Gender and Technology

Elaine RichDept. of Computer Sciences

Males and Females are Different• The Women’s Health Initiative

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/whi/whywhi.htm

• Games and entertainment

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/games/learnmore/womeningames.mspx

• Communication styleshttp://www.cs.utexas.edu/~ear/JustTannenPart.ppt

Is Inequity a Problem?

• Women buy more jewelry than men do. Is this a problem?

No, but it is for computing• The consumer perspective: Do women

reap equal benefits from technology?

• The good jobs perspective

• The pipeline effect on our economy perspective. Is global competitiveness at stake?

The Consumer Perspective

• Are women taught to use computing?

• Is technology marketed to women?

• Is technology designed for women?

Teaching Computing to Girls

• 16% of students who take the AP CS exam are girls.

• The learning environment is key. http://www.ao.uiuc.edu/ijet/v1n1/bain/index.html

• And all-girls robotics clubs are taking off.

Advertising

• http://www.utpjournals.com/jour.ihtml?lp=simile/issue21/johnson1.html

Technology AdvertisingTime for Casio to Grow Up DisGraceful Award for March 13, 2001 ad.

Software Advertising

October 2002 GraceNet Award scooped by Peter deLevett, reporter for the San Jose Mercury News.

Gender-Matched Software

• Gender neutral looks a lot like the male version

• Stress at using “other” software increases in public settings

• Correlated with expectations of success vs. failure

See Huff paper

The Jobs Perspective

From Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment change 2004-2014 (in 1000s) %

Home health aides 350 56 Network systems and data communications analysts 126 55 Medical assistants 202 52 Physician assistants 31 50 Computer software engineers, applications 222 48 Physical therapist assistants 26 44 Dental hygienists 68 43 Computer software engineers, systems software 146 43Dental assistants 114 43Personal and home care aides 287 41Network and computer systems administrators 107 38Database administrators 40 38Physical therapists 57 37Forensic science technicians 4 36

The Jobs Perspective

Veterinary technologists and technicians 21 35Diagnostic medical sonographers 15 35Physical therapist aides 15 34Occupational therapist assistants 7 34Medical scientists, except epidemiologists 25 34Occupational therapists 31 34Preschool teachers, except special education 143 33 Cardiovascular technologists and technicians 15 33Postsecondary teachers 524 32Hydrologists 3 32Computer systems analysts 153 31Hazardous materials removal workers 12 31Biomedical engineers 3 31Employment, recruitment, and placement specialists 55 30Environmental engineers 15 30Paralegals and legal assistants 67 30

Who Will Fill Those Jobs?

• Either we will.

• Or someone else will.

Who Designs and Builds Computer Technology?

• Attracting students to study it

• Retaining students

• Career paths

A Bit of History1945 ENIAC The first electronic digital computer

The Early Programmers

• The women of the Eniac

• Grace Murray Hopper

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, USNR, (1906-1992)

The first compiler

The “high-level” programming language Cobol

A computer “bug” http://www.jamesshuggins.com/h/tek1/first_computer_bug_large.htm

Some Trends

• Women studying CS in the US peaked in about 1983. The number has declined since then, while other measures of women’s academic achievements have increased.

The Rest of the World

Country % women YearBotswana 10 1998Nigeria 31 1997South Africa 32 1998India 20 2002Iran 41 1999Malaysia 51 1991Germany 10 2000Iceland 24 2000Spain 25 1998Mexico 39 1999

Why Have the US Numbers Gone Down?

• Games attract boys: The Turing Scholars evidence.

• High school students think they know what computing is about (and who is supposed to do it).– It’s solitary.– It doesn’t benefit society.– It’s for boys.– It’s for geeks.

• Not cool.• Don’t have other interests.

• The self-confidence factor.

Women Students – the CMU Story• In 1995 - entering class in CS: 7% women• In 2000 - entering class in CS: 42% women

• Studies in the 90s: Women reported feeling isolated, intimidated• Studies circa 2005: Many fewer differences between women and

men.

• Why?– Women no longer an extreme minority– Recruiting changed to emphasize talent rather than prior

programming experience.

See:– Unlocking the Clubhouse– Blum and Frieze paper

Women Students - the UT Story

• First Bytes

• Women in Turing Scholars

• But today only 12% of our undergraduate students are women.

Career Paths

• Books and specializations

• ACM programming languages study

What’s Your Specialization?Authors in a Sample from the P-H CS List 2006

Men Women %Men %Women

Ethics 3 4 42.9% 57.1%

Multimedia and Web Design 17 14 54.8% 45.2%

Intro to CS 12 9 57.1% 42.9%

Human Computer Interaction 20 9 69.0% 31.0%

Software Engineering 20 5 80.0% 20.0%

Artificial Intelligence 23 3 88.5% 11.5%

Game Programming 27 3 90.0% 10.0%

Graphics and Image Processing 10 1 90.9% 9.1%

Operating Systems 23 2 92.0% 8.0%

Networking 28 2 93.3% 6.7%

Theory 28 1 96.6% 3.4%

Compilers 9 0 100.0% 0.0%

Computer Architecture 40 0 100.0% 0.0%

What Programming Languages Do You Know?

• A survey conducted between June, 2000 and April, 2001. (CACM 47:1, Jan. 2004)

• 83% of respondents were male.• Average number of programming languages was

3.25 (males), 2.53 (females).• For people with < 1 year experience, average

number was 2.38 (males) 2.03 (females).• For workers over 40, average number was 2.92

(males) 2.23 (females).

What Programming Languages Do You Know?

All workers.

What Programming Languages Do You Know?

Workers with < 1 year experience.

And Now Add Ethnic Diversity

• The numbers are so small that statistics tell us little.

See the short note by Valerie Taylor

Summary

• Computing needs women.• Women need computing.• There is no evidence that women aren’t

good at it.• There is no compelling evidence that

many of them couldn’t be fascinated by it.• There are steps we can take to turn the

tide, particularly with girls before they enter college.