Communications of the ACM
What Happened to All the Women in Computer Science?
The low numbers of female computer science majors may have roots in the mid-1980s and the rise of personal computers.
Credit: Roger Ressmeyer/CORBIS
Ada Lovelace is recognized as the first computer programmer, due to her work with mathematician Charles Babbage and his clockwork calculating machine. Other women also were programming pioneers, but today computer science is overwhelmingly a male domain, and the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics says women accounted for just 18 percent of undergraduate computer science majors in 2010-2011. The figure was at 37 percent as recently as 1983-1984, but plunged the following year.
There is not a straightforward answer for the dramatic drop, but the hosts of NPR's Planet Money have discussed some potential contributing factors, such as the introduction of the personal computer into the home in the early to mid-1980s. The machines were marketed to boys as toys for playing games, and the idea that computers were for boys became the narrative.
Research by University of Washington psychologist Sapna Cheryan suggests the snowballing of this effect can even be seen in how women report not feeling comfortable in classrooms decorated with typical "geek" objects such as Star Wars posters and Coke cans. She says women in these rooms rate themselves as less interested in computer science than men do, but the effect disappears in more neutrally decorated rooms that featured plants and nature photos.
From Smithsonian.com
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