Dumbing down of computing to IT literacy and lack of initiatives to inspire girls to take up the subject worsening the shortage. One of the world's leading computer scientists, Professor Dame Wendy Hall, has warned that girls are increasingly shunning her subject at school and university. Hall, who invented a forerunner to the world wide web, said the problem of a scarcity of girls studying computer science was "getting worse" despite huge efforts from the scientific community to address the issue.

As governments and private businesses clamor to hire computer experts, women are conspicuously missing from the employment boom; women account for over half the professional workforce, yet only 25 percent of information technology jobs are filled by females.

In an era of increased competition and economic pressure, some workplaces can seem like a battlefield. Many workers may have observed a colleague being chastised or denigrated by a supervisor, and for some, the attack has been personal. Provocative new research suggests our subsequent feelings and actions vary by gender and are different depending on whether the coworker is male or female. Investigators from Texas A&M and Buena Vista University discovered workers who witness incivility towards colleagues feel negative emotions – especially when the incivility is aimed at workers of the same sex.

Barbie, the toy doll that is a perennial favourite among girls, has been assigned a new career - computer engineer. But how accurate is the glam-looking tech support Barbie compared to real life?

The European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) is a European agency supporting the work of EU governments and EU institutions (especially the Commission) in collecting and analysing comparable data on gender issues, developing methodological tools, especially to help integrate gender equality in all policy areas, facilitating the sharing of best practice and dialogue among stakeholders, and raising public awareness.