Women and Technolgy - The Gender Gap in Computer Science Essay

Education seems to be a major factor in what determines starting wages in a person’s career. Women in the past were less inclined to have degrees in science and technology as opposed to their male counterparts. Careers in science and technology are in high demand because we are living in a rapidly evolving technological era. Though the number of women entering the science and technology field is increasing, there is still not enough women to make up for the mass majority of men having more of these high-paying jobs, thus, creating an overall salary differential. Naadiya Moosajee, co-founder of WomENG, recognizes the change from women who were once only users of technology to a time where they are now developers and creators of it. This will make great strides in closing the pay gap between men and women. There is much room for improvement that needs to be made with the lack of education among women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to deplete the inequalities with earnings (Moosajee 27). In addition to that, technology fields in particular have not been very favorable to women given that it represents females so sparingly. In “The Need for Gender Diversity in Technology”, Holly Grogan expresses technology jobs are not very appealing to women and have very small numbers of prominent women

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.

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 America gender is seen as a dichotomy, either male or female. Society has gendered everything from colors, to adjectives (strong for males, weak for females), to even occupations. Historically, science, technology, engineering, and math, also known as STEM, have had a masculine connotation connected to it. Which helps explain why elite white men have predominately occupied the STEM fields (Borum and Walker 2012). Eventually, women started to integrate into STEM, but not nearly in the quantities as men, this created the gender gap. The gender gap does vary based on which field you look at, and at more advanced levels in STEM, as well as race (O’Brien 2015). Not only is there a gender and race gap between men and women, but these ring true

With my zero knowledge of computer science and coding, I took the challenge of taking AP Computer Science Principle. In the class, we create apps for android phones and learn about the use of the Internet. As I go into class everyday, I notice how there is only 5 girls (including myself) and 24 boys in the class. Not a lot of female students take the course of computer science. Usually, when thinking of computers, most people think of it as a “guy’s job”, no girls good enough to do

Flores also points out that “men’s earnings at the six-year mark are approximately $4,000 higher per year than women’s at 10 years.” Mark Perry of AEIdeas says, “for the eighth year in a row, women earned a majority of doctoral degrees awarded at US universities in 2016.” Women earning a Master’s degree outnumbered the men in 7 out of 11 “fields of graduate study and in some of those fields the gender disparity was huge” (Perry). Further, women are choosing fields of study that were previously dominated by men. Payscale reports that when women begin to move careers into previously male dominated fields, the average pay drops. Again, confirming that women’s work is

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,

The U.S. Department of Education recently reported that even though relatively more female high school graduates took advanced STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) courses than male counterparts, their interests in STEM subjects were significantly low regardless of race/ethnicity (U.S. Department of Education, 2015). Furthermore, there are significantly less women who completed STEM degrees compared to men (Lee, Alston, & Kahn, 2015). This gender discrepancy has been the key goal for the researchers for the last decades, and many studies have examined how to promote gender parity in STEM fields.

The Technovation Challenge that required you to code a mobile application to solve a community problem sparked my interest in computer science. I built up my skills in CS through the preparation for this competition, which led me to continue learning new programming languages like Java and HTML. The key message behind this competition was that even if you are a woman, you could accomplish anything in a STEM field. Only after this was I exposed to the inequality present in STEM fields. I wanted to give the same opportunities to girls all over to inspire and prepare them to pursue STEM fields. After being selected by the Made With Code Advisory Committee, I was further educated on the inequality and how much girls would be benefited if they had

The role of diversity in Computer Science (CS) has recently been brought into focus. Reports from top technology companies (e.g., Google, Facebook) indicate that we have a lot of work ahead of us to ensure truly diverse workforces in the technology sector. I was particularly troubled by two findings in these reports: (1) the incredibly low fraction of women relative to men (15-17% vs. 83-85%); and (2) underrepresentation of the “Hispanic” and “Black” communities (together less than 7%). Reading more about this topic helped me understand what the core issues were. One such issue, that needs to be tackled at the early stages of education, is that of getting more school children (especially from underrepresented populations) interested in CS.

As well as these low numbers women make less than men in all technological fields. CNET states that the “median income for men with an undergraduate degree in Silicon Valley was 61% higher than for women.” Having so few women working in computer science fields, as well as earning way less is a big problem for women. According to Unlocking the clubhouse: Women in computing (2002), “...women are surfing the web in equal proportion to men, and make up the majority of internet consumers. Yet few women are learning how to invent, crease and design computer technology.” Women are highly involved in using the internet but so few women are actually involved in the advancement of technology.

While men dominated Silicon Valley in the eighties, women still made up 37 percent of the computer science majors compared to 18 percent today ( ). Not only are women hired less than men, they also leave the tech industry twice the rate that men do. This is because women are ignored, undermined, or harassed because of their gender.

areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics employers are not getting enough women (Pozniak). High school girls only represent 17 percent of computer science Advance Placement (AP) test takers (O'Shea). The most significant group of minorities who are behind in earning computer technology degrees and working in science and mathematical professions are women. “Historically, women’s low representation in science and engineering was said to be due in large part of their lack of ability, interest, or both” (Horning 30). However, this is no longer a true fact according to Ward. Some suggestions to increasing the amount of women in sciences include introducing already present women faculty as mentors. Over the last three decades,

“Stop studying math so hard, girl. How will math help you?” My high school classmate Yijie jeered at me when I told him I wanted to major in mathematics and computer science. “Such complex subjects are just not suitable for women.” Although Yijie was not an old-fashioned person, he insisted that women were inferior in high technology fields. In my country, China, this gender stereotype still affects women’s lives, from major placement decision to their career path choice. I strongly oppose this constraining opinion, and firmly believe that women are capable to make great achievements in modern high technology as men do. Therefore, I made up my mind to show people that women can also succeed in mathematics and computer science.

In elementary school, I developed a passion for programming. However, I was discouraged by my parents, who believed that "programming was only for men." In spite of their discouragement, I still enrolled in CSE 120 because I felt inclined to revisit my long lost interest. Although I did well in the course, I stayed hesitant to follow my programming passion because of my parent 's stereotype of Computer Science still lurked in my mind. It was the encouragement from Professor Snyder, who said "You can certainly 'do ' CS", and the effort of the Computer Science program to promote women programmers that pushed me to ignore my parents ' belief and pursue this major. With the goal of entering the Computer Science field in mind, I strived to become a competitive candidate. My educational path, internship experience, community involvement, and academic interests helped me foster the qualities valued by UW 's Computer Science program: creativity, leadership, and teamwork abilities.