Living high on the hog

Why do so many celebrated women in Britain’s technology industry work in the public sector? Milo Yiannopoulos reports.

Why are so many venerated women in tech clamped to the public teat? That’s the question I was asking myself this week when I read Computer Weekly’s list of the most influential women in the UK’s information technology industry. I use the word “industry” loosely, since, of the 25 women celebrated, a staggering 12 rely for their incomes either wholly or partly on taxpayer money.

Aside from the industry’s two perennial favourite joke candidates, featured in the list are women from the NHS, the Police, the Home Office, the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the University of Southampton… it’s extraordinary. Of course, there are no men-only lists of influential people in tech, but if you look at mixed rankings like the Wired 100 and strip out the women, very few of the men work in the public sector.

What’s going on? It couldn’t possibly be, could it, that the politically correct public sector consistently over-promotes ferociously greedy and lazy women who are great at fighting their corner, bitching, back-stabbing and boasting to get their hands on promotions and pay rises? No, it seems unlikely the tech industry has that many Sly Bailey types. (Frankly, it would be more interesting if it did.)

The again, says one company director, with wide experience of women in the boardroom: “Women love to boast about their ‘nurturing’ instinct. Well, in my experience, they like nothing better that being ‘nurtured’ by our taxes. That way they can kid themselves that they’re not being tainted by grubby capitalism – and brag to their heart’s content on Mumsnet.”

I’m being flippant, of course, as is our source. But the question remains: why aren’t we celebrating more women in the private sector? And why do so many women gravitate towards the public? Has the bar been set so low that anyone with breasts, a fancy title and a taxpayer-funded pay packet is now worthy of veneration? The women I know cringe at being so transparently patronised.

Computer Weekly: must do better.