Well I am not tired of having this discussion and since I know my perspective and opinions on the subject has changed a lot throughout my career I think it is important to keep the discussion going......

But that aside...  Great editorial Kathy!   You bring up a lot of great points. 

I agree that "family responsibilities and

work/life balance may play a big role in keeping women from considering IT or leaving IT once they are there". When I was in my early 20's I was as gung ho as anyone (male or female), eager to learn as much as possible and make my way up the IT ladder. And I did just that. I decided to go the technical route and made my way up to a senior DBA position... (which at the time to me was the top of the heap! I was making great money, loved my job, loved solving technical issues, loved learning new things... didn't mind waking up every few days when the page went off at 2:00am... ) In my thirties... my priorities definately started to change... I still enjoyed my career, but found it to be a bit of a grind... and less challenging. Life balance and starting a family became much more of a priority. I also found the part of my career that I enjoyed most was working with the clients. In my current job the DBAs do not have that much face to face with the clients and tend to work mainly with the developers... A few years ago I switched to Data Warehousing and am enjoying that a lot more.... I work mainly with the clients, do a lot of analysis, data modelling and coding... I haven't left IT... but what influenced my career satisfaction has definately changed. If I had started having children earlier, that change probably would have come earlier too... 

lynda