Communications of the ACM
Cybersecurity Mainly Male Domain
Nerd alert: The classic nerd/geek image seems to put women off joining the cyber-industries.
Credit: Stuff.co.nz
There were no lines for the ladies room. That was unusual for an event attended by thousands but typical in the cybersecurity field where a futuristic image clashes with an old-fashioned gender gap. At cybersecurity and hacker gatherings, women are clearly in the minority among the sea of men lining escalators, filling gigantic hotel ballrooms and networking in hallways. (Some men grumbled about the lack of women at event parties).
While the U.S. government and private sector urgently try to beef up cybersecurity efforts, the information technology field that supplies talent remains largely a male domain. Experts say the lack of women is not so much a matter of discrimination as the fact that young women do not think of cyber as a career option. They attribute that partly to an unappealing "geek" image from movies and girls' lack of early computer skills that boys develop by playing video games.
The relative lack of women in cybersecurity is reflective of the broader high-tech industry.
From Stuff.co.nz
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