Email : belinda@ladygeek.org.uk
Nov
Female Flight from Computer Science?
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The New York Times reported this week that the number of women studying computer sciences has fallen. 28% of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women in 2001. However by 2004-5 women only gained 22% of the degrees. This number is even lower at elite institutions like the MIT where only 12% of the degrees go to women. And according to this article, many computer science departments now report that women make up 10% of the newest entrants. This is in stark contrast to 25 years ago when – as the author claims – women made up up to 50% of computing classes.
Interestingly enough the article quotes figures stating the number of women in science and engineering has increased to 51% in 2004-5 up from 39% in 1984-85. Why is it that the numbers of women in science and engineering are rising while those in computing are not?
I found this very surprising because computing has changed significantly in recent years. Particularly the advent of Web 2.0 seems to attract more women to the internet in general and to working on Web 2.0 technologies in particular. The Fast Company magazine was celebrating women in Web 2.0 just this week.
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However Web 2.0 might have little to do with what computer science is all about. The number of female web designers is sizeable but web design is by most tech specialists not seen as real programming and – as the article points out – it pays much less than software engineering.
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Reasons for the lack of women in computing have been discussed widely. It includes that computers are seen as toys for boys, the constant questioning of women’s ability to engage with technology and the geeky and nerdy image of computing – to name but few. With more women using technology to get things done and technology becoming more intuitive and humane, one could have thought that the image of computing is changing.
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Maybe women are voting with their feet against the way computing is portrayed and taught and instead chose to engage with technology on their own terms. Like with technology design, women might want different computing courses or a different marketing of computer courses. It might be time to explore why computing was a more interesting choice for women 25 years ago than it is today despite of the fact that computing is now omnipresent.
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Very interesting article! I definitely agree with the negative connotations of the words ‘nerd’ or ‘geek’ (which I vaguely touched on in my blog today) but I find the comparison to 25 years ago exaggerating a potentially non-existent point. Only one very specific course at that one university had a 40% female enrollment – in the paragraph above, there’s mention of hitting 4% elsewhere. There’s no explanation behind the 4% figure, but I’m more likely to believe that that’s what the norm was across the country…
I was also surprised by the claim that 25 years ago there were more women in IT. Then again we know that early computer programmers were women (such as the ‘ENIAC girls’) because hardware was seen as the real deal while software was seen as something women do. Just shows how socially constructed technology connotations are. You might also interested in the post on the Nerdette a while ago.
Good point, after all the very first ‘computers’ were women, weren’t they? Sorry – what is the Nerdette?
You are completly right about the ‘computers’
Take a look at the Nerdette post
http://ladygeek.org.uk/?s=nerdette
In last decade that I work as a programmer (and a women) had shown me a lot. I wasn’t raised in this country, so one thing is I wasn’t stigmatized, that science is too hard for a girl, that many US girls are labeled with. My current ratio in my department is 1 to 17 (5.8%). Two things that makes it more difficult for women in tech: (1) luck of time and (2) luck of testosterone. (1) We, women, don’t have “a wife†to pick up the kid from day care, cook dinner and check homework, we are the ones doing it. Guys on the other hand (most of them in my experience) have sit-at home wife, or if young, have no life, so in extremely competitive world, they have a benefit of “extra-time†and more opportunity to pull-all-nighter when needed. (2) I’m sure it’s sounds funny that women luck testosterone needed for CS job, but reality is often you have to argue your point, your design, your solution, you time estimates with lots of other “big-loud†guys with huge egos, and bull-dog grip. Unless you have an attitude to deal with it, you end up not being heard or recognized. But the last one can also be a benefit of being a women, because using our intuition, we can know what fight is about to break out in which meeting and mitigate the solution that will lead the best results, but without creating confrontation and yielding to all parties feel that they have won something. The only problem with last approach, is often you are respected but not recognized for it. And if you are intimidated by bunch of guys literally yelling at each other in email/meeting/etc and then going out drinking together, if you cannot handle that on every-day basis, dev-job is not for you. And as you can see it has NOTHING to do with your actual abilities or being discriminated against, but if you let this “boys-will-be-boys†attitude get to you, time to change careers (or at least jobs).