Growing up, did you play sports—-little league, soccer, maybe lacrosse? Maybe you’re a college player, or casual pickup gamer? No matter how you express your inner athlete, chances are that you have Title IX to thank, at least in part. That groundbreaking legislation created tremendous opportunities for women in sports. Its intention is not limited to sports alone, however, but aims at sex-based discrimination in all areas, including science and academics.

Title IX has been unambiguously successful. This past Wednesday marked the 38th anniversary of its passage, and in that time it has had a huge and direct impact on women’s participation in sports. Since Title IX passed in 1972, we have seen a 400 percent increase in the rate of female participation in college sports and a 800 percent increase in the rate of female participation in high school sports. Seriously. 800 percent.

I truly appreciate the barriers broken by enactment of Title IX. Without it, my high school might not have had the field hockey team I played sweep for, or the basketball team I warmed the bench for. I was no jock, but I loved being part of a team (especially when we won. Go Wasps!).

Title IX is not only about sports, however. It’s a broad law that bars sex-based discrimination from any institution receiving federal funding. Sports gets the attention, but the law absolutely includes academics as well.

Given the current proportion of women in science and engineering, we have a ways to go before we achieve parity between the sexes. In 2008, women accounted for only 17.5% of all Bachelor’s degrees awarded in my beloved field of Computer Science. Although that number is down from a high of 27.3% in 2002, it is vastly improved from our 9% share back in 1978.

It’s not parity I’m yearning for, though; I’m after equal opportunity. Title IX is—and has always been—about creating opportunities for women and girls. Prior to its passage, conventional wisdom held that girls weren’t interested in sports or “masculine” endeavors. Once we got the chance, though, we stormed the field. The storming hasn’t fully happened yet in science and engineering, but I believe it will some day. As we celebrate the anniversary of Title IX, I see the path forged by women athletes and hope that women scientists may yet follow.

Last week, Forbes magazine published an article regarding why women leave science and engineering. Among other significant factors, such as pay and promotion disparities, they cite a force in driving women out of the field that really hits home with me: work hours.

We work long hours in science and engineering, no question about that. We work early, late, at home, on the weekends, and on vacation.  I’ve worked on planes (Efficient? Yeah, but I’d rather sleep.) and in Vegas hotels. Maybe we don’t work longer or harder than folks in other fields, but we necessarily have state-of-the-art technology and communication tools for our jobs, and we’re expected to use them even in our off hours.

I’m not perfect at balancing work and home, but I’ve learned a few things during my time as a software engineer, both from my own experience and from others’. Here are some ideas:

1. Implicitly establish your hours. Set a precedent that you leave at X o’clock every day, and that you are unavailable in the evenings. As long as you’re performing well, your colleagues and boss will get used to your established availability—even in a workplace that values “face time.”
2. Explicitly establish your hours. When you’re leaving for vacation, send a note to your colleagues that you’ll be offline during that time. When you’re working closely with a group on a hectic, high-profile project, let them know you’ll answer late-night emails or convene with the group first thing in the morning.
3. If you can, shorten your commute. Move closer to work or find a job closer to home. A shorter commute means a shorter, easier day. I myself desperately need to heed this advice, with a San Francisco-to-Silicon Valley journey via bicycle and train that takes nearly 3 hours out of my day.
4. Lie a little. Just a little! A tiny fib can make your life a little bit easier—you have plans, you don’t have access to email, whatever. If a half-truth will help you out, you have my permission to lay it on.
5. Don’t feel guilty. You’re doing your job, and you’re probably doing it well. The company isn’t going to lose anything if you don’t answer midnight e-mails.

All of these approaches are easier said than done, and all of them
take a bit of chutzpah. But once you get caught in an expectation of
being always-available and putting in over-the-top hours, it’s hard to
break out of it—and that’s when women leave our field for something that seems more appealing.

Why do our hours help drive women out of the field, but not men? It could be that we have an egalitarian situation where both genders work the same number of hours, but it hits women harder. After all, surveys show that we still do twice as much housework as our husbands, a responsibility that makes it tougher to bring work home with us. On the other hand, maybe we have to put in more time than our male colleagues to create the perception that we’re working equally hard.

At my job, I’ve felt it’s a little of both. Sometimes I resolve to go home early, not check in over the weekend, and that always seems to be the day that my boss asks me, “Can you get this done by Monday?” He asks that on Friday. If I follow my own advice, maybe that can change.

Are you always-available when it comes to work? How have you put limits on your time?

Recently, I reviewed four applications for the NCWIT Award for Aspirations in Technology. The NCWIT Award acknowledges the computing achievements and aspirations of young women and generates visibility for women’s participation in computing-related pursuits. High school girls all over the country apply for this award, and I served as one of many reviewers for the Bay Area affiliate.

Although the the award is meant to inspire young women to achieve in computing, I found the young women inspiring me. The applications I reviewed tell stories of girls building robots and designing videogames. They lead their fellow students in workshops and mentor younger students. They take AP computer science courses during the school year and programming classes in the summer. Although you would expect that any high school student applying for this type of award is going to be an achiever, it was heartening to read about the dedication they have to computer science, mathematics, and robotics—not only in the learning, but in passing that dedication on to others. The applicants’ enthusiasm shone through to me, and I’m sure it does to their communities as well.

These young women, who I got to know a little through their application essays, had an impact on me. I hope that all of them continue to be interested in and enthusiastic about computing. Although I worry about the state of our field, with far too small a fraction of computer science and engineering degrees going to women, it’s hard not to be optimistic about our future after the NCWIT
awards. The next generation of women in our field is going to be amazing.

No one can deny Google’s tremendous impact on our use of the web and web advertisements. But they got a little carried away recently with a much-circulated report celebrating their economic impact on the U.S. They’ve influenced our economy, to be sure, but the economic impact they celebrated is not down to them alone—they owe a debt to the research behind their pay-per-click algorithm, and much more to the small business owners and entrepreneurs who use Google ads.

Google’s report touts the company’s economic impact on the United States, calculating $54 billion of economic activity for American businesses, website publishers and non-profits. They focused on small business growth: entrepreneurs placing ads on Google search results to increase the size and scope of their businesses, and website owners making profits on their own sites with targeted ads.

Google’s AdSense and AdWords employ the pay-per-click concept, originally conceived by Goto.com‘s Jeffrey Brewer. Unlike traditional mass media advertising, pay-per-click displays ads that bear some relationship to a query’s words or the search results on the page. Google helped it along, but pay-per-click itself deserves partial credit for changing the online world.

The bigger economic impact, however, belongs to those who place ads with Google and those whose website use ads to generate revenue. It amazes me how business owners, no matter how small the business or remote the location, find a way to keep up with the state of the art. In Google’s report, for example, they estimate $863 million generated for the state of Minnesota, including ad revenue from curbly.com, an online community owned and run by a single employee. Even the tiny Salvadorean bakery in my San Francisco neighborhood, which has awesome pastelitos but no Web site, has a Google ad. These businesses can swing the cost, thanks to pay-per-click, and they reach the customers they’re looking for, thanks to Google. Win-win-win. And delicious.

Have you placed an ad online for your business? Do you have ads placed on your own web site?