Permanent Adolescence

READERS WHO flipped through the November 2000 issue of The Linux Journal, which bills itself as the premier journal for Linux software, couldn't miss the ad for Qsol's new servers. Centered on the face of a beautiful woman, her full red lips parted invitingly, the ad read: "Don't feel bad. Our servers won't go down on you either."

Is it any wonder young women are staying away from IT in droves?

While this particular ad took tastelessness to the extreme, others that denigrate and stereotype women in more subtle ways are littered throughout magazines that cover IT and the new economy (including this one). Their licentiousness, some researchers say, bespeaks an environment that remains stubbornly adolescent in its attitudes toward the opposite sex. Such ads could help explain why women are dropping out of IT jobs at twice the rate of men and why teenage girls remain uninterested in high-tech careers.

"Not only do these ads reflect a certain consciousness, but they really are a way of putting women in their place," says Jean Kilbourne, author of the new book, Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel. "It's a high-tech version of the old girlie pinups in the garage."

The high-tech industry, Kilbourne and others argue, can no longer afford such offensive spiels. "We're in the tightest labor market we've been in for 40 years," says Karen Kurek, the partner in charge of Arthur Andersen's Growth and Retention of Women Initiative, which funded a recent survey showing that teenage girls are not keen on high-tech jobs. "Corporate America needs to do more to advance and retain women," Kurek adds.

» posted by ITworld staff

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