Christmas vacations are over but school has not started yet. I am finding myself in this buffer green zone between break and term, which looks peaceful on the calendar description but is actually brewing with activity. And this is my excuse for why I am late with this post, in case anyone cares for excuses. The actual reason is that, this past week, I found myself at a loss for words (I actually surprise myself as I write this sentence, but it is true) but today I had the same discussion twice (the second time on Facebook with Wendy Powley, Stephen Perelgut and Bill Lomax – thank you al for your thoughtful comments!) and then my colleague Heather Zwicker, one of the editrixes of the amazing Hook & Eye feminist/academic blog, suggested that I talk about the issue and then my words came to me! So here I go, pondering three questions:
- Why are there so few women in Computing Science?
- Should we do something about it?
- If so, what?
It seems to me that the fundamental reason why there are few women in CS is because our society still (and always) has a gender-specific value system. I recently saw Sheryl Sandberg’s TED talk and her point (and I am oversimplifying but not fundamentally distorting her point here) that “successful women are not likable” made a strong impression to me, and it certainly rings true. And I think that the problem is more general than “women leaders are not likable”; it is more that “women in non-female positions are not likable”! The crux of it is that society expects women to be in either “nurturing” or “sexy” or “ethereal muse” roles, and appreciates and validates them when they succeed in such roles; on the flip side, society validates and rewards men in “builder/provider/protector” roles. This (sort of) explains why natural sciences, in general, do not suffer as much from lack of women as computer science: women mathematicians or physicists or chemists pursue an “understanding” task; computer science, a discipline close to engineering, involves the “construction” of things and is much more nitty/gritty than natural sciences; as a result computer science, like engineering, repulses women much more.
As human beings, we all are taught our natural roles early on they become our “default” paths. All human beings need to be fulfilled at a personal level, and work is a means to this end; when work causes alienation at a personal level, it ends up being counterproductive as a means of personal fulfillment. Young women run the risk of being perceived as “not female enough” if they assume the “geek” persona and this is too high a cost in the junior-high, high-school world. And later, once they are in the business, they have to weigh the costs of “not having a peer group in the workplace” or “being invisible” or “being too visible” against the satisfaction they get from their job successes. And as the demands of natural roles increase – children come and need breastfeeding and driving to extracurricular activities, the potential rewards from the natural roles also increase and overcome the professional fulfillment. It takes an accident or substantial energy or a different temperament to become an exception; it takes an inspiring teacher, the sense of a calling, the need to make money, or a lack of sensitivity to one’s culture:-)
So, should we do something about it? Yes we should! We should allow and encourage people to maximize their happiness by supporting them in matching their intellectual talents to their profession and nurturing their families, in a gender-blind manner. If our society ever learns to value contribution in a gender-neutral way, women will explore all their options and will objectively choose their profession based on their potential success in it; and professional success that does not cost their personal and family lives will become truly fulfilling and women will be less likely to drop out; and men will be able to equally contribute to parenting without fear that they will be seeing as irresponsible and failed providers. And getting down to a more practical level, technical jobs are among the most well paying ones today; guiding women away from these professions is an effective means of subjugating them, which is not fair! And I know that life is not fair, but we are talking here about “what should be” and life should be fair!
What should we do then? Here is where I run out of steam, but that’s not a problem really because it is all the usual things (and everything else we can come up with):
- reach out to women and introduce computer-science with non-geeky examples, blending natural roles and technology (this is why many schools report successes with interdisciplinary CS programs like bioinformatics);
- teach CS in segregated class, so that women can ignore their role-specific mandates while in class (some segregated programs exist and report success)
- establish gender-aware recruitment policies (so that diversity becomes part of the recruitment objectives)
- help women not to drop out, with mentoring
So that’s where I stand on the issue… and you?
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I find the distinction here between “understanding” and “constructing” really interesting. I’d never thought of it this way before. To bring the terms over to my humanities discipline, I’d map it onto studying literature vs writing. And then I stumble a little, because women are great at writing, and get rewarded for doing it: just think about the best known Canadian writers, for instance. Is there a cultural issue within CS too? Or an issue with the conditions of CS related jobs (to the extent that you can generalize about jobs)? I don’t know the answers either but appreciate the opportunity to think about all this stuff.
