Women in computing

Issues regarding women in computing
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.

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] Below is a graph showing the number of Bachelor of Computer Science degree acquired across United States by gender between 1980 to 1996:

Research has shown that many misperceptions about computing persist and may discourage women.[1] One of the biggest misperceptions of computing is the "geek factor". Students from high school think that computer scientists sit in cubicles and write code all day. The "geek factor" affects both male and female high school students, but it seems to have more negative effect on the female students.[3] It is important to study the force driving women away from the field of computer science because these factors might eventually drive men away.[4]

Professor Palma from Gonzaga University believes that we can attract girls into the study of computer science by making it more like mathematics.[5] He suggests five ways to improve the attraction of computer science to girls:


Teach any girl with an aptitude for symbol manipulation how to program.
When teaching girls how to program, keep things as close to pure logic as possible. Minimize reliance on other clumsy software packages, fancy graphical interface, and powerful IDEs.
Teach computing without microcomputers. Microcomputers tends to attract tinkering boys more than girls.
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.
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.


[edit] Gender theory and women in computing
A recent 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"[7].


[edit] Famous women in computing
1842: Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), analyst of Charles Babbage's analytical engine and described as the "first computer programmer"
1942: Hedy Lamarr (1913-2000), Hollywood diva and co-inventor of an early form of spread-spectrum broadcasting
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).
1968: Barbara H. Liskov (1939-), first American female Doctorate of Computer Science (1968)
1972: Karen Spärck Jones (1935-2007), pioneer of information retrieval and natural language processing
1983: Adele Goldberg (1945-), one of the designers and developers of the Smalltalk language
~1985:Irma Wyman (~1927-), first Honeywell CIO
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
1994: Sally Floyd (~1953-), most renowned for her work on Transmission Control Protocol
1997: Anita Borg (1949-2003), the founding director of the Institute for Women and Technology (IWT)
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
BCSWomen, a women-only Specialist Group of the British Computer Society
Computing Research Association Committee on the Status of Women in Computing research
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