT.

Let's put this into a little context about this year's MVP Summit. In part, these conversations resurfaced because a group of men and women were talking about how it seemed odd that in the 25 year old and under crowd that there were not any females. It seems a little unusual when you consider that colleges, universities, high schools and middle schools are fairly equally distributed and yet it was the men being represented and no young women. (Someone can double check, but I didn't see any under 18 year old girls and there were several under 18 boys and I don't think I saw any young women under 25ish, other than Microsoft employees.)

One example is that a young man from a college came up to Julia and me just to comment that the women at his college were bothered by not being nominated by men MVPs when they were on the same teams, same projects, same classes as the men who were nominated. It bothered the women at that campus. It bothered the men at that campus. Afterall, Microsoft employees aren't nominating MVPs, it's other MVPs. Men MVPs nominated other men.

No one was saying there should be quotas or harsh rules to change the proportions so you don't need to jump on the attack bandwagon. Instead, people started talking about why it happens. We all know that it does happen. No one should be criticized for bringing this up either. It's an honest discussion about how to keep young girls interested in technology -- keep them involved and keep supporting those kids who are interested.

How do negative attitudes help encourage a young woman to participate in technology? Does ignoring it help? So many of us just accept that it happens. Sure, it is expected in the 40 and over crowd, but can you really explain why it happens in the 25 and under crowd?

It's a self-regulated responsibility. You can choose to help. If you don't choose to help, then you might want to consider what the message you are sending really is. Julia is choosing to be supportive publicly. The young women I know who have read her article appreciated it -- beamed in fact -- that someone would actually question the ratio of girls in technology and try to help. I appreciated what she said too. She was rational, direct, and descriptive. It wasn't an emotional debate. She stated her concern and she made her point. Good job, Julia.

I think the IT industry leans the way of being a sausage party full of social retards. That's not true everywhere, I know, but interviewing people lately that's how I feel.

Diversity is good.

Of all of the comments and coverage that this topic has generated I like what
Avonelle Lovhaug (http://www.coolbits.nu/) had to say in her various responses in the community.

Specifically her post on Susan Warren's blog (http://weblogs.asp.net/swarren/archive/2004/04/26/120366.aspx#120765).

We should be focusing on the important issues here. And sorry to say, for me, gender just doesnt matter to me at all -in the IT industry-.

I guess "important issues" are something you need to work out for yourself. To Julia and Marcie, it would seem, they see gender as an important factor for their daily IT life. And that they need to work towards helping other women get into our industry. Like I said, I dont care about gender and wouldnt go out of my way to help a woman or man (or whatever) in our industry. I would help them both equally! I guess if some women feel that they need to bind together and help (only?) each other out then so be it.

-Rob

I certainly never said that "gender is an important factor in my daily life".

Hey Rob, maybe this topic should have been "MVP Gender" ;-)

I attended the Philly.NET user group meeting (for the first time) last week, and the VB.NET Roadshow was presenting. The room was packed, prehaps around 150 people, and of those there were no more than 1 dozen females. That's less than 10%.

It seems that the female representation in the MVP Awards reflects the approximately the same percentage.

And Lamont, I too noticed and remarked on the lack of African Americans at the Summit. I was noticing this on executive day. I only saw ONE, and presumably that was you!

I think Microsoft has a lot of work to do to broaden the diversity in the developer community. To me, that is perhaps the point of the remarks. In fact, this is one area in which MVPs might be able to help. I have been giving this some thought actually and am not sure how to proceed with it.

Terri

Ooops. My URL is now fixed. I REALLY need a website. Too bad I don't know any web developers <vbg>!

Terri

Weblogs reveal some of the most intresting stories ever. i.e.

I am an independent author and developer who started developing web applications when all you had was a basic text editor. I have been writing technical articles since 1997 and this month, my 6th book was released for Microsoft Press about Microsoft Robotics Studio.

None of my books have been huge sellers and at a recent Microsoft sponsored event (in which I was the only woman invited), I asked the men in the room why they thought my books did badly. Not one of them said, "Gee, maybe you are a bad author", or "It is probably just bad luck", or "No books in the IT business do that well (which is the actual truth).

One guy suggested that I change my publishing name to S. Morgan, so people would no see that I was a girl. He thought my sales would go up that way. This guy works for Microsoft. He was a nice guy, he meant well, and I will never reveal his name, but all the other men in the room immediatley echoed his remarks and thought it was a GREAT idea.

I think it is a horrible idea and I have no intention of doing it. I think it is my responsibility as a woman to continue demonstrating that women can be just as kick a#$ good at this as men. I think my books (especially the last one about MSRS) are pretty good. I put a lot of work into them and I think that shows up. I will keep working to improve the perception that women cannot do this job as well as men, because we can.!!!!