I am not sure how the distinction between understanding and constructing would translate across the border Heather… Running the danger to go off the deep end here, I have thought in the past that men may want to keep the “engineering/construction” role for themselves since women already have absolute ownership of the “baby construction” business, and as mortals we all want to leave something behind.
Excellent blog post, Eleni. I felt the same watching that video. I had a family “friend” once refer to me as “non-nurturing” because of my career even though I treasure my mommy role and feel the bond of motherhood and nurturing my children stronger than any other force in my life. That comment hurt more than many others I’ve received.
I agree that there is the risk of being seen as unfeminine when women do well in fields dominated by men. I felt it most in high school. The opposite also happens to men who choose careers dominated by women.
In university and in my career, I gravitated towards male colleagues who respect intelligence and technical skill in women. They exist and are wonderful to work with.
I’m not a big fan of segregated classrooms in general but don’t have brilliant solutions to replace that one. The strategies I learned in high school and university about working with others different from myself (eg, men) I’ve taken with me throughout my career and my life.
I have had similar experiences in my life, where people who actually knew me quite well doubted my ability to be “nurturing”, and I know I have internalized it to a great extent:-) Now, I realize that my lab is “different” and I start to see how and why.
(this is a CASCON after-hours discussion; let’s table it for next year:-)
I’m going to wade in very carefully since I am “gender challenged” in this dialog…
First, I think that computing has, historically, been about creating and, worse, creating mathy-stuff using mathy-stuff. I don’t believe that this has to be true any more. I think that most of the need in computing these days has shifted to applications.
I have a strong belief in fundamentals but, that said, I’m not fanatical and if we can shift the gender balance back from 8-to-1 and more towards 2-to-1 (with the hope of getting it 1-to-1 some day), then I don’t care if we avoid whatever topics are turning off one gender in favour of another.
Of course, there are still other things that affect the ratios. Over the years (and from the top of my head), we’ve discussed:
– a lack of role models
– overcoming the bad reputation (sliding pizza under the cubicle at 3am)
– the attitude that you have to be in a lab at 3am or you aren’t trying
– the notion that you have to teach recursion with Fibonacci sequences
– the demonstrably wrong impression that all the good jobs are going to India
As for stay-at-home vs career moms… I’m not sure how computing is any different than bricklaying or nursing and I’m certainly not wading into *that* discussion!!!
Thank you Stephen (and you shouldn’t be afraid to wade…
I agree about the shift to “applications” being a good thing for gender balance, since women can discover(hide) computing through(under) a more “female appropriate” domain area. In fact, I see my own interest in services science (where computing is playing the role of infrastructure and glue for processes delivering services) as an expression of this shift also.
First of all, I need to give my wife, Katherine Lomax, a plug. After watching the video, Sheryl Sandberg’s TED talk, I want to point out that she is a success in her right, she has been an industry leader and was named one of Edmonton’s Top 40 under 40 (http://www.scribd.com/doc/40292390/2010-Edmonton-Top-40-Under-40) It boils down to hard work and passion for what you believe in.
I will post what I said on FB and then add more…
“Girls don’t like the appearance of being a “geek”, boys, well, they don’t care at all. Unfortunately in HS, appearance plays an important part of one’s self-esteem.”
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, no, not Steve Jobs, but actual jobs that are relevant to the student need to be presented to them, male or female. Relevance, how do we determine relevance, we ask. If you have a class of all girls learning IT/CS, ask them why they took the course, ask them what they want to be/do in the future. Than show them relevant jobs that are aligned with IT/CS.
I personally think that the majority of women are nurturers. Majority of elementary teachers are female, majority of nurses are female, two occupations where nurturing is required, ooops forgot one, being a MOM!
If female students say they want to be a “PLACE NUTURING JOB HERE”, show them “other” jobs that are directly related to and relevant that are aligned with the IT/CS skills that they are currently learning. Show them how these “other” jobs with these IT/CS skills can make a difference, show them how much money they could possibly make.
Example: I want to be an obstetrics nurse/doctor. Now show them that various technologies that are relevant to this field. One that comes to mind is the new sonograph machines. I know we didn’t have the option to get a 3D image of our babies. Explain the technology behind these machines and how it has changed over the years.
My 2 cents.
And here is a story on how women academics in science cannot manage tenure and family – http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/keeping-women-in-science-on-a-tenure-track/