Why women stopped coding - what happened in the 80s

[noblegiraffe]

Fascinating graph here of women studying comp sci in the US.

This podcast looks at what happened in the 80s which might have influenced this trend.
www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/17/356944145/episode-576-when-women-stopped-coding

The image of geeky men as programmers is manufactured and nothing to do with men being better at tech - most programmers at the beginning were women.

I think IT is a great career for women. While I've found over many years that women are every bit as logical and are good programmers, they don't tend to be as "geeky" or gismo mad. What home computer/camera/phone you have is irrelevant in most jobs but it tends to mean men are seen as more technical.

At interviews, I have heard people question a woman's technical skills more than they do a man's.

That said, I see many successful women make a career in IT wjo generally like to help junior women too.

I've worked as a programmer for small to medium sized companies for 20 years and never encountered anything I'd call sexist or vile.

I think big companies are very different beasts to small companies and I never wanted to work for them.

I wouldn't want people reading this thread to get the wrong idea. The Vast majority of IT staff and companies are great places to work whether you're female or male.

I have a good computer science degree. And am good at my job. And am treated the same as anyone else who's good at their job.

I love working in IT myself but there is definitely the image of the Sheldonesque techno geek which is very much male. The problem is that it tends to plant itself in your psyche as I do often wonder if I have the capability.

I've not experienced direct discrimination however every now and again a jerk comes along to make you feel isolated. I've just finished a training course where the trainer banged on about the "traditional female mind" which really helped me to get to grips with the technical content!! I was thinking "stereotype threat 101!".

He then went on to joke about porn. Of course one must never show oneself to be annoyed by such things as one must appear to be the coolgirl at all times

I worked for an investment bank in the software development house, as you can imagine, that was the rough end- most definitely not female friendly, unless 'the boys' needed a round of tea or social event organised of course....

My 18 year+ career, was for two of the biggest companies in the UK at the time. IT departments always felt really forward thinking in terms of woman, especially when you compared them to the shop floor - which was more male dominated. Both the companies that actually made things. I'm wondering if the difference is if you work for a consulting company or financial company.
This thread makes me feel very sad for our daughters - I cant believe the industry I loved so much, has become so sexist.

I've worked for the Civil Service, for a couple of big outsourcing companies (where I worked on all kind of accounts) and for an in-house IT department in a medium size company. I have to say that the Civil Service department was far and away the most inclusive. Where I work now around 1 in 10 are women and even then the distribution is uneven - there are no women in our infrastructure team for example, most are developers

messy, I hope you gave the trainer feedback. I would have definitely been complaining about porn jokes. And the traditional female mind. I hope I would manage to do it calmly and constructively....

I've worked for a government agency and two big multinationals. The government agency definitely wasn't most inclusive.

I think it really depends where you are and who you get to work with - it doesn't matter so much what the overall company culture is, if you're in the one department which is at odds with the rest of it, and in the end, how you experience a company you work for is down to the individuals you have to work with. Having said that, when I'm going for new jobsI do usually check up on whether they've got some sort of women's association and what their policies around inclusiveness and diversity are, even though I know a policy's existence doesn't always mean it's followed.

I took computer studies O level in 1983, the era of Commodore Pets and sending coding sheets off to the local university to put in the mainframe, there were virtually no other girls in the class. I don't recall it being an option at A level, then during my degree (in Chemistry) we were all taught Fortran, but it seemed by far away the most irrelevant part of the course, we were starting to need to know how to use computers but not how to programme them in order to carry out science.

However right from the start of computers being used more commonly in both the laboratory (the environment I have worked in since the late 80s) and home they seem to have been perceived as male territory, wherever I have worked the IT departments have been almost entirely male, amongst my friends it seems generally to be the man of the couple who look after home computing, how many times do I hear women say about their email etc that their husbands set it all up and have to be consulted to fix it. It seems to me that the rise in male interest coincided with home computers and peripherals becoming commonplace and they were seized upon by men as a natural progression from being interested in hifi and then CB radio, TVs and VCRs - the attraction of the gadget. Also, thinking back, it always seemed to be the man who knew how to tune in the new TV, how to programme the VCR etc. But why this is, I just don't know.

