Combination of stereotypes and poor reinforcement leads to decrease in number of female computer scientists

Courtesy of Michigan State

The number of women in STEM majors such as engineering and computer science is at an alarming low and continues to decrease. While majors such as biology and animal sciences have reached gender equality, these more technical majors still lag behind. In 2010, only 18 percent of computer science bachelor’s degrees awarded were to women, while over 50 percent of the general science and engineering degrees were awarded to women.

"Nerd" stereotype of computer scientists deterring women from computer science

This large gender gap can be attributed, in large part, to stereotypes of computer science and engineering majors. In a study done in 2003 by a group of professors at the University of Wisconsin, they determined that these often incorrect stereotypes about computer science majors often attributes to women not choosing these majors.

During their study, they received responses that linked computer science majors to being "nerds" and very intelligent but lacking interpersonal skills. This stereotype is often linked to women’s incorrect belief that men have a higher GPA in computer science.

This has all led to a lack of women in the technical workplace. According to the Department for Professional Employees, while other fields such as law have increased their number of women by over 4 percent, computing fields decreased by over 2 percent. All this happened despite there being an addition of over eight hundred thousand of computing-related jobs since 2003.

               
Part of this stereotype also relates to an intimidation factor that comes from the very intelligent nature of many computer science and engineering majors. In the graph above, a direct correlation between average IQ of majors and percentage of female majors can be seen.

In general, people are unlikely to chose to be among the minority of anything, especially something like a college major, where they would be stuck with the same people for four or more years. This is clearly evident in the data provided, with most women choosing majors such as early childhood education that is less male dominated and intimidating.

Guidance counselors not providing necessary reinforcement for young women in computing

Another large issue for women is the lack of reinforcement early in their academic careers. Often times if a female is struggling or does not want to take a computer class, their guidance counselors and teachers offer little to no resistance to these girls dropping out or not taking of these classes, says Dr. Jandelyn Plane, director of the Maryland Center for Women in Computing at the University of Maryland. 

                                            

While a male student with these problems may be told to stick with it or to just try it, the same is not true with women. "[Guidance counselors] still tell girls they don't need to take these classes, that's okay" Plane says.

This all comes back to the previously mentioned stereotypes. These stereotypes ascend past just students choosing majors, and make it all the way up to these guidance counselors and parents. Their beliefs are that computer science is a major for men and that if there is no point in attempting to change a young girls’ interests while boys are pushed to take these classes, because it is "just something they do".

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Recruitment of younger girls most important in closing gender gap

Since most current college students are not going to be changing their major to computer science before they graduate, the clear next step is to start reach out to younger women, which is exactly what Maryland, along with other schools around the nation, is trying to do.

Here at Maryland, Dr. Plane and her colleagues have launched the Maryland Center for Women in Computing, in order to make women feel more welcome as well as recruit new students. While the center is being offered as a place for women to work without feeling the massive male presence seen in other computer science building, the main goal is outreach. Dr. Plane was happy to explain this plan of outreach to middle and elementary schoolers.

                                         

While Dr. Plane says that there are plans for outreach, she also acknowledges that they do not always work. "Thirty years ago, we had this problem of underrepresentation," she says, "since then there have been programs, but they are not making enough of a difference."

The plan set by Dr. Plane as well as her colleagues is to hire women computer scientists to go out to visit with younger girls, especially in middle school and elementary school, as well as let the girls come visit the university and see how the department runs here.

Courtesy of Maryland Center for Women in Computing

The goal of this program is to attack the base of the problem, the beginning of the pipeline. The pipeline is what is often referred to in the world of computing when talking about women. In order for these women to reach the end of the pipe, where they are working successfully in the industry, they must first enter this pipe, usually at an earlier age.

Many women do not even know about computer science until they are past what they believe is the start of the pipeline. Many realize their interest in college when numerous other majors are required to take a computer course, but by then they believe it is too late and are unwilling to switch their majors. That is why recruitment is the most important part of closing the gender gap in computer science, so these women are exposed to computer courses before it is too late.

Aside from the outreach and recruitment, part of the new center is to research these programs to figure out what exactly is going wrong and what can be done to make the programs more effective and begin to close the gender gap.

University of Maryland participating in new initiative to improve number of women

University of Maryland is one of fifteen universities using the Building Recruiting And Inclusion for Diversity, or BRAID, initiative led by Harvey Mudd College and Anita Borg Institute in order to attempt to the numbers of women in technical majors, specifically computer science.

Along with a thirty thousand dollar grant from the likes of Facebook and Microsoft, Maryland plans to use plans that succeeded at the University of Washington and Harvey Mudd, where 30 and 40 percent, respectively, of computer science majors are women. 

Part of this plan is to preform the previously mentioned outreach, but it does not stop there. Once these women make it to college, either as a computer science major or another major taking computer science classes, HMC has taken it upon itself to change the curriculum to cater introductory classes more to the general public and not just students with previous programming knowledge.

Instead of standard introductory courses that every student must take, students take a placement survey where they describe their background knowledge in computer science. From this survey, the students are split into green, gold and black sections based on experience, to help students feel more comfortable and less likely to drop the class. At the end of each section, all students have gone over the most important topics and are prepared to enter the next courses, no longer feeling intimidated or inadequate.

Lack of female professors means no role models for young women

People need role models, or someone to look up to, in order to motivate them to achieve their goals. For women of all ages, this is not an easy task in computer science. While the number of female chief technical officers, or CTO's, is slowly climbing, the face of almost all technical companies is male.

In the classroom, this holds true. Dr. Plane is one of only a handful female computer science professor at the university. This lack of female computer science faculty begins a cruel cycle that keeps the numbers of women in the major low. Dr. Plane offers her opinion about why she believes there is this large gap.

                                              

In computer science, the competition for quality professors is already very high due to the field's rapid growth over the past decade, and is even higher for high quality women professors. Due to the low percentage of women getting bachelor's degrees in computer science, the number of women getting PhD's is even lower.

After these women receive their doctorates, they are "scooped up" immediately, leaving many universities without a choice but to keep hiring male professors. Then women do not have someone they could see themselves becoming, and choose a different major, continuing the never-ending cycle.

A more diverse workplace leads to better and new solutions 

One of the best things women can bring to the table in a technical workplace is a fresh new mindset and approach to problems and ideas that men have not thought of or rarely would come up with.

In a study done by Stanford, it was found that in the ever evolving and growing world of startups, women achieve a 35 percent higher return on investment and when backed by venture capital firms, achieve 12 percent  higher revenue than their male counterparts. The technology industry is only hurting itself with limited opportunities for women innovators, and if they hope to grow, the culture must change to become more welcoming for women.