IT stereotyping is alive and well
In my Intro to ITI course, I have one class session during which I ask students to draw pictures of IT people. The students represent potential majors in ITI, Communication, and Journalism and Media Studies. Every year that I have done this, regardless of the course or audience, I have seen the same thing--a lot of white men with glasses, pocket protectors, messy hair, scraggly beards, and some kind of technology in their hands; 1 or 2 white women who wear glasses, have no figures, and are not really attractive; and 1 brown person.
After we review the drawings, we talk about the impact of stereotypes on people considering IT careers, people seeking help with IT issues, hiring, and a bunch of similar topics. This year, I also showed the students a few YouTube videos and websites that illustrate ageism, racism, and sexism.
When I conducted this activity last year, I almost had a riot in the classroom. One white guy in the class said that he didn't think that it was important to look at these types of issues since most women and black people didn't want to go into IT anyway. The class went crazy--shouting, fist shaking, and tremendous emotion around his comment.
This year, I got no reaction at all to the class material. In fact, the students thought that I was making too big of a deal about bias and stereotyping. After seeing the pictures, websites, and YouTube videos, and interviewing family members during Thanksgiving break to get their input into this topic, the students seemed apathetic.
So here's why I'm posting this--I want to know if I AM putting too much emphasis on this topic or whether other people think that ageist, racist, and sexist views of IT people ARE damaging in some way.
Please let me know what you think.
After we review the drawings, we talk about the impact of stereotypes on people considering IT careers, people seeking help with IT issues, hiring, and a bunch of similar topics. This year, I also showed the students a few YouTube videos and websites that illustrate ageism, racism, and sexism.
When I conducted this activity last year, I almost had a riot in the classroom. One white guy in the class said that he didn't think that it was important to look at these types of issues since most women and black people didn't want to go into IT anyway. The class went crazy--shouting, fist shaking, and tremendous emotion around his comment.
This year, I got no reaction at all to the class material. In fact, the students thought that I was making too big of a deal about bias and stereotyping. After seeing the pictures, websites, and YouTube videos, and interviewing family members during Thanksgiving break to get their input into this topic, the students seemed apathetic.
So here's why I'm posting this--I want to know if I AM putting too much emphasis on this topic or whether other people think that ageist, racist, and sexist views of IT people ARE damaging in some way.
Please let me know what you think.
posted by Gayle Stein at
1:09 PM
16 Comments:
Yes I think you are putting too much emphasis on this topic.
Perhaps the lack of response to this post is telling as well. The example of the excited response (to an easy statement to object to - participation points cha-ching!) doesn't seem to exemplify interest as much as you might think. That said stereotyping is obviously continuing and has an impact on perception and, in a way, outcomes. It may be that many of us try to think 'post-racially' etc. but I don't think that means it is no longer worth talking about stereotypes or the impacts of other framing devices in everyday life. If stereotyping inspires less controversy now it may be because it need more attention, not less.
I am actually quite surprised at the results. I would imagine people stereotype IT people as being mostly of Indian or Asian decent.
I do think that perhaps you are making a deal of it, but the fact is people need to know that IT can be full of professional, diverse and creative people. The stereotype of the 90's computer guy is waning.
I, personally, don't think you are making too big of a deal about this. I know that although people try not to consider themselves as being discriminatory, it still occurs. In a P.C. world,where everyone thinks that they are viewed the same, people are at a disadvantage. It is important to see the flaws in the system, so that we make work on them, consciously.
Yes you over placing too much emphasis on it and you're over-analyzing it. The reason why there are more white people is because the United States is PREDOMINATELY WHITE PEOPLE. In addition, there are also A LOT OF WHITE PEOPLE in this field. When you watch the news or listen to the radio, the majority of these people are white. I hope racism or discrimination is not the point of your argument. African Americans and minority races have made great strides in all careers and fields and can be anything they want to be in this country. Many non-whites are very successful in the IT field and many other fields as well, they just are not as visible because they are a MINORITY race, meaning there are not as many of them.
What you should address or focus your attention on more is the stereotype of women in this field, because their numbers are quite high in this field and students should realize that. Women complete highly in this field and in my opinion, their interests in this field are close or comparable to that of males.
I absolutely love the people who say "you're making too big a deal out of this" and then blabber about a "P.C. World" where "everyone thinks they are viewed the same" -- which has no relevance to any discussion of stereotyping or discrimination.
Where do these naysayers get their info on racial consciousness? The back of a shoebox?
I love snarky comments about other comments from people who clearly didn't bother to read them
Characterization:
> I absolutely love the people who say "you're making too big a deal out of this"
Actual Statement:
> I, personally, don't think you are making too big of a deal about this.
