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've never been interviewed by a woman, started working in IT in the late nineties whilst doing my masters. Have only worked at banks and one airline. I've only worked with 2 other women, both at the airline. This thread is making me realise how effed up that is.

Pretty typical, though. The woman who interviewed me was for a bank, and she was the technical interviewer, not an HR interviewer. So they are out there, but yes, few and far between.

My family got a BBC micro in 1981 like many others, and I learnt a fair bit about programming. But I never really broke beyond tweaking listings from books, partly because I never figured out how graphics worked, nor that the good games required assembly code, or how to do that. Which is odd as my parents were kind of supportive and took me to BBC fairs and bought a few books, but despite my dad being a programmer and mathematician, never helped me get beyond that. I think mostly it was because both parents were scared I'd break something.
Also I didn't have much maths tuition - in secondary the teachers were terrible (all girl school, I was top set but we got the worst teachers), so I aced GCSE a year early but once maths became non-obvious, flunked terribly.
I was the geekiest kid in the whole school, but apart from making computers where the monitor had been confiscated suddenly play sounds in the middle of a lesson, this really didn't mean much. Tellingly, the IT teacher knew even less but was chatting to a mate before each lesson to keep up. The school wouldn't let him network any computers together.

Seven years earlier, at MrNC's crap comp, they had 3 times as many computers, programming clubs, robotics club, a number of keen staff, and funnily enough lots of boys doing programming. I did GCSE and AS Computer Science solely because I was told it would be easy (it was - I reused my GCSE project for AS!) , had no-one to look to for feedback, and knew no more programming than I did 7 years earlier.

I then ended up spending my gap year working for a 3-letter computer company - the guy who hired students wanted more women so hired anyone who had an offer from Cambridge if they were female. So 60 students, I think 12 female. We were assigned roles based on a home-made aptitude test that required ability to do long division in your head, so almost the opposite of skill-based. Allegedly, no experience was necessary, but in reality, who's going to be a decent C programmer after a 3-week course into the workplace in general: the guy who can already program in Basic, Fortran, assembler, and has double maths A-level, or the lass with an idea of how programs work and what memory addresses and registers etc are, but never written code beyond a basic menu structure? Even if I can still do long division in my head...

By the end of the year I could code OK, but it made a lot more sense for me to write manuals (lots of the guys really couldn't write at all despite their As in maths, physics, usually further maths and some other subjects), and to be the face of the team in selling our product (I have some social skills and unlike our manager, washed regularly).

Once at university, the other girls and I mostly did science degrees and the lads did compsci, engineering, or maths. On the compsci course, a couple years earlier (end of the 80s) many students had done about my level of coding before, few had done much more. But by the early 90s, despite the admissions tutors welcoming applicants with little experience, in practice the vast majority were not only gifted coders but selling games, spreadsheet packages, hacking for fun, etc. And by the end of the first term it was clear that if you weren't interested in coding for fun and spending most of your free time doing it, you wouldnt be able to keep up with the course - which itself was trying to expand to keep up with industrial developments, and if 99% of students were racing along with it, what's the problem? They started with about 50 women out of 500 and ended with around 5 in 400.

20 years later, most of the gap year guys are working in what you would call 'programming'. None of the women - but several of us use our experience in hiring contractors and ensuring we aren't being ripped off - most weeks I ask a question on FB or similar to check I have up-to-date knowledge of some field, and get an answer.

IME it's the all-consuming hobby nature of IT that puts women off getting into it - now that the industry seems to be fracturing and coding is getting offshored and the UK skills have to become more varied to stay in business, it may improve.

This is a fascinating thread, I wish I had more to contribute.

Philip Guo's written on silent technical privilege - that as an Asian boy, he's clocked up way more computing hours before he got to university. The article which inspire him to write, by Tess Rinearson is also interesting.

They make a fantastic paired reading. I get very frustrated with talk of "we need to get girls programming in primary school and then that will solve all sexism!" Um, no. Not that simple.

We do need to encourage girls and make it a viable career option for them - I was feeling sad on one of the current threads about girls schools, because one poster's 14yo daughter has given up physics after being laughed at for being the only girl in the science club. But I do think girls being involved with programming from an early age will help with some of it.

But, having been in a couple of discussions about Matt Taylor's shirt (Philae interview) and how there's nothing wrong with it, even in a workplace context, it's clear the main issue is men who don't see the problems, because it doesn't affect them, and their career prospects aren't affected, because they're the ones getting the good projects, and the promotions and payrises, and they don't have to spend half their mental energy battling all this shit, rather than just getting on with work - they don't see it, they don't think there's a problem, and they don't think it's anything to do with them, so they won't get involved to fix it. Sometimes, I can totally see why women go for careers where they're more accepted. (But bad luck, twatty manager, because I've got a long way to go before I give up.)

Oh yes, and the whole "we're not sexist, we just want the best people" reply to any mention of there being a problem. These guys really believe that they're not, but I refuse to believe it until I see them hiring and promoting women.

