Women In Technology In The 1980's

However, of that 48%, only 24% of them are involved in a STEM field. However, statistics are saying now, more than ever, women are pursuing STEM careers. Yet, what happens behind the scenes while earning your degree? My mother has experienced a prime example of exactly what happens when women attempt to pursue a STEM career. She had decided on taking a programming course in college. Long story short, she got to her assigned computer and began to design her screen like the creative woman she is. Her professor walked up to her found it unrighteous to have her computer screen pink when everyone else's where "manly" colors. He suggested that she goes to the counselor to change courses since technology was "manly" thing. Sadly, she listened along with many other women. I say that because "...nearly a third of women in science, engineering and technology (S.E.T.) fields say they are likely to quit within a year," (Sherbin, ...Bias in Their Labs). It's unfortunate that women all over feel that they are not worthy because of their gender or their lack of "manliness." STEM fields aren't a manly thing, they need to be identified as gender neutral profession, as every profession should

Ullman puts her argument within the context of computer science, particularly in the field of computer programming. She notes that, in the deep and technical aspects of computer programming, women are “nearly alone, outsiders in a culture that [is] sometimes boyishly puerile, sometimes rigorously hierarchical, occasionally friendly and welcoming” (Ullman 728). In other words, Ullman observes that there is a stark disparity between men and women as far as actual employment in computer programming is concerned. For Ullman, the disparity extends to other

The force of societal stereotypes is a large part of this gap. Instead of joining STEM careers, the most common careers among women are secretaries, nurses, and elementary and middle school teachers (Mandell). This truly illustrates that when well-rounded, talented women have the choice, they are inclined to delve into the field in which society expects them to belong. In this way, the stereotype of women not being involved in STEM is forcing less women to be involved in these fields. The deficiency of women in technical fields, despite their well-roundedness and ability, can be directly related to unyielding cultural stereotypes that stigmatize women in supposedly masculine fields.

Could you live without the technology we have today? Without the 1980’s, you would not have any of your cell phones or computers. You also would not have most of the medical things we use in the medical field today. The 1980’s played a huge role in the creation of recreational, medical, and other technologies we use today.

The 1940’s was the beginning of an era of computers ruling us. It all started with Konrad Zuse a German engineer creates and finishes the computer called Z3 built in 1941 it was built using 2,300 relays, and used a floating point binary arithmetic, and had a 22 bit word length. Although the original was destroyed in a bombing run in Berlin in late 1943. He supervised a reconstruction of his invention in the 60's which is on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. In February of 1946 the ENIAC was released and the public was able to view it, built by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert they improved it by 1,000 times since the first computers were released. Started in 1943 it took 3 years to complete and it used a plugboard and switch program, and the speed was about 5,000 operations per second. It took up 1,000 square feet, or the size of a small house! In 1944 the Harvard Mark-1 was completed. Thought by the Harvard professor Howard Aiken, and built by IBM, the dimensions of this beast was room sized, relay-based calculator. Also it had a

There is a common belief that we do not see many women and minorities in tech because  that there are simply not enough female and minority students studying math and science.

In The Mythical Man-Month the author, Frederick P. Brooks, Junior, starts off his tale of software engineering by giving the reader an image of prehistoric creatures—programs—struggling for survival against a tar pit. The fact is that programmers and their tools must be perfect in syntax and in reliability and every day a program is struggling to reach the requirements of today’s standards. He speaks of the skirmishes that surround the creation of a program such as putting forth time and effort only to discover that someone else has created a similar program, the possibility of a program becoming obsolete like that of a dinosaur in a tar pit, and the program’s innards and actions must be perfect. However, Brooks gives the reader a positive insight to programming by comparing it to a child’s imagination. He states, “He [the programmer] builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination.” (7)

Ellen Ullman started pursuing her passion in computer programming in the early 1980s “when women were just starting to poke their shoulder pads through crowds of men” (727). To become a programmer, notes Ullman, a person needs to meet many occupational requirements including a passion about the job and an ability to withstand failure. However, these requirements do not hinder Ullman from following her work as much as being a woman. During the time working as a “woman programmer”, she faced a number of challenges which were all related to prejudices against women. She endured a male client who “stroked [her] back as [she] worked to fix his system” (727).  She had a boss who hated to hire women but “they were too damned smart” (727). He deliberately interrupted Ullman during the meeting by commenting about her hair.  However, she just “leaned to one side” and

Tracey Welson-Rossman, founder of the non-profit organization TechGirlz, has spent the last seven years of her life trying to get more girls involved in technology. Welson-Rossman states, “The facts are clear: Girls think computer careers are boring, the media portrays techies as nerds and geeks, schools offer few programming or tech classes, and parents do not fully understand all the choices that tech offers for careers. Welson-Rossman’s research has shown how important it is for a school to offer more technology options for students, and how important it is for parents to get involved with their student’s participation in STEM activities. Getting involved as early as possible is critical because studies have shown that a child’s positive attitude toward science can decline by the age of 14 (McCreedy and Dierking 6). There is a far greater chance for a young woman to be interested in a STEM based career if technology is introduced at an earlier

dominated field is "comprised of roughly 80% men and 20% women and has remained at

Although computer industries have grown exponentially, there still remains a shortage of quality computer science graduates to support this growth. This is more pronounced amongst female graduates who are less attracted to this field. The challenges in computer science are well documented, with studies suggesting that female’s attitudes about computer science are set early on, where they find computer science to be boring and characterised as geeky and uninteresting (Cheryan et al., 2015). The declining interest means that fewer students are being drawn into undergraduate computer science courses. Despite, a wide range of initiatives to encourage females in computer science, this still continues to be a challenge (Computer Science Online,

Rosser, S. V., & Taylor, M. Z.. (2009). Why Are We Still Worried about Women in Science?. In Academe, 95(3), 6–10. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/stable/40253322

Engineering has historically been viewed as a man’s job. In recent years the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) community has made more pointed efforts to recruit women. While the process of aggressively seeking out women is taking place, the perception of what it means to be an engineer remains skewed. Since the perception has changed about engineering, societal views are pushed towards a generic understanding of what it means to be an engineer. Problems in recruiting women engineers can exemplify the differences in society we don’t often discuss such as merit and opportunity.

David Beede suggest that, women are faring better, academically, than ever before. Today, “the majority of college graduates (57%) and master’s level graduates

“People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things that build on each other, like a wall of mini stones”. (Knuth, 1968)