Gender Codes: Why Are Women Leaving Computing

iWomen have been the minority of computer science for years. Many realize this, but don’t know when and why this occurred.  Gender Code, by Thomas Misa,  explores the how, when and why women started staying away from the computing field. 

Background

Thomas Misa looks to see what attracted women to computing and when women started to leave the field. Misa looks at the history of computer science,  gender and computing dynamics,  and the media to answer these questions. 

Women Ruled the Field

Computer science used to be a female dominant field. The Data Processing Management Association had to work to portray computing as a more masculine job because of the amount of women that were initially in the field. Men and women had a 50/50 chance of becoming programmers. The initial measurement for aptitude, IBM’s programmers aptitude test, lacked bias.

The Change

Starting from the mid-1960s a surplus of women flocked into the computing field. Computer science initially attracted many women because it lacked the grease and dirt associated with other traditionally “masculine” jobs. Sex typing and status anxiety helped account for gender-segregated work in data processing. The automation in government and private sectors shifted the female dominated field to a male dominated field. Women became the primary workers in the punch-card industry but when computers replaced these positions women were sent to fill the low-level data-entry positions, effectively stopping them from obtaining higher level computing jobs.

Seen Internationally

In Britain, a similar halt occurred that wasn’t as subtle as giving women low-level positions, they actually forbade women from gaining high advance positions because of gender targeted thing rubrics, which effectively hardened the gender line. While women were struggling with gaining power and position in the workplace they also lacked the support of society.  The field wasn’t being portrayed in their favor.

Hilda Corneliussen versus Aristole Tympas

Hilda Corneliussen used tools of discourse analysis to understand the image of gender and computing. She examined Norway’s newspaper, Aftenposten, to understand how gender and computing was portrayed to the world. Hilde found newspaper reports stressed men’s mastery and competence in using computers, while portraying women as indifferent and lacking mastery and skill.

Aristotle Tympas, then analyzed the Greek journal from the 1980s, Computing for All, to challenge the idea that computing is an exclusively male dominated field. Tympas found that there was no shortage of women, but the image of men and women in computing were complete opposites.Women were shown with their hands on the computer and interacting with the machines while men were shown on the phone or with coffee in their hands, portraying women as office clerks, and men as the ones in charge.

The Shift

Examining the history of “nerd culture” gives us a better understanding of the effect society had on the image of computing. The rise of the “nerd culture” and computing are closely related. The term “nerd” described someone whose life passions was to be excluded from society. They were traditionally seen as weird and strange, no one wanted to associate with nerds. By the 1960s the rise of the word “nerd” went viral and appeared on television, radio and media. The 1970s, the decade of the stereotypes, and the show “Happy Days” popularized the term. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that power and pride of being a nerd rose.

The Takeoff

The 1960s was a time of social, political and cultural change. The media made great social impacts in the 1970s. The image associated with nerds was established in the 1960s as white men, who wore plain shirts, and large glasses. As the image of the nerd rose, the number of women in computing declined. These power and prideful nerds took over the face of computing, effectively pushing women and others that didn’t share their same passion for technology out of the field. The computer nerd that is technology oriented, singularly focused in computers, lack intrapersonal skills, intelligent, and wimpy still are the face of computing. Women combated this movement in the 1990s with the girl gamer movement,where Tomb Raider and Ms.Pacman came out of ( games where there were female lead characters).

Old Images Modern Day Continuation

Shows like the “Big Bang Theory” and current day media continued the image of the nerd as they did 40/50 years ago. “Big Bang Theory” is a show that focuses around Leonard Hofstadter, Sheldon Cooper, Howard Wolowitz, Raj Koothrappali and Penny. The four male main characters are scientists who are portrayed at the typical socially awkward nerds. Penny is portrayed as the typical pretty ditz. Facebook, Inc., came out with stickers that were an addition to emoticons. They release a sticker called “hacker boy”. This hacker boy sticker package is described as, “He is a computer genius who doesn’t always play by the rules.” They didn’t release a “hacker girl” sticker package until a few months afterwards. Men who run the corporations and large businesses are constantly pushing women into the shadows.

