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Belinda Parmar claims she "wasted four years of her life" studying for an arts degree and has implored young women to disregard gender stereotyping and study computer science instead. The founder of Little Miss Geek and CEO of Lady Geek thinks the current generation should stop worrying about literature, languages and the arts, and knuckle down to some coding instead.
Parmar wrote on the Guardian's Women in Leadership site that "anyone can learn to code" and that while studying the arts might "be romantic, inspiring and entertaining" you will be – sadly – "wasting your time" if you do so in expectation of a well-paid, high-flying career.
But in 2013, technology is no longer something that happens in computer labs to people who wear glasses. It has permeated society: it affects how students study, and how each one of us acquires knowledge, consumes media and undertakes research. It's a dimension of art, drama, literature and history; it changes language and creates new means of communication.
I would never discourage any woman from studying a STEM subject and passionately believe the world would be a better place if there were more female engineers, physicists, computer scientists and mathematicians. But the skills acquired by arts graduates are a necessary part of creating and communicating technology. Moreover, the seemingly random acquisition of information can have the most surprising and creative outcomes.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, who dropped out of college and pursued an unlikely interest in calligraphy, said: "Much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on." Professor William Damon says the mental habits of Jobs and other successful entrepreneurs are powered by "curiosity … the desire to find out more about something that one finds interesting, to tinker with it, and to forge something new from ways that have grown stale. Curiosity is fuelled by a passion to explore the world."
A good arts graduate will not only have spent their undergraduate degree exploring the world through history or literature or art, but also have acquired a range of transferable skills: the ability to create and engage an audience; to convince a board to take a risk or a group of backers to part with their money; the empathy to create products that people want and will use; good copywriting skills; creative problem-solving; confidence; the resilience to have as many creative ideas as it takes to finally have a good one.
I've worked with great technologists who studied English literature and history to degree level and beyond, and been a part of countless digital teams that have included writers, designers, illustrators, film makers and artists, who have all had a role in creating and maintaining great, usable products and services. I've been working in digital teams for more than 15 years and, like many other women, while my head has bumped the glass ceiling from time to time, the subject-matter of my degree was no barrier to a career in technology.
A Twitter straw poll of women I know (all of whom do well-respected, award-winning and agenda-setting digital work) revealed that they studied history, sociology, English literature, fine art, French, drama, fashion, archaeology, music and more.
Many of these women have learned several programming languages in their spare time, others are enthusiastic gamers, some were early bloggers who spotted the potential of the web as a communications platform. Martha Lane Fox, UK digital champion and co-founder of lastminute.com, studied ancient and modern history. If their education had any effect on the people they have become, none of these women wasted their time.
Parmar's vision of the workplace sells the modern women short. The power and opportunity that can be gained by developing excellent communication skills, the ability to shape and win an argument, and tools to develop fine abstract reasoning have as important a role to play in the modern workplace and the economy as the ability to create software. And moreover, doing an arts degree has never stopped anyone from learning a programming language.
Rachel Coldicutt is a director at digital agency Caper, which runs Articulate, a network of female speakers across science, technology, media and the arts – follow Rachel @rachelcoldicutt and Caper @wearecaper
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