Percentage of women decreases
The number of women in the computer industry has decreased dramatically. According to the National Center for Women and Information Technology’s publication, the numbers in 1985, women made up 37 percent of graduates with a Computer Science degree. By 2010, only” 18 percent of Computer and Information Science graduates were women; at major research Universities, it was only 14 percent” (Moodley). The quote exemplifies how the numbers have gone down. Now the big question who has the authority and the money to help fix this current problem in today’s modern society ? The government, schools, and tech companies are the stakeholders of this current issue.
Inequality in Industry
Technology has a deeper impact on human life say Archana Barua who is the author of the scholarly article Gendering the digital body: women and computer. Technology is now a global phenomenon. Specifically within the origins of the computer industry, there are not many women who are in the field. Women who are in the STEM ( Science Technology Engineering Math) tend to deal with inequality issues because they’re known to be underrepresented all the time. Just as Corbett said from Huffington Post “the stereotype is that girls and women are not as good at math and science as boys and men are.” The image here is that women are usually told that they aren’t good enough in math or science, which is incorrect and unfair. Because women can be good in Math and Science, and not all should be put in the category of not being good enough in the following subjects.
Why aren’t there many women in the industry ?
I did some research to find out to why is it that there are not many females in the computer industry. Women are underrepresented and the field isn’t too inviting as well and, it’s all due to social justice and economic reasons to why women are treated this way. Society easily puts women in the category of not being good enough to be in the computer industry, which hurts their potential according to Sylvia Beyer from the University of Wisconsin.Women are automatically degraded In the work field as a whole, but It’s extremely tough for them in the computer industry specifically. In addition to the inequality issue, the field seems to be unwelcoming”. According to Claire Miller from the NyTimes, “the computer industry is uninviting. There are little to no computer related programs in schools, which is a huge reason to why the field has a small amount of women in the field. Many women do not get the chance to experience, the basics around computers. For instance, if one thinks about it if there were more educational classes on computer software, programming, coding etc, then more students and women could possibly major in the field later on in life.
School institutions , Government and Tech Companies
In addition to the main problem, stakeholders play a huge significance around the topic. A person with an interest or concern in something, especially a business is called a stakeholder. Who initially has the power and money within women in the computer industry, school institutions, government, and large tech companies are all stakeholders. Starting off first with school institutions, according to Grail Crombie from the library database article All-Female Classes in High School Computer Science: Positive Effects in Three Years of Data, there was a study at a high school to where they mixed genders in a computer science class. They had combined a class with guys and without guys. The study showed that girls do better in the computer science class without the boys even around. This illustrates that schools should take authority and add more computer related classes to help out with the underrepresented, and other unfair opportunities for women in the field. Such as the gender pay gap and feeling unwelcomed and so on, but thats another story. The government needs to also help out and fund these programs, in order for them to be added into Middle Schools and High Schools as well. The government evolves around the financial support and having the power of the topic.
Lastly, Tech companies have the money and power. Mostly people who work in the computer industry, tend to work at a corporation in silicon valley or elsewhere. Tech companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft and so on all have diversity issues. There are little to no women that work for the corporations and if they do they tend to work in the front, doing an office job. More men work with computers, and to be honest these companies would rather have a man do the job. Just because they are considered to be better in the field, which is a huge example of inequality and is a reason to why I’m trying to brinf awareness to this current issue in todays’s society.
Works Cited
Crombie, Gail, Tracy Abarbanel, and Anne Trinneer. “All-Female Classes in High School Computer Science: Positive Effects in Three Years of Data.” Journal of Educational Computing Research, 27.4 (2002): 385-409.
Women In The Computer-Industry 