This may be the case in some companies, but I've been in middle management for awhile now, and I don't think it is universally true. I have ALWAYS been given a chance to help set my department's goals and budget. I also get quite a bit of input into policy. However, I have to justify my recommendations with business needs, not techie reasons.

I think the problem may be that some middle managers may have a clue about the techie stuff but not know how to fit that into the business. It is a bit of an invisible skill- the techies that report to me don't usually even realize it needs to be done. The management that I report to often doesn't realize that some people might not know that they need to do this.

Despite its invisibility, I think the ability to put technical needs into a business context is the most important qualification for my job. Without that, and I get screwy goals and an inadequate budget- which rapidly leads to a disgruntled group and a staff retention problem.

Actually, I arranged a similar thing after the birth of my baby. It was brilliant. I changed jobs for other reasons and had to go back to the normal schedule. I miss my every other Friday off. Sometimes, I took my daughter out of day care and spent the day with her. Sometimes, I sent her to day care like normal and got chores done so that my husband and I could both have more time with our daughter on the weekend.

You already have a lot of people on this thread boasting about how many hours they work. Whatever. I have generally worked 40 hour weeks (or 80 hours every two weeks) my entire career, and I have advanced up the ladder just fine, thank you. I always get good performance reviews and good raises. Working hard and getting a lot done does not require insane work hours, and I have rarely met anyone who could remain productive for all of the insane hours they "worked". Personally, I find I can sustain crazy hours for about two weeks, and I'll do that if I think whatever crisis needs handling is worth it.

Good luck- the system will work for you if you let it.

I can't quite figure out how to reply to this without sounding snarky towards the parent, who clearly has a different view of the field than I do and who am I to say which view is right? But feel I need to say- we're NOT that desperate anymore. The boom in bioinformatics was about 10 years ago now (pause while I shudder at realization that I have been out of grad school for that long....) I work in this area, and have since leaving grad school. When I graduated in 1999, there weren't really any bioinformatics grad programs, and the field was populated by a mix of biologists learning computers, computer types learning biology, and some physicists. Now, there are plenty of grad programs churning our bioinformatics MS and even PhD graduates. The only people I know working in bioinformatics w/o some serious bio background now have either been at it for many, many years or are pretty much pure coders.

However, as one of the previous replies said- there is a career to be made by being the interface between a specialized customer set (in this case, biologists) and the software developers. I've done that quite a bit, and have managed to keep myself employed. But you need to have credibility on both sides- which means a strong bio background (an advanced degree helps) AND an understanding of how software development works (it helps if you've coded).

You could also look at project management. Lots of folks laugh at project managers, but that is usually because they've never worked with a good project manager. Once again, though, I think it helps if you've done some coding, both for credibility with the team and so that you can make reasonable estimates about how long development tasks will take, etc.

Real science has considered this and found quite a bit that argues against this theory, actually. Which is one of the reason why Larry Summers got in so much trouble for his speech. He knew not of what he spoke....

I was about to be annoyed by this, because "tool user" sounds somehow inferior. But once I read your comment, I have to say, you may be on to something. I took a programming class in college and didn't like it, because I didn't care about solving the toy problems the class used. I didn't really learn how to program until I got to grad school and needed to code to solve some problems relevant to me.

So the next level of the question is- why aren't there equal numbers of codeheads of both genders? I don't buy that its just biology.

Actually, the salary differences start at entry-level. No one has ever satisfactorily explained why, although there are lots of theories.

I used to agree with you on the long hours being as much a problem for dads as moms. I also used to laugh that maternity leave is treated like a disability here in the US. And then I had a baby. I WAS pretty much disabled for several weeks.

I have a husband who definitely pulls his fair share of the childrearing work- diapers, baths, bedtimes, etc. Still, I'm the only one who could get up in the middle of the night and breastfeed. I was the only one who had to figure out how to pump breastmilk on a cross-country flight for a business trip.

I totally agree that parenthood requires sacrifices from both parents, and would love to see more dads take extended paternity leaves, and more companies accommodate the flexible work schedules that make working parenthood easier. However, simple biology means that the mother NEEDS these things more.

With that said- I am a working mother with an IT-related job, and I haven't had many problems with it. I think one reason is that I waited until I was in relatively senior positions before having the baby. This gave me the ability to ask for the accommodations I needed.

There are studies showing a drop off in interest in math and science among girls as they go into high school. The common explanation is puberty- and no, not because hormones mess with girls' brains, but because of the impact of the desire to be desirable. Girls who are interested in math and science tend to be labeled "smart", which in high school tends to mean "not dateable". And even for a "smart" girl, being considered dateable matters a lot in high school.

Of course, high school guys want dates, too. But some of the "smart" boys in my high school classes (eons ago now) got dates. None of us "smart" girls did. And before you trolls jump on that, it wasn't because we were all ugly- we're all happily married now. And I used to get hit on by guys who didn't know me and so didn't know I had that "smart girl" label.

I doubt high school has changed that much since my day. Actually, I suspect it has only gotten worse, given the female "role models" I see in pop culture these days.

I am very grateful for the very geeky college I went to, which changed me into a science major. I still didn't get that many dates, though- I found that telling a guy my major was a great way to get him to leave me alone. But I got enough to not start lying about my major.

This entire thread is half sad/half funny, because the same old canards about why women don't go into X field are being trotted out. Yes men and women are different, but as one of the previous posters mentioned, not as different as you think. I don't have the time or interest to go through and counter all of these silly arguments. But I did want to say something, in case there are some young geeky women reading this thread and getting more discouraged.

I ended up with a PhD in science and a serious interest in the application of computers in my field. I am now the head of the IT/informatics department at my company. My husband (a programmer) works on a team with several women, one of whom is his boss. He speaks highly of the technical skills of his female colleagues, and he is not an easy programmer to impress.

I know quite a few women working in computer related fields, as programmers, database designers, and managers. None of us got an undergraduate degree in computer science. So really guys, I don't think you can argue that women aren't interested in computers. We are. For whatever reason, we just don't end up in the computer science departments. Look at the departments to figure out what is wrong- don't look at the women. We're just fine the way we are, thank you.

Oh, and I played with BOTH dolls and legos as a kid. So does my 19 month old daughter.