Thursday, May 19, 2005
Where are all the women?
A throwaway comment over at the rather excellent Dizwell Forum, let me to think that I'd be meaning to reflect on the vanishingly small number of female DBAs for a while. This is part, of course, of a wider problem of representation of women in IT, one that Governments are recognising.
I've been fortunate to either work with, or know a few women who do work as DBAs or in IT generally, but if numbers posting in various Oracle forums or attending conferences is anything to go by these women are the exception rather than the rule. My take on this is pretty much that poularized by the book The Wisdom of Crowds, that is that a culture that embrace diverse backgrounds and gives voice to each of these tends to make smarter decisions than one that doesn't. Its one reason, in my opinion, for the success of modern day America, a diverse culture succeeds more than a mon-culture. The same it could be argued was true of the British Empire, the Roman Empire and various other successful cultures throughout history.
IT today however is, largely, a collection of geeky males. My friend Mogens Norgaard is fond of saying that all the DBAs these days are grumpy old men; this isn't quite true, people like Tanel Põder and Lisa Dobson prove otherwise, but its true enough that most DBAs reading this will at least smile in recognition.
Geeky, grumpy men turn out to be quite good at discovering and debating facts, holding forth, doing rigourous systematic work, and this is good, but it isn't all the DBA job needs (it also goes some way to explain the occasional intemperate and ill thought out exchange in the DBA world). It looks to me like the technical 'engine room' role of the DBA is likely to expand over the next few years into application integration, code review, systems design and other information management challenges that have at their core enabling people to use systems to do their jobs better. This sort of challenge is often expressed in the IT world as aligning IT with The Business, as if The Business were this remote external entity. If Men are from Mars.. has any value, and I think it has some, this dismissal of work colleagues as somehow other is an incredibly male, and restrictive and counterproductive viewpoint.
So I want more female DBAs and for the following reasons.
Female opinions will add to the effectiveness of the DBA Community
A more relationship oriented DBA culture will help promote key communication lines, to this strange entity called the Business and indeed to other key groups Developers - ed
We might get healthier debates with less name calling and more substance
I'll leave you with this thought, consider the amazon.com editorial review of Oracle DBA 101 below and ask yourself this, do you think that the attributes of the book and its usefulness for the productive DBA are unrelated to the gender of its authors?
Oracle DBA 101 offers a friendly place for budding Oracle professionals to learn critical database management skills. Refreshingly, the book's entertaining style doesn't preclude the authors from discussing advanced concepts.
The text opens with a discussion of everything an Oracle DBA is expected to do. It moves quickly into the particulars of the Oracle architecture, all the while maintaining a comfortable writing style that makes easy reading of material that is, because of its technical nature, very dry. It also includes excellent discussions of the valuable inner workings of Oracle such as the V$ views and tools such as the Optimizer and Explain Plan. This section, along with a later chapter on performance, provides techniques for diagnosing the causes of even mysterious performance symptoms. A chapter on backup and recovery is included, but it is fairly brief.
Oracle is a very complex product, and this book doesn't attempt to make a seasoned pro out of the reader. But it does provide a fine balance of big picture perspective and internal details to enable new DBAs to hit the ground running. --Stephen W. Plain
Topics covered: Database layout, installation and configuration, tablespaces, System Global Area, monitoring, DBA and V$ views, SQL*Plus overview, Optimizer, Explain Plan, TKPROF, Autotrace, performance tuning, backup and recovery.
Steve Vandiver, MAOP newsletter, April 2000
"...I like this book because it is very different than all the other technical books on the market."
5 Comments
I've been fortunate to either work with, or know a few women who do work as DBAs or in IT generally, but if numbers posting in various Oracle forums or attending conferences is anything to go by these women are the exception rather than the rule. My take on this is pretty much that poularized by the book The Wisdom of Crowds, that is that a culture that embrace diverse backgrounds and gives voice to each of these tends to make smarter decisions than one that doesn't. Its one reason, in my opinion, for the success of modern day America, a diverse culture succeeds more than a mon-culture. The same it could be argued was true of the British Empire, the Roman Empire and various other successful cultures throughout history.
IT today however is, largely, a collection of geeky males. My friend Mogens Norgaard is fond of saying that all the DBAs these days are grumpy old men; this isn't quite true, people like Tanel Põder and Lisa Dobson prove otherwise, but its true enough that most DBAs reading this will at least smile in recognition.
Geeky, grumpy men turn out to be quite good at discovering and debating facts, holding forth, doing rigourous systematic work, and this is good, but it isn't all the DBA job needs (it also goes some way to explain the occasional intemperate and ill thought out exchange in the DBA world). It looks to me like the technical 'engine room' role of the DBA is likely to expand over the next few years into application integration, code review, systems design and other information management challenges that have at their core enabling people to use systems to do their jobs better. This sort of challenge is often expressed in the IT world as aligning IT with The Business, as if The Business were this remote external entity. If Men are from Mars.. has any value, and I think it has some, this dismissal of work colleagues as somehow other is an incredibly male, and restrictive and counterproductive viewpoint.
So I want more female DBAs and for the following reasons.
