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Why Should Women Study Computer Science ?

Lack of role models, gender stereotypes, sexism, and sexual harassment are what women face when studying or working in Computer Science. If so, should we encourage more women to enter the field? In my opinion, yes. Do not get me wrong, I never want any of these problems to happen to any woman, not even in Computer Science or in everyday life. However, instead of avoiding it, I would like to discuss about the reasons why I think everyone, especially women, should pursue Computer Science.

But first, what exactly is Computer Science? Plenty of people think it is all about programming and writing thousands of lines of code to create websites, mobile apps, or video games. In fact, Computer Science is “the study of computers and computing, including their theoretical and algorithmic foundations, hardware and software, and their uses for processing information.” (Allen Tucker, 1999, para. 1) One of the most fundamental aspects of Computer Science is problem solving using computers.

Now that we know the definition of Computer Science, let's find out some of the benefits of being a woman in Computer Science.

Career choices and opportunities

Computer Science is one of the most versatile fields in this day and age as it helps us gain a wide variety of skills when majoring in it. Fundamental skills such as programming, data analysis, problem-solving, critical thinking, project management and teamwork are amongst some of them. Great, it helps us acquire plenty of technical and soft skills, so what does it has to do with career choices? Here are some job options related to a Computer Science degree and average base salary in Canada, according to Indeed:

Moreover, a degree in Computer Science can get women a job in various industries. With technology playing an indispensable role in all aspects of life, from healthcare and manufacturing to finance and aerospace, it is certain that jobs required Computer Science skills are constantly in high demand and probably this trend are going to rise in the future. In short, Computer Science can open up countless job opportunities for women, and they do not necessarily have to work in this field after graduation.

Computer Science needs more women

There is no surprise that women are under-represented in Computer Science. But do we really need more women majoring in Computer Science? Christin Wiedemann, a consultant for women in STEM, mentions in an article published by The Counselling Foundation of Canada (CERIC) that diversity can ameliorate performance because “numerous studies indicate that organizations that have a diverse workforce outperform other companies financially.”

That is not to mention the fact that an increase in diversity can directly lead to an increase in profit. Considering that half or more technology users are women, having more women pursuing Computer Science is as beneficial as how having great diversity in healthcare industry can give healthcare companies a more closely look on their service and strengthen the healthcare system.

Become inspiring role models

The importance of having female role models is obvious, as it has an impact on young girls’ perception of career choice. By welcoming more women working in Computer Science, we can not only encourage girls to take part in the world of computers but also have more women available to serve as mentors. In my opinion, it is great when we can motivate young girls to study and make contributions to Computer Science. And if we did not have role models, why not become ones and inspire more others into our journey.

Bibliography

Katy, Tripses. Why Women Should Pursue Computer Science Degrees. April 14 2021. < https://www.collegeraptor.com/find-colleges/articles/college-majors-minors/why-women-should-pursue-computer-science-degrees/>

Sian, Beilock. How Diverse Teams Produce Better Outcomes. April 14 2021. < https://www.forbes.com/sites/sianbeilock/2019/04/04/how-diversity-leads-to-better-outcomes/?sh=3cf9301d65ce >

Vivian, Hunt et al. Why diversity matters . April 14 2021. <https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/why-diversity-matters >

Gretchen, Berlin et al. Women in healthcare: Moving from the front lines to the top rung . April 14 2021. <https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/women-in-healthcare-moving-from-the-front-lines-to-the-top-rung >

Best Computer Science Degrees. 5 Reasons Why We Need More Women in STEM Fields . April 14 2021 <https://www.bestcomputersciencedegrees.com/lists/5-reasons-why-we-need-more-women-in-stem-fields/ >

Information and Computer Sciences Department at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Why Study Computer Science? . April 14 2021. <https://www.ics.hawaii.edu/welcome/why-study-computer-science/>

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Seeking Female Role Models in Computer Science

As a girl in a male-dominated field like Computer Science, I have asked myself the questions: “what are the problems and challenges that other women face when studying or working in the world of computers?” and “do they feel the same as me or am I exaggerating my difficulties?” It was not until recently when I watched a film which is based on true events that I realized, well, compared to the difficulties the women in the film went through, my pain was nothing. In this post, I decided to review a biographical film titled Hidden Figures directed by Throdore Melfi, written by Throdore Melfi and Allison Schroeder.

