Women in Security: Is Security a Mans World?

By creating a women-only conference, members of a security training institute thought theyd found a clever way to attract an extra 50 percent of the population. Instead they unleashed a fury.

By Sarah D. Scalet

July 17, 2002 — CSO — To hear Stephen Northcutt tell it, a controversial women-only conference announced by SANS started innocently enough. Last week, Northcutt looked around a conference room in Boston and noticed that there were only three women and more than 100 men. Nothing new there. But this time, he got an idea about attracting more women to the field (not to mention almost doubling the number of people who might join SANS): Why not have a conference just for women?

On Monday, the SANS (Systems Administration, Networking and Security) Institute announced just thata September conference in the New Orleans French Quarter at which all the teachers, staff, vendor representatives and attendants will be female. And on Tuesday? â¬SI got my hard hat on,⬝ says Northcutt, director of training for the research and education organization, who received 220 heated e-mails about Mondayâ¬"s announcement by 11 a.m. Pacific time the next day.

â¬SIâ¬"ve got a tremendous amount of response, more than weâ¬"ve ever gotten for anything else weâ¬"ve ever done, which is pretty scary to me,⬝ he says. â¬SPeople have very strong opinions. A lot of males have written and almost consistently called it sexual discrimination. And the females seem to be divided into two specific camps⬝: those glad to be offered a break from male-dominated security events, and those who donâ¬"t want any special treatment.

â¬SWhatâ¬"s next?⬝ asked one female security practitioner. â¬SAre you going to do a session for African Americans only? Native Americans only? Iâ¬"m sorry, but this is insulting and unnecessary.⬝

â¬SIn no way are we saying women are inferior or they need help,⬝ answers SANS instructor Judy Novak. â¬SWeâ¬"re saying please, come participate, itâ¬"s a wonderful field.⬝ Novak says the lack of women in the field is unnerving and not getting any better. â¬SYouâ¬"d think thereâ¬"d be some momentum, but it just hasnâ¬"t been that way. The whole thing is to make women feel like they belong.⬝

CIO has long tracked the shortage of women in IT, most recently with a pair of articles titled â¬SWhy Women Hate IT⬝ (Sept. 1, 2000) and â¬SWhy IT Hates Women (and the Women Who Stay Anyway)⬝ (Sept. 15, 2001). That same loathing could just as easily be addressed in information security, and thatâ¬"s too bad.

The question is how to change the lopsided numbers. A woman-only conference might attract a few more women to the field. More likely, though, it will just make other SANS conferences even more male-dominated and upset a lot of people in the meantime.

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• Information Security--Not Just a Man's World?