That don't might be a little important - don't you think?
As long as there are humans, there will be stereotypes. Stop trying to fight the inevitable. Take it upon yourself to treat everyone you interact with like what they really are: another human being. People waste so much energy on this that could be poured into more positive, world changing things. I suffer from a chronic illness that will eventually be physically debilitating. Do I care about the "disabled American" stereotype? No, I carry on with my daily business and stay positive. You should do the same.
I think you may be approaching the subject incorrectly. I mean, I'm an attractive, female computer science major, but I would still draw a white man with glasses, pocket protector, messy hair, scraggly beard, and some kind of technology in his hands for this assignment. He's the face of IT. That's fine, I think just about every profession has one or two. I don't consider that part stereotyping.
Instead of asking them, show them. Show a whole bunch of (attractive) women and minorities on the job. Don't make it a racist or sexist issue, that garbage is shoved down their throats by schools from day one. They're sick of hearing it.
You can also just do nothing, which is probably the best approach. I think the Morgan Freeman quote “How are we going to get rid of racism? Stop talking about it!” also applies here.
No, you are not putting too much emphasis on this. In the end, I have more questions than answers though. Why don't the women and students of color in your class draw themselves as representative of IT people? What is lacking in the field of study or in the students themselves that they have not taken on that persona? How apathetic are our students if they not only accept, but further advance the nerdy, white guy stereotype of an IT professional? And if IT people are ageist, sexist, and racist, why are they not being challenged at Rutgers? Is the goal of education to maintain the status quo or challenge it?
I think the request to draw "an IT Person" comes across as a request to draw the stereotype of an IT person (which after all doesn't come from thin air.)
There's really no such thing as an "IT Person", so you asked for it.
If you feel the need to talk about it, instead of the old entrapment approach (did you have a mini-seminar and then rap about it?) why not ask "What kind of people are getting into IT these days?" Anon. with the Morgan Freeman quote has it right though -
Just get all your IT students inspired.
Honestly, I have no idea. I'm an IT major and I've asked other students about what their classes are like. They respond with answers along the lines of the classes such as intro to ITI and gender and technology having a ridiculous amount of emphasis on stereotyping and sexism. I'm female, multicultural, and from a town where I grew up with a lot of white classmates.
I don't know if this has a direct effect on what I think about this issue, but in that intro class I chose to draw a nerdy IT person because that's really what the stereotype is. If I was chosen to draw a person who I know that is an IT person, the drawing would have been different. Working in groups to draw a picture of a category "IT person" sets the students up to skew their perspectives to agree on a stereotypical person rather than what they individually think an IT person looks like.
My group drew a white guy, I would have chosen to draw a middle eastern man or woman without glasses. Also no pocket protector because what IT person needs something to protect themselves from ink when they started using computers to collect, organize, and store all their data? I think it would be more accurate if you instead asked individual pictures from the students (possibly even just as a homework assignment- ensure they do it and bring it in) and point out to consider the IT people they know rather than embedded stereotypes in society. The new generation is more diverse and if you dig deeper, you may find something surprising. If not, you may end up with them drawing pictures of the other white guys with glasses in their class before yours, but it's worth a shot.
Also- another comment about the talking about sexism and stereotyping: not everyone initially thinks about it and bringing it up can cause students (especially the females in the class) to feel threatened or question themselves because they think no matter where they choose to go, there's going to be a battle when they get there. Graduation is scary enough.
First: I am white, I work in IT, I have messy hair and sometimes a scraggly beard. With that out of the way I also come from a biracial family, and my sister of only a 2 year age difference is half black and half white. So I would say I have much more experience with racial issues than most white people do. There's 2 sides to this that need to be considered: First is the one you probably know, and that is that stereotyping can perpetuate itself. Less women and non-white races may enter IT if the image doesn't include them, because they may subconsciously feel pressured out of it because of that image. This goes into psychology/sociology where studies have been done about such behaviors. I can't comment much on the science, but it seems that a stereotype does perpetuate itself.
However, on the other hand, I feel that emphasis on race/sex/etc also does this. Especially at a University which "prides itself in Diversity" such as Rutgers, I find that "diversity" just becomes an accepted term for "non-white". This isn't fair to anyone, not just whites. Is a black person who grew up in my neighborhood any different than me that adding him to a group should be considered diversifying? See my point? I think that the concept of diversity itself seems to label and divide groups against themselves. I also think that it's been drilled into their heads that diversity is good, but this isn't the case. Diversity is not always good, it depends. Notice how everyone got mad at the white guy for his opinion that we shouldn't care unless more blacks and females and other non-white males want to work in that field. Why were they so upset by that statement? Because you can't argue against diversity, especially if you're white, since it's "the most wonderful thing in the world". That's brainwashing at it's best. The emphasis on diversity itself brought a divide to your classroom, and this I argue diversity isn't good. It's a double-edged sword.