I agree that encouraging girls is a good thing (just been reading this thread which I found depressing in that many posters had some useful suggestions, but there was a strong element of "it's the girl's fault if she can't 'cope' with being the only girl in her maths class"). If girls are going to cope with a male dominated workplace later on, then they need to feel supported early on, not "you are alone, deal with it".

But there's a definite "thing" where encouraging more women into the start of the pipeline gets privileged above keeping women in the pipeline later, IYSWIM. Lots of contributory reasons, some being that it's a lot more comfortable for men/companies-who-want-to-feel-good-about-this to be all supportive to junior, unthreatening girls-who-are-grateful than to do the very uncomfortable work of figuring out how you personally are contributing to making it less likely that women will actually stick around later on, in your own workplace, every day. And to be fair, it's a fairly human thing to feel more protective and supportive of kids as well, but that's not the only thing going on.

And back to the keeping women in the pipeline, I found this geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/How_to_find_supportive_workplaces - I'm not sure how many of the suggestions I could use. It's also entirely possible for a company to be officially supportive, but not deal with twatty managers who aren't.

Forgive me ladies (and gents) as not RTFT yet but any tips/suggestions for a yr6 girl interested in coding? I am technology impaired cough but really want to encourage her interest. So far I have got some java for beginners books but quite frankly I have no idea what I'm doing or what kind of stuff I should be directing dd towards. Dd says they do some block coding in school but she wants to do proper coding.
If this has already been covered, apologies!

I like that link, slightlyglitterstained - I haven't seen it before. I might ask the question at work, how much of this do we do. I know we do have nursing rooms in the US offices (depending on size of office, though I think,) but they're not seen as a necessity in European offices, because we tend to have far better maternity leave entitlements, so I think you'd need to adapt some of the questions a little for local circumstances; I think here, you'd ask about what maternity leave you get above statutory requirements.

I do think though that being officially supportive means you're at least ahead of companies that don't even recognise there's any issue, so don't do anything at all. I don't deny it's difficult, though. It's not so much an issue if someone says, "I'm not putting you forward for that, you might decide to have a baby/I don't think women are capable of it." Well, it is in issue if they do that, but it's so blatant, it's comparatively easy to do something about. It's a lot harder when you're not given a place on the high profile projects, or to deputise when your manager's on leave or whatever - if you're given the response, Fred's got more experience in that area, George has been here longer - there's probably going to be quite a bit of you saying, yes, that's true. But then you never get the chances, and so you never get the big projects, because you've never had the chance to prove yourself. And women I think do suffer more than men from imposter syndrome, not least when everything they see in the workplace is telling them they're not as good, which if you've got a useless manager who's incapable of complimenting anyone, is likely to happen.

I think one of the biggest challenges is all the men who don't recognise the problem, or even if they do, don't consider themselves to be part of the problem, and thus the solutions aren't anything to do with them, either. Because while women continue to be less than 25% of the people in tech roles, there's not much chance of avoiding men like that.

Snugnbug, is there a coding club or anything at your daughter's school? Have you spoken to school about anything extra they offer beyond what she does in normal class time?

There are some links here:
www.commonsensemedia.org/lists/coding-apps-and-websites
code.org/

Depending on your budget, there are also coding courses and camps.
www.techcamp.org.uk/
www.firetechcamp.com/
funtechsummercamps.com/course-descriptions/java_coding
www.computerxplorers.co.uk/what-we-do/technology-holiday-camps

Does she have an understanding of basic data structures in programming? There will be online tutorials. Some will require more background knowledge than others, so if she doesn't get on with one, it'll be worth trying another. Here's just a sample of the many, many available.

www.tutorialspoint.com/java/
www.learnjavaonline.org/
www.udemy.com/java-tutorial/

There are also various organisations supporting girls, and here are some:
www.techfuturegirls.com/
stemettes.org/
www.stemnet.org.uk/
Some will have pages directly designed for girls, others are more aimed at adults, but organise events to encourage children into STEM, so you can see things which may be going on.

If she's struggling with specific technical issues, there's also female friendly advice at DevChix

I should add that I haven't been on any of these camps or courses I've linked to, so use them as a starting point to find out more about the sort of thing as available, rather than I am particularly recommending any of them.

Looking at the next generation - Ds is in Y1. His school offered a free programming club after school to about 16 kids, roughly the top table in each class, which seem to be a mix of boys and girls. Only 1 girl and 5 boys attended, and would have been more boys if it hadn't clashed with football. I've heard the other girls weren't really interested, but in fact the boys weren't either - but as parents we told ds and friends they had to try it. The girl enjoyed it too, but I don't know if she'll be able to sell it when other kids are offered it next term - she's already feeling a bit left out by the princess -loving girls, being into dinosaurs and superheroes. Bloody superhero vs pink princess advertising has a lot to answer for (see zillions of other threads).