Computing in Universities

The image of computing isn’t the sole factor that pushes women out of computing. The computer science curriculum also need an education reform. The standard computer science curriculum was put in place to help men and women of the future become great programmers, yet they have a gender bias towards men. Computer science departments are filled with robots, star trek posters, binary numbers and video games. These things interest a larger majority of men. Statistics studies show that men and women view computing differently.

Carnegie Mellon Making Positive Changes

Carnegie Mellon University has one of the top computer science departments in the country.  They understand the issues in computing and realize that men and women share different interests in computing. Their research shows that women’s passion for computing is on a societal scale, while men’s passion in computing is because they want to figure out how it works. Most computer science curriculum, focus on male interests solely forcing women to want to leave computer science because their male colleagues are extremely passionate about technology and they don’t share the same extreme passion.

Reflection

I initially was afraid of studying computer science because many schools expected prior programming experience and at that point I didn’t have any. Fortunately, my mentors and positive role models were enough for me to be a change to the stereotype. I was inspired to start an after school robotics club for high school girls like me, who had interests in computing but didn’t know where to start.  If I didn’t have a mentor I would have scared myself away from the field based on my own personal research (Google image searches).  I ultimately entered the computing field because I loved problem solving and math and didn’t want the portrayed images to keep me away.

Societal Gender Roles

Societal expectations influence focus on the issue of gender and computing. The difference in societal expectation from men and women start when we are children and continue well into the workplace. From an early age women are taught to not speak unless they are spoken to, be gentle, and don’t be “bossy”.

On the other hand men are taught to be brave, strong and physical. The words “don’t be bossy” are telling little girls of our society, don’t act like a boss. We are pushing them away from leadership positions. Boys who show “bossy” behavior are encouraged with praises, letting them know they will be a leader one day.

Women lack these positive encouragements. These situations don’t disappear; they just carry on into the workplace. We call women “bossy” and we call men “boss”. We say women are being pushy yet a man is being persuasive. While a woman is advancing in her career she is asked, “Don’t you want to get married someday? Is your job more important than your family?” Women with children are asked, “Do your children need you, why are you here at work so late?” Not once is a man asked “Shouldn’t you be home with your kids?”We call these women selfish, but we call their hard working husbands focused. 

What Happens Because of This

It’s no wonder women are dropping out of the work place so rapidly. There’s an evident double standard. Women who take care of their image are “showy-offs” and “vain”, yet men are “neat” and “smooth”. Women lack support and positive mentors. We therefore end up with women who feel guilty for the positive strides they have made in their career. I’m not a middle-aged woman yet, but these things worry me when I think about my future career. Should I have to put off having children because my peers may view me as weak, pushy, bossy and vain?

Universities are Taking Notice

Harvey Mudd College has been able to increase their number on women in computer science at their school from 10% to 40%. Dr. Maria Klawe has been able to increase their numbers in computer science by change the three most important things that kept women away from studying computer science. They identified that high school girls and women don’t want to study computer science because they find it boring, they lack programming skills, and don’t like the computer science image. To combat this Harvey Mudd made an introductory course to computer science that uses an easier programming language and applies programming problems to practical fields within engineering, promotes teamwork, and provides classes that help women without prior programming experience, and bringing first year students to the Grace Hopper Conference to show that their a hundreds of women in technology that share the same passion as they do!

Change

Having awareness about the issues in computing is only the first step. By highlighting successful women in computing and identifying some of the issues that keep women away from computing and combating these issues,  we can work toward positive change. Increasing and retaining the number of women in computing is a threefold process. We must change the image of computing to more accurately portray the members within the field, make reforms in educations to attract both men and women and stop treating women differently than men when they are making the same decisions and actions. Computing was an open community that accepted both genders. We need to make reforms to return it to that state.

A Better Future

My hope is when you do a Google images search for “nerd” in 2028 you won’t find hundreds of images of a white male, in suspenders, a white polo, large glasses, with a comb over and a pocket protector glued to a computer. It is these images that scare so many women away from the field. No one wants to willingly admit that they associate with these people because they aren’t “cool”.