My own career in high-tech has been a wonderful and challenging voyage. Electrical engineering, even more than most disciplines, has transformed our lives. I would definitely recommend a career in technology to any woman, or man…

So why am I too often the only woman in the room? How many women engineers and technologists are there, especially in positions of influence? What can be done to crash through the “silicon ceiling?” Come to the DAC 2009 WWINDA panel on women in technology on Monday, and engage in a dialog…

The State of the Stats
Some sad statistics for women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields:

• Nationally, women comprise only 25.6% of computer and math occupations (US Department of Labor, 2007)
• In California, census figures show that women are only 25% of engineering and computer professionals.
• In the US, only 1 in 4 engineering students is a woman, unlike law and medicine, which have achieved gender parity, according to the IEEE.
• College-educated women in male-dominated fields earn 76% of what college-educated men earn 1 year after graduation (AAUW 2007.)

And women are especially under-represented in STEM management:

• Women constitute only 8 percent of engineering managers, according to 2007 US Department of Labor statistics.
• “Technical men are more likely than technical women to hold high-level positions. In our sample, the odds of being in a high-level position are 2.7 times as great for men as for women.” (Climbing the Technical Ladder: Obstacles and Solutions for Mid-Level Women in Technology.)
• Research on women at the highest ranks shows that they hold only 3% to 5% of senior roles in technology.

Female technologists, lets be honest:

• Have you ever been in a meeting where you, the world’s foremost expert of frangilaxibility in epsilon quadratonics, deliver a presentation? When you call for questions…everyone in the (predominantly-male) audience asks their questions not of YOU, but of the male colleague to your left (who you just hired, as a junior associate, and who actually has only the most rudimentary grasp of frangilaxibility in epsilon quadratonics!)
• And worse…have you ever walked into a room to deliver the keynote presentation, and been asked, “Are you going to bring us some coffee?” (I have!)
• How many women were in your graduating class in engineering school? (There were 5 out of 83 total when I received my BSEE!)

Companies Profit with Women
A May 14, 2009 Time article, “Women Will Rule Business”, found that companies are most successful when women occupy senior management roles: “The workplace-research group Catalyst studied 353 Fortune 500 companies and found that those with the most women in senior management had a higher return on equities — by more than a third.”

And, a 2007 industry report by Gartner estimates that by the year 2012, teams with greater gender diversity will be twice as likely to exceed performance expectations.

At work, progress starts with individual consciousness-raising. Paying attention to who people are and not whether they seem “like you” in superficial ways. Hiring. Mentoring. Recognizing results. Being gender-blind in the best sense of the word.

DAC 2009 is featuring a WWINDA panel on women in technology on Monday. Everyone is invited to attend and participate in this informal and candid discussion!

Holly Stump, Vice President of Marketing, Jasper Design Automation, has more than 20 years in high technology. Her experience runs the gamut from engineering to B2B marketing, business development, sales and international experience in the EDA, semiconductor and electronics industries. Holly spent her early career managing an IC design team at HP, and earned her BSEE at Illinois Institute of Technology (cum laude), and MS Engineering Management at Stanford University.