I would really like to see such a survey. I did one at my previous place 
of work, the California Digital Library (nee Division of Library 
Automation) where I worked for over 20 years. I had kept org charts and 
phone lists, and was able to see that over that span of two decades the 
tech staff (which was most everyone there since all we did was tech 
development) was from 2/3 to 3/4 female. But when I said this in front 
of a group of employees the men were startled. I'm guessing that they 
saw themselves as techies, and the women as "helpers" -- even though the 
DBA, the data designers, and many of the programmers were women. So it's 
not that there aren't women in technology, it's that the women in 
technology are often considered to be "not doing technology" because 
they are women. [1]

So we should survey. I believe that we will find that in library 
technology departments there are many "invisible" women. Sadly, women 
will be more present in that environment for the wrong reasons -- mainly 
that it's lower paying and that men are more likely to get the higher 
paying industry jobs. (The University of California overall staff ratio 
is 65% female -- as perhaps many government agencies are.)

kc
[1] Must read: Joanna Russ. How to suppress women's writing. 
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9392874 It's about writing but actually 
pertains to all activities.


On 11/27/12 6:57 AM, Rosalyn Metz wrote:
> I think first we would need to do a survey of how many women are in the
> community.  if it turns out that this community is only 17% women then
> we're on target.  who knows, maybe we're actually 10% women and we're way
> above target.  in which case the real question might be "how do we get more
> women in tech."
>
>
> On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 9:11 AM, Chad Nelson <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Ooops. Hit the wrong key.
>>
>> So, about our presenters...
>>
>> Is it a problem that only 4 of our 33 presenters are women? Or that only 16
>> of 95 proposers were women?
>>
>> Is there something this community needs to do to encourage more women to
>> feel like they can and should speak / propose sessions?
>>

-- 
Karen Coyle
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ph: 1-510-540-7596
m: 1-510-435-8234
skype: kcoylenet