The film is set in the early 1960s, when people of color were still discriminated against in America. In the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), there was a specialized agency consisting of African American women who excel at math. At that time, large computer systems with remarkable computational capabilities like IBM mainframes were not yet invented. Thus, those female mathematicians were in charge of helping white male engineers check the numbers and calculations of space travel during the period when America and the Soviet Union were waging the Cold War.

However, they had to work in an inconvenient room reserved for people of color under the supervision of a white woman, Vivian (Kisten Dunst), who was cold and racist. Outstanding among these women was Katherine G. Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), a math prodigy. She had two close friends, Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) and Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer).

Katherine was promoted to work under the management of Al Harrison (Kevin Costner) and young colleagues like Paul Stafford (Jim Parsons), who were full of hostility and prejudice against people of color. At the new position, Katherine was not welcomed at all. Even worse, she could not drink coffee from the same coffee maker or use the same bathroom as other white colleagues. Despite these difficulties, she did not give up. Eventually, she successfully calculated John Glenn’s spaceship orbit around the Earth.

Meanwhile, Dorothy and Vivian created a tacit competition, where Dorothy wanted to get an official position as manager because her work was completely consistent with that position, but she has never been approved and acknowledged; thus, she could not get a raise.

The last piece of the trio, Mary, was a young mathematician and aerospace engineer who could not tolerate the stigma and the contempt of her co-workers that occurred every day. She wanted to overcome all the challenges that white people created to be in a position she deserved. One thing that I was very impressed by this woman was the great effort that she made to become “America’s first female African-American aeronautical engineer”. She also proved that hard work can really make up for the lack of talents.

Three women, with the same skin color, but different nuances of personality, give the film a very luminous touch of confidence, of how women can break out of the conventional way of thinking to create beauty in Computer Science.

Besides the plot, the three actresses’ acting makes the film more fascinating than ever. From their gestures to their gazes, from their humble attitudes to the completely emotional resistance, they have depicted a heroic appearance of the ability to overcome fate and create miracles.

As a biographical film, Hidden Figures inevitably has details that are deliberately arranged to push the character’s miracle, which can cause confusion between reality and illusion. Nonetheless, considering the fact that there is a lack of female role models in Computer Science, the film has successfully introduced three women who made major contributions in the field, inspiring more women to pursue Computer Science.

Bibliography

Emeric Brard . Must-Watch Movies That Promote Women In STEM . April 10, 2021. <https://womenlovetech.com/must-watch-movies-that-promote-women-in-stem/ >

Margot Lee Shetterly . Katherine Johnson Biography . April 10, 2021 . <https://www.nasa.gov/content/katherine-johnson-biography>

Margot Lee Shetterly . Dorothy Vaughan Biography . April 10, 2021 .<https://www.nasa.gov/content/dorothy-vaughan-biography >

Margot Lee Shetterly . Mary W. Jackson Biography . April 10, 2021 . < https://www.nasa.gov/content/mary-w-jackson-biography >

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Women Are Less Likely to Pursue and More Likely to Leave Computer Science

The chart below indicates the persistence of study in Computer Science between women and men. In 2010, nearly 27% of women completed their degree by the end of the fourth year, whereas this figure was less than 16% in men; 13% of women compared with 22% of men finished their studies in the sixth year, while the remainder switched to other fields or left undergraduate studies.

Moreover, after graduating from STEM fields, 34.7% of female who were employed in a STEM occupation in 2006 moved to other occupations by 2016, compared with only 26.4% of male.

We all acknowledge that females are considerably underrepresented in Computer Science in recent years. We all know that Computer Science jobs are in high demand, well paid and relatively stable. Therefore, it seems to be irrational for females to leave their jobs in this field. To better understand this phenomenon, let’s find out some reasons behind it.