Either avoid the topic entirely or somehow illustrate that the inability to have a conversation about the topic without a "riot" means they all have a problem with race, and I would argue minorities more so than white males since they are affected by it more. Pride, which is generally touted as being a good thing, actually leads to sensitivity. Pride is just ego dressed up. Proud to be black, proud to be female, proud to be anything (as long as you're not proud to be white, because that's not allowed), equates to "sensitive". "Diversity" tells you to be proud of something, and thus creates sensitivity. I've met black people who have said "I can't be racist because I am black." So there you have it... too much emphasis on diversity...
There's IT and then there's IT. After 30 years in the software industry, I can tell you that every specialty has its stereotype (and yes, these are all stereotypes):
1. The guy who images your laptop: Young, male non-Asian. Horribly underpaid but doesn't care because it keeps him in guitars, surfboards, etc.
2. Corporate IT--The guy who runs the organization that inflicts corporation-wide applications on hapless employees: White male suit, my age or older, when given a tour of the data center, says, "It's cold and noisy. Can we go?"
3. The data center manager: Unknown age, race, etc. Largely unknown period, because he or she is protecting her superiors and subordinates from each other. High turnover so it doesn't matter.
4. Data center administrator, aka BOFH. THIS is the stereotypical gray-ponytailed white uber-geek. He OWNS the joint. Do NOT mess with him. Occasionally this will be a younger woman, who get her job by killing and eating her predecessor. She's also forgotten more about the systems in her charge than you, I or anyone else will ever know.
5. The code monkeys: Indian. Likely IN India. Probably more women than men. Seen by white male bosses as plug-compatible replaceable parts. Small minority are recent CS grads of any gender or ethnicity who, like the Indian veterans, don't have any idea how horribly they're being exploited.
6. The testers: Chinese, including up a management layer or two. More women than men. Maybe a few grizzled white male ex-developers. The working language is Mandarin; the most disadvantaged person there is the poor sod from Hong Kong who only speaks Cantonese.
7. The system engineers: Equal blend of men and women, mostly PhDs from unpronounceable eastern European universities, or from the upper class of some non-impoverished African country. You can't understand what they say, and they're all from difference countries so they can't understand each other, but they produce UML that when coded up, ALWAYS works.
8. Documentation. The tech-writing mommy ghetto. Women, many back from FMLA, who are technically savvy but don't have a geeky cell between them. Exception: The killed and eaten BOFH who has the geek but lost his cred, and is spending the rest of his career trying to convince everybody that he his new "learning product" will revolutionize all facets of documentation and training. (One of those jackholes gave us DocBook.)
9. The sixty-year-old woman: Found everywhere. Will be either the most or the least laid back person you'll ever work with or for. Idolizes Grace Hopper. She got the way she is by going to school and entering her career when it was REALLY hard for women to do those things (quit complaining girls, your grans had it a lot tougher).
10. African-Americans and Hispanics. If the goal of diversity is to get more nonwhite, non-Asian people into tech, it has failed miserably. I can still name all the ones I've worked with over the last 30 years. They're just. Not. Here. I don't have a good answer for that, either.
I resemble that remark. If I recall correctly, our group just drew a picture of me for that project.
In the XX years that I have been in IT, I think that the majority of the folks I have seen DO fit the category of "white guy with glasses", but I will also admit that some of the most talented people that I have met in the field fell outside of this stereotype.
Is this really a problem? Possibly - but the root cause is well outside of the IT industry itself. Structural changes in society & education in general need to occur first before the stereotype of the (pick any industry) person will become a reflection of the general population.
I took a class before about stereotypes in film. I really detested the idea that there was some grand scheme, or conspiracy to put Mexicans in bandit roles, Arabs as villains, and black people as secondary characters while relegating the WASP to hero roles. If people would stop complaining about stereotyping it would cease to exist just by "ignorance is bliss," I think way too much time and thought and energy is devoted to this topic and I'm thankful I haven't signed up for a course that makes me draw pictures of certain faceless roles to uncover something that will then be used against me. It's a trap: "draw a picture, and let me then use that picture to tell you that you're biased. Okay? Sound like fun? DRAW! See, I knew you were racist!" To which I shrug, and then drop the course.
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