I don't know - it wasn't that way in the house I grew up in, it was my mother was the one who learned how to tune in the TV & VCR, and she was the one who got into PCs; I think if my father had had time to get into email he'd have really enjoyed it. He had got the hang of how a word processor program could improve his letter-writing abilities, but we didn't get internet access at home till after he died; he was aware of email, as Mum used it at work, and sometimes brought him print-outs!

But anyway, what I was coming back here for was to comment that one of my colleagues in another country had been getting in touch with their government organisation that does STEM stuff - and had a really good chat with the woman in charge, to see what we can offer each other. Apparently one thing they are trying to do more is educate the parents, because they have a big influence on careers that their children will chose, and if they've only got "the IT crowd" stereotype as their idea of what jobs in IT are about, then they might not suggest it to their child, because they're simply unaware of the huge range of roles there really are.

Makes sense to me, so I think I'm going to spend some more time pondering this, and wondering if we can do anything to target parents, particularly those who don't work in IT and know much about it (it's fairly easy to inform parents who work with us.)

it was like that in my house. My mother was and still is completely useless with so much as a remote control. I was the oldest and got into computers (much as described as the started to get popular in the home) with my father. I am now the one in our household who does everything technical. Still unusual though I think and I remember being appalled when my son started school at the number of women who couldn't even use email and some who even had shared email addresses with their husbands as "I don't understand that kind of thing he does everything technical" In fairness, the rise of the smartphone has helped with that but there are still a load of women out there completely disinterested in anything technical, which is up to them of course, but I do think its a shame how disinterested their daughters are.

My parents are very much Dad the techy one, Mum the one who leaves it all to him. I went the opposite way to some extent because I didn't want to be reliant on someone else for it and for a long time I did all our techy stuff at home, then DH got interested and we divide it up now, I would say we share it fairly. I have quite a few friends who come unstuck if their phone / Ipad / laptop plays up because their DH set it all up.

To me there does seem to be a link between what you do at work computer wise and who runs the systems at home. In my family Dad was a computer engineer from the 70s onwards, mum was a teacher, so clearly Dad had the head start tech wise. I know most of what I have learnt over the years is because I have worked with computers constantly since the late 80s, whereas for example DBIL is a plumber and struggles with technology. So maybe fewer women get exposed to technology in the workplace, either because they SAH, or because of the types of work they do.

I too am the technical one in the house. Recently our music system broke, I called the technical support team for assistance and during diagnosis of the problem they asked if my husband was in. I asked why and they said 'well the next bit involves a screw driver'.... Please fill the blank with what my response was ;)

I'm the techy one in my house.
Thing is, everyone assumes dh is. It drives me potty. I've had lines from people we have known for years like 'You're so lucky to have dh to sort out all the computer stuff in your house!' - I have no idea where they get it from - he's always been open about his lack of a clue with technology, but people just seem determined to believe it.

When it comes to the kids, dd and ds1 are both grasping things fairly fast. It will be interesting to see what happens down the line, and if dd's progress stalls. She's all arty and creative while ds is sciencey, but that's precisely why she's motivated with technology, because there's so much she can do with it.

I can join in on the female in IT meeting with discrimination too. I have been working in Tech for 12 years now, I started at 1st line and now lead my own server team, throughout that time I have had to fight my corner due to discrimination.

Between calls where I am presumed to be the PA for the dept, 3rd party engineers using the statement "it's very nice of you to help me considering your shop staff, I don't know where the IT guy has gone", the company I left after 6 months where it was very obvious that being a girl was the only reason for doubting my ability (which considering the epic mess the last guy had made and the current man too, was laughable). The job I had in the city where 2 men at the same level as me (admittedly with 5 years more experience, but the same role) were being paid 50% more than I was!

