Women in computing

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Ada Lovelace, considered to be the first computer programmer.

The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page.

This article contains weasel words, vague phrasing that often accompanies biased or unverifiable information. Such statements should be clarified or removed. (August 2009)

Fewer women than men have sought Bachelor of Computer Science degrees across United States (1980 – 1996).

Global concerns about current and future roles of women in computing occupations gained more importance with the emerging information age. These concerns motivated public policy debates addressing gender equality as computer applications exerted increasing influence in society. This dialog helped to expand information technology innovations and to reduce the unintended consequences of perceived sexism.

[edit] Overview

In the United States, the number of women represented in engineering and information technology peaked in the late 1980s. Since then, the percentage of women in the computing profession declined from 35.2% in 1990 to 28.4% in 2000.^[1] Particularly in computer science, there has been a dramatic drop in women earning bachelor's degrees. A report from the Computing Research Association indicated that the number recently fell below 20%, from nearly 40% in the mid 80s.^[2] A similar situation is observed in Canada, where the declination of women in computer science is apparent.

Research has shown that many misconceptions about computing persist and may discourage women.^[1] One of the biggest misconceptions of computing is the "geek factor". There's avid belief amidst high school students that Computer Scientists sit in a cubicle writing code for the duration of their workday^{[citation needed]}. The "geek factor" affects both male and female high school students, but it seems to have more of a negative effect on the female students.^[3]

Professor De Palma from Gonzaga University believes that more girls can be attracted into the study of computer science by making it more like mathematics.^[4] He suggests five ways to improve the attraction of computer science to girls:

1. Teach any girl with an aptitude for symbol manipulation how to program.
2. When teaching girls how to program, keep things as close to pure logic as possible. Minimize reliance on other clumsy software packages, fancy graphical interfaces, and powerful IDEs.
3. Teach computing without microcomputers. Microcomputers tend to attract tinkering boys more than girls.
4. Keep the length of programming assignments as short as possible, at least in the early stages. One aspect of the mathematics discipline is that assignment problems are hard enough to make a person think for a while, but are not hard enough to get them frustrated and lose interest in the problem.
5. Treat a programming language as the notational system and avoid adopting new languages.

[edit] Attracting women into computer science

Universities across North America are changing their computer science programs to make them more appealing to women. Companies like IBM also encourage young women to become interested in engineering, technology and science. IBM offers EX.I.T.E. (EXploring Interests in Technology and Engineering) camps for young women from the ages of 11 to 13.

In the United Kingdom, the British Computer Society (BCS) and other organisations have groups which promote the cause of women in computing, such as BCSWomen, founded by Sue Black, and the BCS Women's Forum.

[edit] Gender theory and women in computing

A 2008 book titled Gender and Information Technology: Moving Beyond Access to Co-Create Global Partnership uses Riane Eisler's cultural transformation theory to offer an interdisciplinary, social systems perspective on issues of access to technology.^[5](Eisler is best known for her international best seller The Chalice and the Blade Our History, Our Future). Gender and Information Technology explores how shifting from dominator towards partnership systems—as reflected in four primary social institutions (communication, media, education, and business)--might help us move beyond the simplistic notion of access to co-create a real digital revolution worldwide.^[5]

A 2000 book titled Athena Unbound ^[6] provides a life-course analysis (based on interviews and surveys) of women in the sciences from an early childhood interest, through university, to graduate school and finally into the academic workplace. The thesis of this book is that "women face a special series of gender related barriers to entry and success in scientific careers that persist, despite recent advances".^[6]

[edit] International perspective

The western countries seem to have a consensus regarding women in computing and exhibit very similar numbers.

A survey, conducted by SWIFT ("Supporting Women in Information Technology") based out of Vancouver, Canada, yields interesting results as well. The survey had 7,411 participants whom were asked questions underlying their career choices. Females tend to believe that they lack the skill set needed to be successful in the field of Computing. This provides a strong base for a positive correlation between perceived ability and career choice^[7].

A project based out of Edinburgh, Scotland, "Strategies of Inclusion: Gender and the Information Society" (SIGIS)^[8] released its findings based on research conducted in 48 separate case studies all over Europe. The findings focus on recruiting as well as retention techniques for women already studying in the field. These techniques range from the introduction of role models and pre-visiting institutions to advertisement campaigns and allocation quotas which will make the Computing field appear more gender neutral^[9]. Educating reforms which will increase the quality of the educating body and technological facilities are also suggested ^[9]. A brief overview of reasons to close the gender gap in the Computing industry includes^[9]:

1. Justice Argument - women lacking opportunities to influence society through an ever-growing technological medium
2. Equal Opportunity Argument - missing out on rights and benefits offered by the ICT
3. Resource Argument - social losses that accrue due to women's talents and experiences not being used
4. Labour Market Argument - explores the possibility of women's future role as a supplier of educated labour.

The situation in Asian countries differs greatly. Research suggests that Malaysia has a much more equal split that varies around the half-way mark.^[10] It is suggested that this may be due to the fact that Malaysian women view careers in IT as a means of employment rather than a status symbol. A job in the Computing industry also implies a safe work environment. Strong belief by the previous generation that IT will be a flourishing sector with many job opportunities caused parents to entice their children to partake in a Computing career, no matter the gender ^[10].