Feelings of Loneliness

In a commentary by Pooja Sankar, a software developer at Oracle and Facebook, she wrote, “I spent most of my evenings alone in the computer lab, struggling in isolation to complete my coursework and watching with envy as my male classmates collaborated amongst themselves to collectively master the complicated course material.” In addition, Sankar thought that she was the only one who could not communicate and make friends with male classmates. Nevertheless, I can totally relate to her to some extends. In my first year at college, I desperately wanted to talk with some male classmates but hardly could find any reason to start the conversation. If it were not for the group projects and presentations, I would not have had the chance to talk to any male classmates, which would have been extremely frustrating since there were so few female students in most of my class. In fact, women in Computer Science usually find themselves the only woman of a team, which tends to make them feel out of place and prevents them from continuing their studies or jobs.

Family Reasons

Computer Science is a challenging field. It requires paying extreme attention to detail, investing a huge amount of time and effort in thinking abstractly and creatively. Thus, mothers working in Computer Science jobs have less time to take care of their children and older family members, preventing them from continuing their working in the field. According to a research article published by PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America), about a half of mothers quit full-time job in STEM after giving birth and new mothers are more likely to leave than those who are childless. Despite enjoying working in Computer Science, women find it hard to combine working with caring for family members. When faced with the dilemma of giving up work or being childless, many women choose the former option.

Other than those reasons, bias evaluations, sexual harassment, and lack of role models also explain why more and more females switch from Computer Science to BHASE or non-STEM. Attracting females to major in Computer Science is difficult yet keeping them in the labor force also need more attention from education system and enterprises.

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Is There the So-Called "Gender-Equality Paradox" in STEM Fields?

Do you think there are more females studying in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) in high gender-equal countries such as Norway or Sweden than in the UAE or Algeria? If your answer is Norway or Sweden, well, I will not be surprised since there are numerous people think that the more gender-equal a country is, the more female students are interested in STEM fields. Nevertheless, a study by the psychologists Gijsbert Stoet of Leeds Beckett University, and David Geary from the University of Missouri finds the opposite tendency which they call the “gender-equality paradox” in STEM. According to the study, there is a contradiction between gender equality and the proportion of women among STEM graduates in many countries, which is represented by the chart below:

(Source: Stoet, G and Geary, DC (2018) The Gender-Equality Paradox in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education. Psychol Sci. ISSN 1467-9280 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617741719)

When comparing the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index (GGGI) with the proportion of STEM graduates that are female in 45 countries, the study cannot find any single country with high results on both gender-equality and the percent of women earning degrees in those fields. Remarkably, the countries with the lowest level of gender disparity, Finland and Norway, have just above 20% of female graduates in STEM subjects, whereas in countries with the highest gender gap like Algeria and Tunisia, this number is almost double (around 40%).

According to Stoet and Geary, the reason for the "gender-equality paradox" lies in the fact that STEM jobs have relatively high job stability and higher-than-average salaries, thus helping women in less gender-equal countries become more financially independent. Apparently, countries with highest Global Gender Gap Index are developed countries where the women and girls have better social well-being and healthcare, empowering them to choose jobs according to their personal preferences and talents without having to worry too much about being unemployed. In contrast, countries that are historically less gender-equal are developing countries where parents expect their daughter to pursue a higher-paying occupation rather than picking a career she is interested in. In other words, gender equality gives females more freedom in terms of career choices and they just simply do not want to work in STEM fields.

So, does this finding mean that the underrepresentation of female in STEM education can be entirely explained by the paradox? After being published, several researchers have questioned the practicality of the study. In an article written by Meredith Reiches and Sarah S. Richardson, the authors argue that “Stoet and Geary weren’t looking at ‘women’s share of STEM degrees,’ as they had claimed, at all.” For example, they find that although 53% of females graduates from STEM in Algeria, only 9% of females graduates from college in STEM, while the figure for males is 13%. Furthermore, the authors also point out that the percentage of STEM graduates are women in Poland is 43.63 whereas in Stoet and Geary’s study, this figure is 26.9 percent.

This evidence suggests that there are some gaps in the study's data, or the data are selectively collected and, as a result, the study lacks practicality, which can be used to distort the underrepresentation of females studying in STEM fields.