My last job where, when I suggested that discussing every new member of female staff by their looks was not appropriate and maybe they wanted to consider their abilities, I was told by a junior member to "eff off and don't be so stupid" in the middle of the room, the manager didn't pull him up on it and when I complained it was suggested by HR that the laid back atmosphere of the company may not be what I was used to and they would support me if I wanted to look for another role (this was as I was going off for a week due to family issues!!)

I love working in IT, I enjoy working with men and generally much prefer it but constantly having to prove your ability and fight your corner is exhausting. I can understand why people leave, I can understand a reluctance to start in IT, maybe I have just had more bad experiences with it but adding in the difficulties of being a mother, taken seriously as a techie and trying to be flexible enough to juggle family life and only getting SMP when trying to have a family, I have moved to a company where I may be able to shift to project management which opens up more opportunity, not just in a tech environment.

Excuse the long post and rubbish grammar, typing on my phone whilst doing 5 other things at once :)

hulababy
I decided after reading the OP to come to post and give maybe a possible added reason to the drop in 2002/2003.
I had a quick skim through PP to see if someone else thought the same. You have posted the same as I was thinking

I went to an all girls school. When I started their was a typing room (this was being fazed out so my year never used them) and a computer room. The computers were all BBC and our lessons were about writing programs, eg quizzes or basic platform games I generally enjoyed these lessons. But in 93/94 the type writers and computers were replaced with windows based computers. Our lessons from then on were all about using Windows and a particularly boring lesson stuck in my mind. It was spending a whole hour drawing stupid child like pictures with a mouse, then getting to print it off at the end.
I personally think that if this change took place at the same time across all the schools that could be a contributing factor along with some of the before mentioned ideas like gaming focused at boys.

I'm currently doing a computer science masters and there is a pretty equal gender split across the different programmes I'm in classes with. However on my programme (specialism of Human Computer Interaction) there are more women - maybe 75:25 female:male but on the pure Computer Science programme, it is almost completely male. One of the men I have met on the pure CS course said he hates the compulsory HCI module as he isn't interested in the human element, he just loves to code. This seems to go with a lot of what I've encountered in working in the industry - men tend to like coding for the sake of it whereas women like what can be done with it.

One of my modules is introductory rather than specialised and is also offered to 3rd year undergrad students. Of the undergrads, it is almost exclusively male. Maybe 90%.

The difference may be that women who really love compsci will want to study to postgrad level which is why it is more equal. Or it could be, like in my case, they don't feel they are enough already. I avoid applying for jobs because I worry I can't do it and am essentially doing the masters to prove I can at significant cost to myself and despite having 6 years experience in the industry.

Of the postgrad women, very few are from the UK. The vast majority are from Saudi Arabia or China and have all come straight from the undergrad degree. Given how much more expensive tuition fees are for international students, it is likely they come from wealthy families and therefore their whole education has been private and they have had more opportunities so money is a huge factor.

Only 1 of my female lecturers has children and she always looks tired and stressed. During the school half term, she had to bring one of her children to a lecture and he sat at the back with a colouring book because of a childcare let down. Of the male lecturers, it is less likely that if their family was affected by a childcare failure, they would be the one bearing the impact and taking children to work.

In my second job in the industry, I was bullied a lot by senior males in the company. One didn't like the level of responsibility I had on a project and so constantly undermined me. My decisions were questioned and called out in a way that men's weren't. I was paid less than a man of the same age and less experience who had less responsibility.

I'm not sure that adds anything to the discussion, it's just a collection of my personal experiences of being in the tech industry and studying computer science now.

GoldenGoat. Watch out if you do better than the men in your class. I did a Post Grad Computing degree and, despite it being obvious to all my (mostly male) classmates that I was a better student than them they all asked for my help come graduation, when it was announced I had won the academic prize for best student, the rumour immediately started that I only got it because I had slept with the lecturers

I now work in learning technologies which is, while not female dominated, a bit more equal in the gender split. I suspect that this is because many of us are former teachers. This does not stop rampant gender stereotyping. I'm tired of having to justify my right to have a job at my level. It's always younger men that seem surprised to find I'm the boss and not my younger male assistant and try to frantically mansplain technical terms to me. I also find technical conferences brings out the sexist jokes and gender assumptions in presenters. However in these cases twitter is my friend. I was at one conference where the twitter feed was projected behind the speakers. One presenter thought he had the crowd in his hand when in fact they were laughing at the feed counting the number of women in his slides (very few, all in passive roles) vs the number of men.