In India,the case is just the opposite to that in the western countries. There is a great demand for computer science, but not enough reputed colleges which offer quality education ( this is changing, however) Since the IT industry has been responsible for large-scale employment, there is a higher rate of women taking up education and careers in engineering, especially computer engineering. Computer engineering is a relatively clean field in the sense that it does not involve careers in factories. Most careers are in programming, which can be easily done from home too. Computer science graduates from prestigious universities are also highly respected. Parents also significantly affect choices as they overwhelmingly promote a career in computer engineering. Even then, competition is extremely tough, and the few women who do get into top colleges are highly respected.

[edit] Timeline of women in computing

• 1842: Ada Lovelace (1815–1852), analyst of Charles Babbage's analytical engine and described as the "first computer programmer"^[11]
• 1942: Hedy Lamarr (1913–2000), Hollywood diva and co-inventor of an early form of spread-spectrum broadcasting
• 1943: WREN Colossus operators, during WW2 at Bletchley Park
• 1946: Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Fran Bilas, Kay McNulty, Marlyn Wescoff, and Ruth Lichterman, original programmers of the ENIAC
• 1949: Grace Hopper (1906–1992), first programmer for the Mark I Calculator, known as the "Mother of COBOL"
• 1962: Jean E. Sammet (1928-), mathematician and computer scientist; developed FORMAC programming language. Was the first to write extensively about history and categorisation of programming languages (1969).
• 1965: Mary Allen Wilkes computer programmer; First person to use a computer in a private home and the first developer of an operating system (LAP) for the first minicomputer (LINC)
• 1968: Barbara H. Liskov (1939-), first American female Doctorate of Computer Science (1968), winner of the Turing prize 2009
• 1972: Karen Spärck Jones (1935–2007), pioneer of information retrieval and natural language processing
• 1979: Carol Shaw (?), game designer and programmer for Atari Corp. and Activision
• 1983: Adele Goldberg (1945-), one of the designers and developers of the Smalltalk language
• 1984: Roberta Williams (1953-), pioneering work in graphical adventure games for personal computers, particularly the King's Quest series.
• 1984: Susan Kare (1954-), created the icons and many of the interface elements for the original Apple Macintosh in the 1980s, was an original employee of NeXT, working as the Creative Director.
• 1985: Radia Perlman (1951-), invented the Spanning Tree Protocol. Has done extensive and innovative research, particularly on encryption and networking. USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award 2007, among numerous others.
• 1985: Irma Wyman (~1927-), first Honeywell CIO
• 1986: Hannah Smith "Girlie tipster" for CRASH (magazine)
• 1988: Eva Tardos (1957-), recipient of the Fulkerson Prize for her research on design and analysis of algorithms
• 1993: Shafi Goldwasser (1958-), theoretical computer scientist, two-time recipient of the Gödel Prize for research on complexity theory, cryptography and computational number theory, and the invention of zero-knowledge proofs
• 1993: Barbara Liskov together with Jeannette Wing develops the Liskov substitution principle
• 1994: Sally Floyd (~1953-), most renowned for her work on Transmission Control Protocol
• 1996: Xiaoyuan Tu (1967-), first female recipient of the ACM's Doctoral Dissertation Award.^[12]
• 1997: Anita Borg (1949–2003), the founding director of the Institute for Women and Technology (IWT)
• 2004: Jeri Ellsworth (1974-), self-taught computer chip designer and creator of the C64 Direct-to-TV
• 2005: Mary Lou Jepsen (1965-), Founder and chief technology officer of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)
• 2006: Frances E. Allen (1932-), first female recipient of the ACM's Turing Award

[edit] Organizations for women in computing

• Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Committee on Women
• Association for Women in Computing
• AWISE - Australian Women in IT and Science entity
• APC WNSP - Association for Progressive Communications, Women's Networking Support Programme
• BCSWomen, a women-only Specialist Group of the British Computer Society
• CPSR Women in Computing
• Computing Research Association Committee on the Status of Women in Computing research
• Debian Women
• IEEE Women in Engineering (WIE)
• Feminist Approach to Technology
• LinuxChix, a women-oriented community in the open source movement
• DevChix, group for female developers/programmers
• National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT), USA
• Girl Geek Dinners - an International group for women of all ages

[edit] See also

• Women in science
• Women, girls and information technology
• Women in the Information Age

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Invisible Women of Science and Technology By Susmita Barua
• The Book List: Computer Science Books by Women Computer Scientists compiled by Susan Landau
• Homeward Bound By Linda Hirshman
• IBM EX.I.T.E Camp
• Galpin, Vashti (2002). "Women in computing around the world". ACM SIGCSE Bulletin 34 (2): 94--100. doi:10.1145/543812.543839. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/543812.543839. 

Women in Information Technology

• Doing "IT" Around the World - Aug 11th, profiled the lives and technology loves of 36 women across the globe, discovering what they do, how they contribute to our world and their shared passion for Innovation Technology.
• Doing "IT" Around the World Albums - See women from all over the world in the IT field in this global album presentation brought to you by: "Thoughtware Australia"