I'll leave you with this thought, consider the amazon.com editorial review of Oracle DBA 101 below and ask yourself this, do you think that the attributes of the book and its usefulness for the productive DBA are unrelated to the gender of its authors?
Oracle DBA 101 offers a friendly place for budding Oracle professionals to learn critical database management skills. Refreshingly, the book's entertaining style doesn't preclude the authors from discussing advanced concepts.
The text opens with a discussion of everything an Oracle DBA is expected to do. It moves quickly into the particulars of the Oracle architecture, all the while maintaining a comfortable writing style that makes easy reading of material that is, because of its technical nature, very dry. It also includes excellent discussions of the valuable inner workings of Oracle such as the V$ views and tools such as the Optimizer and Explain Plan. This section, along with a later chapter on performance, provides techniques for diagnosing the causes of even mysterious performance symptoms. A chapter on backup and recovery is included, but it is fairly brief.
Oracle is a very complex product, and this book doesn't attempt to make a seasoned pro out of the reader. But it does provide a fine balance of big picture perspective and internal details to enable new DBAs to hit the ground running. --Stephen W. Plain
Topics covered: Database layout, installation and configuration, tablespaces, System Global Area, monitoring, DBA and V$ views, SQL*Plus overview, Optimizer, Explain Plan, TKPROF, Autotrace, performance tuning, backup and recovery.
Steve Vandiver, MAOP newsletter, April 2000
"...I like this book because it is very different than all the other technical books on the market."
5 Comments:
Well, I'm in the rather unusual (envious?) position of having worked closely with a female dba for the last 4 years.
If my experience is anything to go by, we NEED a lot more of them around!
Why? Well, this one actually had a very positive influence in the usually "caustic" technical discussions that sometimes spark over dba-matters.
And it was a change of pace to not have to cope with too much of that stuff for a while.
Highly recommended to everyone.
If anyone doubts the capacity of women to handle high stress environments, I do recommend a visit to your local hospital and a chat with the nursing staff in the emergency department...
Women sometimes have a way of disarming the "territorial" disputes much better than anyone else. High time they got more involved in this profession, I reckon!
If my experience is anything to go by, we NEED a lot more of them around!
Why? Well, this one actually had a very positive influence in the usually "caustic" technical discussions that sometimes spark over dba-matters.
And it was a change of pace to not have to cope with too much of that stuff for a while.
Highly recommended to everyone.
If anyone doubts the capacity of women to handle high stress environments, I do recommend a visit to your local hospital and a chat with the nursing staff in the emergency department...
Women sometimes have a way of disarming the "territorial" disputes much better than anyone else. High time they got more involved in this profession, I reckon!
I too have had the pleasure of working with a female DBA for the last year and a half. She has taught me quite a lot more regarding Oracle in general, and DBA skills in particular, than I have learned from the books. I am also lucky enough to (for the second time in my career) work for a female manager, whose technical knowledge never ceases to astound me. These experiences have done more for me in terms of technical development than any other environment I have worked in. I agree wholeheartedly, we NEED to see more women getting into the larger I/T roles. Then maybe the industry would actually start to progress again.
As they say, "diversity is strength." I agree we need more diversity, and that IT/DBA is male-dominated.
I have worked with women, but I haven't noticed a real difference, as a group. It's just more likely that a woman will have a different perspective or approach than another man will, given a group of men. It's hard to predict what those differences will be, and how they will benefit the group, but it's more likely that differences will exist.
One thing I have seen is that the working environment usually improves. I have seen companies make accomodations for women, or to attract women. But of course in the end we all get to enjoy those accomodations, women or not.
For example: less demand for overtime, flex hours, cleaner and safer environment, etc.
Even without those advantages, I'd still like to work with more women. The only way to do that is to make this line of work more appealing. Any ideas how to do that?
I have worked with women, but I haven't noticed a real difference, as a group. It's just more likely that a woman will have a different perspective or approach than another man will, given a group of men. It's hard to predict what those differences will be, and how they will benefit the group, but it's more likely that differences will exist.
One thing I have seen is that the working environment usually improves. I have seen companies make accomodations for women, or to attract women. But of course in the end we all get to enjoy those accomodations, women or not.
For example: less demand for overtime, flex hours, cleaner and safer environment, etc.
Even without those advantages, I'd still like to work with more women. The only way to do that is to make this line of work more appealing. Any ideas how to do that?
I've worked with some female DBA's, and really, most have been just regular ol' DBA's. But I must add, the worst DBA, by far, I ever worked with was female. Not just my judgement, either, she was kicked out of other groups.
Three presidents in a row of the SDOUG were female, and they were all excellent presidents, and apparently excellent DBA's too. They also all became pregnant while president, musta been something in the job... :)
Three presidents in a row of the SDOUG were female, and they were all excellent presidents, and apparently excellent DBA's too. They also all became pregnant while president, musta been something in the job... :)
I'm a Software Quality Analyst with past experience as a Business Analyst for a Financial Institution (Female). I would like to begin reading and training to be a Oracle DBA professional. Where do you suggest I start? Are there any associations and/or conferences/workshops that you would recommend?
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# posted by 
: 7:22 PM, November 09, 2011
: 7:22 PM, November 09, 2011
