The computer science world was anything but welcoming to Maribel Gonzalez.
After a harrowing first year, she quit the computer science program at the University of California at Los Angeles. Until that point -- six years ago -- Gonzalez had excelled at mathematics and had looked forward to a computer-centric career. But at UCLA, she felt overwhelmed by the programming experience of her mostly male peers. With no programming classes under her belt, the "sink or swim"-style courses, she said, did not suit her.
"I never worked so hard to get Cs," recalls Gonzalez, now a public-school teacher in New York. "It was a blow to my ego, and it scared me."
Gonzalez' tale is at the centre of a trend that is disheartening to many.
Data from the American National Science Foundation shows that the female share of bachelor's degrees in computer science from American colleges dropped from 37 percent in 1985 to 28 percent in 2001. And while women comprised 33 percent of information technology professionals in America in 1990, that figure was down to 26 percent in 2002, according to NSF. The drop is puzzling in part because women are making progress in related areas such as the natural sciences.
On the other hand, some efforts to bring women back to computing appear to be paying off. That's seen as vital for reasons including fuelling the world's tech economy and preventing male bias in the way future technology is developed. "Any sort of monoculture is bad," said Radia Perlman, a researcher at Sun Laboratories. "You need people that can think from a different angle."
Harvard president ignites controversy
Spurred by the furore over recent remarks by Harvard University President Lawrence Summers, the topic of the declining participation of women in IT is now prominent among concerns about the future of high technology in the United States.
At a conference late last month, Summers suggested that innate differences between the genders could help explain why fewer women succeed in science and math careers.
Although he eventually offered a public apology, Summers touched a nerve and sparked a protest letter.
A growing body of research suggests that there are real differences between the brains of men and women.
But a number of scholars reject the idea that women are biologically less apt to succeed in the computer science field. They point instead to factors such as the stereotype of computer jockeying as a geeky, male profession. The long hours often required with computing jobs also may deter women who wish to raise children.
Cornelia Brunner, associate director of the Centre for Children & Technology, argues that a societal swing toward conservative values over the past few decades has helped frame technology in masculine terms -- as a powerful "magic wand," she said, rather than a tool that could help or hurt society.
"In a very, very deep way, it turns women off," Brunner said. "It puts the machine at the centre, rather than its capabilities."
Talkback
Well the woman who said monoculture is bad in IT was wrong. From 1978-1998 IT (at least desktop PCs) was a 95% white American male industry. And it was flying high then. Now that we have fragmented it, split it up, thrown in every other culture and race from the world, there has been no innovation in the past 7 years. Except for Apple - which is still a relatively white-male dominated company. There is a reason for that. It's not racism. There are just some things that some cultures are better at than others. Japanese and Germans are great at making cars. Swiss are great skiers. Bralizians are great soccer players. It's not racist or gender-biased to say so. The fact is *good* software (not just any software) is the sole realm of the white American male. People trying to force square pegs into round holes will not make it otherwise.
"Anonymous" of San Jose. WHat a posting. You expose yourself as a perfect racsist/assmuption driven discriminator. You obviously don't work for a company that runs "Valuing Diversity" courses. It is sad that your attitude is very typical of the one I have seen evidenced against females, again and again and again, in the UK, both in academia and in industry. Men do not handle the threat of a technically competent female very well at all. The upstart female has to be slapped down (metaphorically) and shown that technically incompetent, lack-lustre and non-productive men must always hold the positions of authority. Superior work turned in by a female will be stolen and the ensuing credit apportioned to non-functioning men also onthe team. Will it ever change? Well, I've been waiting for the last 10 years, and it hasn't yet.
You're both talking garbage.
The first post despite its denials is undoubtedly racist and sexist. And the second post is just as bad. "Women's work is stolen by men who then take the credit for it". Oh please! This anti-male rubbish is no different froom the anti-female rubbish of the first post.
What's wrong with the simple idea that men and women are different? Or that some professions attract more women, (infant teachers, midwifes, etc.) and that some jobs attract more men, (computing).
It's not absolute, it's not based on ability as both are equally able, it's just down to inclination.
There's nothing wrong with looking at how IT can be made more attractive to women - it might make it more attractive for men as well. Just as long as there's no discrimination involved. (There is nothing "positive" about discrimination).
What I read is a gross over-simplification. For instance, Germans are known deservedly as the greatest producer of music software. The fact that the original German companies who produced such great software as Logic Audio or Cubase have been bought by US, Japan or Singapore based companies does not diminish their merit. The same could be said of hundreds of good software products which haven't been created by Americans and which Americans use without knowing they are not American-made.
Scientific, Technical and related commerical fields have a rigor that often quickly exposes inadequate, 2nd rate or inappropriate (all be it good) solutions . Regardless of the gender or race of those contributing. I have often found technical females lacking, other companies solutions lacking and work from my colluges lacking. I have often found my own skills and abilities lacking in comparison to others. My experience is that 90% of people could'nt write adequate software with the current tools and 90 % of those writing software could do a better job but wont for one reason or another.
In technical fields we have to resist the temptation to put eachother on the scrapheap just because the goalposts have moved in terms of skillsets and in vogue technologies.
New ways of doing things and a different viewpoint are always needed but will mostly never make any money or even see the light of day regardless of who is innovating.
However commercial reality is that for lots of companies unless you deliver regardless of the difficulties you are of little use to that company and will start to feel the cold shoulder . Also whats wrong with realisng that you are in the wrong job !!! Better sooner than later. Square peg round hole?
Forgive the spelling - inadequate techie
I think its more to do with the loner/geek personality that has dominated IT. Sitting in your bedroom alone for hours learning to program or build your own pcs is unlikely to appeal to the young female. Computers are more likely viewd as a tool to be used not an end in themselves.
No doubt car mechanics and engineering suffer the same male bias as I.T.
For tech courses to work for females they are going to have to allow for those who are intellectually capable but lack the hands on experience.
In answer to Ian Lincoln, I think that's totally it! I am a female computer tech working in a job doing long distance techsupport either by phone or over the 'net for clients all over the US, Canada, Hawaii, Britain, India, and even a couple clients in Russia and Saudi Arabia. The company I work for has spared many people from having to unhook their pc to take it into a local shop for many reasons. AND, we're based in Canada, not some offshore location that can't speak English very well inspite of potentially having a very sharp technical understanding.
However, when I was taking my A+ practicum several years ago, another young lady came into the shop I was working in, having freshly completed her MCSE at a university in Nova Scotia, where she had little to no hands-on training, it was almost entirely theory. She spent two weeks with us before realizing she couldn't stand the job. I felt so sorry for her.
By personality, I think I'm a tomboy! "How does it work, why does it do that, what if I do this?" are questions I've always asked, and sought to answer, and that before becoming a tech, meant alot of calls to techsupport because of breaking things on the computer trying to answer those questions years ago.
I'm also a loner. Sitting in front of my computer doing webwork or fixing issues for other people can cause me to lose all track of time, and my kids have to remind me on occasion that its time to cook dinner, or that I forgot about their bedtime routine. Fortunately their old enough now to handle some of that for themselves.
But yes it does take a certain mindset to become a geek of any stripe, whether its programming, webdesign, techsupport, systems management, security management, whatever the job title might be. If I had more time, I would be brushing up my programming skills and going into programming contracts. But I don't have that time available.
If a woman has the right mindset, she'll go far in this industry.