Ahhh, that old chestnut. I've !lost count if the number of blokes I've supposedly slept with in the IT departments I've worked in. Alone with being a lesbian of course.

Have never had anything even vaguely like that!

I've a theory that women are very unevenly distributed across the tech industry - i.e. some companies hang onto them, some rarely hire them, etc. Can remember noticing a female interview candidate and walking past a couple of times to make sure she knew there were other women in the dept! Have also been on all female interview panels a few times which is great

I think having some senior women and supportive senior men really helps with slapping down bad behaviour.

I've a theory that women are very unevenly distributed across the tech industry

I agree with this. The lack of women was something I commented on at the interview for my current place - it's probably worse now than when I started here years ago, and as I've pointed out to HR, it doesn't really matter how many female-friendly recruitment practices they have, if they're not recruiting (particularly in tech departments) for anyone at all - no one's going to notice there's a policy of at least one woman on every interview panel when there are no interviews. Not that I expect them to rush out and employ anyone just to make a point - we do need a need for them first!

But it's noticeable that there's one techy application support team who are all women with one man, whereas most teams are the other way round - if they've got any women at all. There must be something going on there, which means they feel more supported, so perform better, so have survived the various rounds of redundancies over the years, or it's some unconscious bias working in their favour, or... I don't know. It is good to work with them though - they're more organised and better at keeping us informed than many other teams, so I suspect there's an element of women having to do that much better than men at the same level.

We have quite a few senior women, too. It's just the pipeline in between seems broken - there aren't any in the intermediate roles on the way up.

Our application rate for women is really low, and I don't know what we can do to fix it.

And even if women apply, normally the interview panel is all make, simply because we don't have many women qualified to interview for technical roles.

I'm thinking of suggesting that we make it a point to include women on the interview panel for female candidates, but I don't know whether that'll go down well.

I once turned down a really good job because the all-male interview panel were being all alpha-geek and macho during the interviews. This stuff matters to female applicants.

Slug that's awful! Our course director is a woman so hopefully that will stop any such accusations.

funnyvalentine - You'd need to have women on panels for all candidates otherwise the same people aren't comparing notes.

Thankfully all the interview panels I've had were all or mostly women but that's because I've always worked in jobs where I'm the sole tech person working on a specific project rather than joining a tech specific team, so I'm typically interviewed by one person from the central tech team and the rest from the project team.

Feedback I always get when I got the job is that I explain my technical knowledge in a way that the non-technical project people understand which I do think may be a female trait - I find it easier to relate to non-technical clients and explain things to them than technical men I've worked with.

I'm not sure I'd do so well in a very technical, macho interview. I wouldn't even apply to a very macho environment. Couple of years ago I did consultancy for the IT dept of a big investment bank and they were all men and very jokey macho. Ignorant, always yapping on the phone why we were supposed to be in a meeting. Posturing. Got through to them eventually but they were hard work! If I worked with them permanently I wouldn't have lasted long!

I'd love to see women on all our interview panels, but we don't have enough women to do it :( Our interview panels always consist of different people though, so it wouldn't be a problem to occasionally ensure we have women on panels. All our interviewers are trained to evaluate against an internal standard, not to evaluate candidates against each other.

I actually can't remember the last time I was interviewed by a woman. Perhaps about 10 years ago?

I also think one of my strengths is being able to explain the technical stuff to non-tech people, and to distill it to the right level for management.

Of the last 4 interviews I've had (in about as many years), there's been one woman interviewing me.

Unfortunately, I totally screwed up the technical questions on that one.