Happy Women's Day Images for Facebook - International Womens Day 2017

8th March is International Womens Day, and consistently, someone reminds me of that reality, and asks why I have not been advancing it. Especially this year, as it commended its 100th year. What's more, yesterday, as usual, I overlooked it, until someone reminded me.

Why do I not advance International Womens Day? All things considered, I jump at the chance to think its because I am excessively busy being a 'universal lady' to recall that it is occurring. This made me consider the part of women in IT Service Management, and IT by and large.

I am not an awesome adherent to positive discrimination for women in the work environment, which may come as surprise for those who know me. I have always trusted that the working environment should be totally based on the capacity of the person to play out the task close by, and positive discrimination doesn't always put the best person forward. My dad (a resigned Canon in the Church of England) was always strongly for permitting women into the Ministry, yet his issue was that the women who put themselves forward were not always the 'perfect individuals' for the employment. So his protest was not based on the sexual orientation bias, but rather on the individual - I take after my fathers thinking in this.

So International Womens Day leaves me with exceptionally blended feelings. Yes, we should advance and be pleased with the capacity of women on the planet - however there is considerably less fuss made of International Mens Day (nineteenth November). Positive discrimination makes me awkward. I started working in IT more than 25 years back, when IT departments were overwhelmingly male and the part of the women was more required with administration of the rota, and support of the espresso supplies than administration of the systems and upkeep of the gear. I get a kick out of the chance to imagine that my success in the industry has been based on the acknowledgment of my capacity and skills, and not as a result of being a 'female representative' to meet an obliged share to show balance. Why should I need a positive spin put on my capacity?

The time has come to stop pondering Men vs Women and consider who is the perfect person for the employment, and take a perspective of genuine fairness.

So how would we choose who is the ideal person for the employment? Personality traits do make a difference - you require a detail person for the roles in Service Asset and Configuration Management, is this sexual orientation specific? Compassion and a wide spectrum way to deal with learning are required by Service Desk staff, is this sexual orientation specific? Should sexual orientation be a consideration?

The quantity of women in IT has increased in my profession, the acknowledgment of the capacity of women to do any part in IT has moved forward. The question of regardless of whether women need to be in the IT industry has turned out to be less of an issue, as 'everybody is in IT' these days! Its difficult to keep away from it. I meet CIOs who are women, I meet Senior IT managers who are women and I meet Service Desk analysts who are women.

The percentages of women in IT achieved a top in the late nineties, yet are presently decreasing. Research has yet to recognize why this drop is occurring, however there are many studies which take a gander at the effect of IT training in schools. Is it still the recognition that women will make themselves inaccessible by having a family? Our governments are addressing the issues of parental leave, so that uniformity of kid care is perceived as the responsibility of both men and women.

The question I need to ask is the thing that effect does it have on our IT departments that there are less women than men? Does the old style aggressive way to deal with silos inside IT, first line doing combating with second line, second line doing combating with third, and all united against the venture teams, does this approach originate from excessive testosterone? Would we be more inclusive with a larger amount of estrogen in our teams?

Its an interesting level headed discussion, and I think that its impossible to handle in an article. In any case, I toss the question out to all of you - most likely a dominant part male readership - are our workplaces better or worse for the exclusion of women?