Definitely agree with you slightlyglitterstained on the prioritisation of getting girls into IT over keeping women there. You can do the first without ever having the uncomfortable realisation that you're part of the problem. I find it frustrating that there's been so much written lately about the lack of women, but this totally failed to translate into any sort of action (at least, I've seen nothing).

There are things companies can do to encourage women. For example on LinkedIn, there are a number of groups for women in technology, and I feel more favourable to companies whose job ads I see there than if I've only seen them in general job listings.

HR can remove as much as possible personal information from CVs before handing them to hiring managers for review - after all, you aren't meant to consider gender or age when recruiting, and you can change recruitment practices so that you have CVs with qualifications and experience but not names (Candidate 1, etc). It won't work entirely - so my CV will contain info about the work I've done with the company's women's association, which will at least imply I may be female. But it can remove some of the basic biases, the unconscious stuff when you know for sure someone's gender.

It can also help to have more diverse interview panels, but it's hard to include more women when you just don't have that many in the workplace, particularly for a particular department you're recruiting for. We've also had training for managers on unconscious bias, and I know we're not the only company to do this - awareness has to be the first step in breaking down the effects of such bias.

Lots of companies (including my own) do do quite a bit with local schools and the community, to tell them the sort of careers which are available and so on. However, I suppose people may only be aware of that sort of thing if you're a school or company which is already involved.

As for retaining women already there - I hope increased awareness of unconscious bias and so on will help. Companies can do more to help women come back to work after maternity; important in all jobs, but I think it can be particularly important in a tech-heavy role where the technology can have moved on a lot just in the course of one maternity leave. Also, having women's associations can help - mine is very active in promoting resources available in the company to help your career, and as a result, I often know things which are happening before my manager does. We also have sessions where we "meet" (usually by video conference) various people high up in the company - sometimes men, but we do focus on women, and they get to talk about their career paths and pass on any tips, and people can ask questions. It's also an opportunity to get involved with organising various events and so on, which gives you a chance to gain experience which you might not get in your main role (particularly if you have a manager who holds you back for some reason.) Just getting to learn about other areas of the business and meet people you wouldn't come across in the course of your normal job is invaluable, too.

I don't know how much it helps our retention rates, to be honest, but I know that HR have definitely been looking at women across the business - our overall figures are pretty much industry-average, but that's partly because HR (about 49-51%) balances more techy areas, like my own division is around 8% women. I do know it's one of the things helping to retain me, though.

Another useful link for coding clubs is coderdojo.com/ .

I work in IT for banking. Got so fed up, that I took time out. But I'm going back, partly out of stubbornness, partly because I actually really like my job, and partly because the money is, frankly, rather good.

Yes, banks do spoil your salary expectations for other employers...

I actually got approached by the one IT firm that can match those expectations. After a gruelling interview process they decided that I wasn't "hands on" enough even though compared to most IT managers with my experience I still do quite a fair bit of coding! It's a shame as I'd love to work for them and they are desperate to hire women, but they just don't get that not everyone codes full time for their 40+ years in employment. They even suggested that I could take time out and brush up, to which I replied with a massive . They are cool, but they are not THAT cool.

Thinking about what companies can do - my boyfriend works for a small tech firm and he needed to recruit. One agency confirmed they could provide some candidates and emailed to ask "should I ask each one when he can start (or suppose I should be PC and say 'they' nowadays)"
Friend replied that his firm weren't going to use a recruitment agency that seemed oblivious of a large pool of potential good candidates and went elsewhere, but if he had been in a larger firm, there would have been contracts in place with agents and he wouldn't have been able to tell them to fuck off. So companies need to write onto such contracts that they expect to see women at least in proportion to the numbers of women with relevant qualifications.

Apparently many companies still ask agencies to supply only male candidates for management roles and young females for receptionist and PA jobs, so change will take a while.

There is more than one IT firm that can match those expectations.

if he had been in a larger firm, there would have been contracts in place with agents and he wouldn't have been able to tell them to fuck off.
That doesn't mean he wouldn't have been able to complain at all. I think any recruitment company which going to deal with companies with women-friendly policies in place (at least on paper) isn't likely to get very far with them - I know we actively ask that they encourage women to apply. But of course, that doesn't mean the rest of the industry is out there.

(When I've been applying, I've only ever dealt with recruiters who will consider women, of course.)

Talking of only having male candidates for managers, I know someone who was looking for a stock image for a presentation, of different levels of management. It was a development presentation, aimed primarily at women. She couldn't find an image with women in - so she used one with all men, and talked about reasons why it might be more difficult for women to progress. There is still a strong idea out there that managers=men.

Hah. I had a discussion with a recruiter once (responsible for recruiting graduates for a FTSE 100 company). She kept referring to my manager (who she hadn't spoken to) as he. I kept saying she, and her. More and more pointedly as the conversation continued. At no point did the penny drop that an IT manager might just be female.

NotCitrus - have had an outsourcing firm take one look at our 2 men, 2 women group, and start talking about how much easier it is to recruit female candidates in country X than in the UK.