Gender Roles In The Computer Science Field
Technology and society are mutually shaping and very intertwined. Technology is usually invented in order to fill a need. Computers were developed during World War II in order to do a very wide range of things having to do with the war including communicating, controlling weapons, flying aircrafts, and genetic engineering. The development of the computer has undoubtedly recreated the entire nature of warfare as well as society as we know it today. Computers were developed during World War II and mostly Men took part, this in turn caused Men to work with computers daily. With daily use of computers, men became comfortable using them while most Women had not yet been introduced yet. It was not until computers crossed over from a militaristic piece of technology to a societal technology that Women had the chance to familiarize themselves. The assumption that War is only for Men made Women hesitant of wanting to learn about computers; for this reason and many others Men and Women differ greatly in their knowledge and use of computers.
Computers have impacted the World since they were invented in the 1950’s. Computers have changed the way people obtain information and have transformed the way we go about doing everyday tasks. On page 258 of Paul Edwards “From “Impact” to Social Process” he states that “Technologies can and do have "social impacts," but they are simultaneously social products that embody power relationships and social goals and structures. Social impacts and social production of artifacts in practice occur in a tightly knit cycle. ” Computer work is very gender defined. Once introduced, Women were most comfortable with computers on the lowest level of skill, status, and pay. Comfortability and usability decreased dramatically as the skill level of computer tasks increase for a given job; due in part to the inclusion of computers in education. Women compared to Men have much lower rates of enrolling in computer science classes. Women also consist of only “35% of Bachelors degrees in computer science” and “the percentage of computer science PH. d. s awarded to Women remain at 10%. ” (Pg 279) There is also a great difference in the level of faculty employment of Women in computer science departments. These vast differences among Gender’s working with Computers are not a coincidence. There is an extreme bias in favor of Men in the computer science field and has been since World War II. Women are constantly demeaned of their skills having to do with Computers and are often told that they do not belong in the Computer Science field.
This may be in part to the lack of female role models in the computer field; if there are no people to look up to showing you that you belong and can handle Computer Science as well as any man, then it is very unlikely that Women would feel confident enough in their ability to do so. Women have also said that computer advertising always feels strongly male oriented in order to discourage them from finding interest in it. Women from all levels of education have “reported oppression in many forms, ranging from overt statements by senior professors that women do not belong in graduate school to more subtle and probably unconscious mistreatment, such as having their own ideas ignored or patronized in the classroom while similar ideas of their male colleagues receive praise. ” (Pg 280) Another point that may have impacted the gender differences among computer professionals is that computers may not be gender neutral. Computers are in fact not gender neutral and are constructed in a way to be more resistant to the efforts of Women. The argument is that different people encounter technology in their own ways (context) and develop their own understandings of it. For example, if someone is introduced to a computer for the first time in an office, they probably think of computers as a place that’s used to store documents and spreadsheets. In each and every context there are differences in culture such as the way people write, talk, work, etc. and this in turn relates to computer avoidance in women because of the cultures in which most of them first learned how to use computers. Men learn to be more independent, competitive, and therefore more comfortable working in a social hierarchy. Women on the other hand value reliance on others in order to maintain a social “leveling” in which everyone is supposed to be at the same level of status. With this being said, Women are treated according to their relationships rather than their individuality like Men.
Sherry Turke thought the gender divide was interesting and wanted to look more into it. Turke set up an experiment to watch private school students observing two basic approaches to computer programming. She wanted to see which students would be a part of the “hard master” and which would land in the “soft master”. The hard masters were those who “employed a planned, structured, technical style” in which “The goal is always getting the program to realize the plan,” soft masters however were those who “relied on a more amorphous system of gradual evolution, interactive play, and intuitive leap,” where the person try’s something, waits for a response, and then try’s something else letting the outcome stem from the interaction with the medium. (Pg 282) In the end of her observation, she found that the hard masters consisted of mostly boys and the soft masters were mostly girls. Turke said that “A culture is not a program but a subtle set of nudges in particular directions that not everyone receives to the same degree or responds to in the same way. Many men are more at home in what I have described as "women's" culture, and vice versa. Some learn to be equally at home in both modes. And it is important that excellent programs can be written by people of both sexes using both methods, something Turkle saw in men and women of all ages” (Pg 282) What she means by this is that not everyone responds the same way to culture and that there must be equal paths for both sexes to follow in order to have the same outcomes; Women are not as present in the Computer science/engineering field because they did not have equal paths when Computers were first developed and used in everyday society. Even though there may be better paths for Women in today’s society there is still a historical bias.
Video games are also subjective to bias towards men. Many of the most popular video games of today and the past are based on violence often having to do with Warfare. In the beginning of the video game era it was clear that video games were tailored specifically for men to play, “The bulk of the games that led the video arcade craze of the early 1980s were combative in nature, and it was partly as a belated response to the potential market among adolescent girls that less violent alternatives such as Frogger and Pac-Man were introduced. ” (Pg 283) Violent video games are competitive in nature and winning is based on killing other opponents in order to survive. These ideas of Killing/Death do not interest many Women and thus are incline not to interact with video games.
Hacker culture could also be another reason why Women are much less likely to want a profession having to do with computer science. Hacker Culture is was and still is mainly made up of males working in isolation. Many men relate their obsession of hacking to the feelings of control and power that they get from being able to make a machine do whatever they please. When assembling a hacking group many teams frequently avoid and exclude Women. This is because they look at hacking as a competitive sport and women are not as competitive as men are in nature. Early on in computer development, hackers played a very important part in developing system software’s and computer games. This relates to my previous point about computers not being gender friendly, hackers were mostly men who played a part in developing computer software’s so in some ways their nature of computing is represented by computers and software. My last point on why there is such a divide between Men and Women in the Computer Science department is the nature of Computer Science courses. Computer science courses “are taught in a highly theoretical mode that emphasizes abstract properties of logic, computation, and electronics rather than practical uses. ” (Pg 283)
The way in which Computer Science courses are being taught disinterests and frustrates Women because they are not good at putting these learned skills to work and would much rather courses with a more “practical bent. ” (Pg 283) I completely agree with this point as I have first handedly experienced a Computer Science course and seen many Women become frustrated. At the University at Buffalo it is required that Communication majors pass a rigorous Computer Science course for no reason. I struggled along with others that I knew have had female friends have to switch from the Communication major to something else because they could not pass this required Computer Science course. Men and Women differ greatly in their comfort and knowledge of Computer’s. This is due to many problems and bias’s dating back to the 1950’s when the first Computers were being developed. Since computers became available to the public, Women have been subject to jobs that deal with a much lower degree of skill with computers than have Men. Men have had the easier route to becoming Computer Science professional’s due to the culture of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. Video Game bias and the Hacker Culture also played a huge role in the shaping of Men and Women’s difference in Computer skills. Technology and society are mutually shaping and very intertwined. Men have always been more powerful, competitive, and a step ahead of Women in Social Hierarchy; also holding true in the World of Computer Science.