In my opinion, the gender gap explains only a small part of the underrepresentation of women and girls in STEM education. It should be recognized that gender stereotypes and biases are the main reasons for the absence of women in these areas. In addition, there is no clue that gender stereotypes are less prominent in those highly gender-equal countries. Therefore, in order to attract more women into STEM fields, overcoming these stereotypes and increasing females' interest in these subjects needs worldwide attention.

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✧ Females Are Less Likely to Study Computer Science and Here Is Why ✧

It is not surprising at all if someone says women and girls are tremendously underrepresented in Computer Science. According to a study published by Statistics Canada, there were 72,582 students enrolled in “Computer and information sciences and support services” in 2018-2019 and females made up only 22%. 

                                        (Source: Statistics Canada)

Yet it is not always the case. In the United States, women earned 37.1% of bachelor’s degrees in 1984 before experiencing a sharp decline and reaching less than 18% in 2010, according to National Center for Education Statistics.

                         (Source:  National Center for Education Statistics)

So, what factors account for the absence of women and girls in such a high-paid, in-demand jobs like Computer Science? 

Parenting and Early-education

From early ages, girls and boys are treated differently. Parents would buy dolls for their daughters but puzzles and Lego for their sons. It is from these very first toys that children gradually develop hobbies and later on, career choice. Moreover, many parents believe that boys effortlessly surpass girls at Math and Science whereas girls are better language learners. Thus, it is likely that girls are simply not born to become Computer Scientists.

Strikingly, a study from Society for Research in Child Development finds clear evidence of small gender gaps in basic numerical tasks in children from the age of 6 to 13. Nonetheless, things have changed as children grow older. Family and schools set higher expectations for boys in Math and Science, which impacts greatly on how both boys and girls learn and perform these subjects. Let me take my sister and me as examples. When we were young, our toys were purchased according to our own preferences. My sister preferred dolls while puzzles caught my attention most of the time. As I turned 10, my parents agreed to buy me a computer on the condition that I got good results in Math, Science, and Literature. Currently, my sister would like to become a teacher while I am majoring in Computer Science. As we can see, there is a link between parenting and children’s interest in Computer Science. Hence, I personally believe that the more parents hold these misconceptions, the fewer girls major particularly in Computer Science and in all STEM fields as a whole.

“Special” Job Characteristics

In fact, Computer Scientists have long been viewed as anti-social nerds who lack communication skills, soft skills, and spend most of their waking hours sitting in front of computer screens and a keyboard. On the other hand, women have always been said to be active, dynamic, have good social skills, spend more time taking care of family members and do household chores rather than write codes. Because of those job characteristics, Computer Science does not appear suitable for females.

As a second-year college student majoring in Programming, I can proudly say that studying Computer Science has nothing to do with being a nerd or lacking social skills. We often work in teams, deliver presentations, communicate with colleagues and have meeting with clients (in this case, our professors). Therefore, equipping ourselves with communication, presentation and social skills play a key role in becoming successful Computer Scientists.

Low Self-Confidence towards Computing

Recent research (Davor Egersdorfer and Nariman R. Mansour) suggest that females tend to be less self-confidence and believe they are inferior to males on computers and the Internet, let alone studying Computer Science. Even as they study Computer Science, female students usually have different perceptions about their studies. They have more pressure of speaking up, asking questions, and participating in discussions. They are more worried about their appearance, how they interact and get along with others, especially male students. 

According to Statistic Canada, there is little gender difference in using a computer as only 2% of both males and females say they have never used a computer. When asked about the main reason for first computer use, 60% of females compare to 39% of males chose school or study purposes. Surprisingly, although females are more likely to use computers for learning, nearly twice as many males as females answering that they are confidence in their computer skills. From these studies, I can say that young women just lack confidence in themselves, not computer skills. 

It seems that all of these barriers preventing females from getting involved in Computer Science are mostly misconceptions and stereotypes. And that means overcoming these stereotypes play an indispensable role in bridging gender disparity in the field. So, if you have a daughter, would you encourage your child to pursue Computer Science? Thank you for reading and leaving some comments on your opinion!